Amanda Correa with four boys from Hogar de Ninos during her first year as an undergraduate volunteer.
Amanda Corea grew up watching her father go away for spring break mission trips. When Amanda reached high school, she was excited and ready for her turn to serve. During her senior year, she participated in a mission trip to Hogar de Niños, a children’s home operated by REACH International in Honduras. Throughout that trip, Amanda felt in her heart that this location was special, as she quickly formed deeper relationships with the children.
That same year, when her high school English teacher assigned a project asking for career interests, Amanda wasn’t sure what to do. She knew she loved mission trips, so the teacher suggested she shadow workers in the General Conference or ADRA offices since she lived in Maryland. Amanda observed someone for a day who suggested a degree in community and international development at Andrews University, which is exactly what Amanda chose.
The summer before attending Andrews, Amanda visited Hogar de Niños three times. Her first year at Andrews was tough. “I was an overworked, over-productive, perfectionist student,” says Amanda.
For her second year of college, Amanda chose to serve as a student missionary. She returned to Hogar de Niños, learning more about who she was and even extending her service by a few months.
Upon returning home, Amanda was depressed, missing Honduras and experiencing reverse culture shock. According to the International Mission Board, this happens when “those who have made a home in a new culture likely don’t feel like they’re coming home. Not only does their home culture seem more foreign, but things at home also are not as they left them.”1
Amanda’s father said she could help from anywhere, which eased her tension, but eventually she chose to take general education courses online and return to Honduras. She taught English for 40 hours a week when she was not in class and helped around the children’s home. “Sometimes it was cooking breakfast at 4 o’clock in the morning,” says Amanda. “Sometimes it was taking care of the little boys, waking them up, putting them into bed, making sure they were taking showers and doing their homework.”
Amanda was determined to be there for the children. She didn’t want to be someone who came for a few months and left — the children needed consistency. While she returned to Andrews to continue her studies, she traveled to Honduras to attend high school graduation during Thanksgiving break. Overall, she returned to Honduras three to four times per year, including during Christmas and summer breaks.
Amanada completed her undergraduate work at Andrews in 2013. She went on to earn a master’s in psychology and worked in Adventist academies as a chaplain and campus ministries director, which provided time to still volunteer at the children’s home and equip her heart for service.
One day a friend from church asked what happened to the Hogar de Niños children after high school. Amanda had wondered the same thing and had seen children return to the streets or go back to abusive families. She started raising money and sending students to Adventist schools in Peru, Mexico and Costa Rica.
Amanda went a step further and started “Crezco” to help children from Hogar de Niños attend college through personal donations and the support of her church. Crezco became an official nonprofit in 2022.
“Crezco, in Spanish, means ‘I grow,’ because it's a whole growth experience,” says Amanda. Approximately 18 students have already graduated from college, and there are 13 currently studying. Amanda adds, “It’s not just academic growth, it’s also spiritual growth. It’s mental and emotional growth.” Last Christmas, five Crezco graduates returned to Hogar de Niños to assist over Christmas, even buying the home a new refrigerator.
For years, Amanda balanced the Crezco Foundation, full-time work, off-times at Hogar de Niños, and pursuing higher education. “I knew at some point that God was going to send me here,” Amanda says. One day God did, and she went full-time with Hogar de Niños in 2023.
There are about 30 children at the home, with Amanda as the only live-in adult. There is help from a cook and maintenance worker during the week. Amanda knows God is important, so she is awake most days at 4 a.m. trying to find her own worship time. She provides devotionals in the mornings and evenings for the children, but her hands are full. They have been reading Guide’s greatest stories in the mornings and studying the books of Samuel at night. Finding balance is key — working out, taking care of her mental health and grabbing a quick prayer for patience when she can.
Amanda oversees the home’s operations, for example, allocating funds for upcoming school projects and supplies. She buys groceries and coordinates the homework for students in grades 1–12. These students are behind due to trauma, which turns homework into a challenge. Asking someone to come and volunteer means inviting someone into their home, and Amanda doesn’t take this lightly.
She says Hogar de Niños used to take anyone as a student missionary, but this policy has changed. Missionaries who seek to serve at the home are now required to be at least 22 years old, have a working knowledge of Spanish, and commit to a minimum of six months. Amanda has witnessed the impact numerous volunteers have had on the children, who generally range from ages 3 to 19, which prompted her to fully engage, commit to a lifetime and make new rules.
Amanda refers to the children in Hogar de Niños as brothers and sisters. She is the big sister, and the children who were at the home when she arrived are “the originals.” She says they grew up together. She found ways for them to attend college and signed financial papers; she would often visit them in college and if she couldn’t bring them home during the holidays she would go to be with them.
“I want to break these negative cycles, and that's not going to happen if we don't take active steps and intentional steps,” she says. “God is powerful and He’s miraculous. I have seen many miracles in my own personal life through this place, and He’s incredible. But Satan knows that, and so you need to make it intentional.”
God uses and prepares the willing, but mission work is a spiritual battlefield, says Amanda, adding that those who want to serve as missionaries need to be “open to learning new cultures, new things, a new way of seeing God.”
“God has allowed me to be able to see, try to always see, people for their context in that moment,” adds Amanda. “Family is more than blood; it is who invests in you.”
Amanda asks for prayers, and if God impresses you to do more, she would be grateful. To learn more about the Crezco Foundation, visit the website at crezcofoundation.org
Tamara Wolcott Watson is an assistant professor of communication at Andrews University.
