Bill and Juliana Hansen serve as the Directors of the Constanza Children’s Home in the Dominican Republic. Bill graduated from Moody Bible Institute, Northern Illinois University with a B.S. in Elementary Education and Boston University with a Masters in Education, Human Services. Born in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic, Juliana worked as a teacher and beautician. Bill and Juliana have been married 23 years. They have two daughters, Carolina and Sally.

Kids Alive International has a goal to care for 10,000 children in crisis by the year 2010. To help the ministry grow toward its goal, when Bill and Juliana planned to return to the Dominican Republic in 2001, they were asked to start a new ministry rather than return to ANIJA, the ministry they were involved with previously.

At that time the Lord directed them to open a residential home primarily for orphans in the town of Constanza. At the beginning of 2002 they rented a house and started taking in children. They have two boys and three girls.

About the same time, a daily care center opened in Constanza named CECAINI Care Program, affiliated with Kids Alive. Then the national board of directors decided to build a campus for both ministries. After a lot of preparatory work and fund-raising, work has now begun on the new property. A missionary couple, Lee and Nancy Lewis, are in charge of the construction and taking care of the work teams. It will be a couple of years before the construction is complete, but the work is coming along quickly. Now that this project is underway, Bill and Juliana’s work in Constanza is complete. When the houses are ready to take in children, national house parents will be hired to take care of the children.

As Bill and Juliana were talking about their goals for the children, they realized that those goals could better be reached in Jarabacoa. The children would be able to attend a Christian school. Jarabacoa is closer to other cities and universities. They also have other reasons for wanting to return to Jarabacoa. Constanza is very isolated. It takes over an hour to travel over a dangerous mountain road to get to the main highway. The health care in Constanza is rather primitive, so in case of an emergency, there might not be enough time to get to a good hospital. Another reason is that they lived many years in Jarabacoa and own a house there which they would like to use. It is bigger than the one they are renting and in better condition, so it would be more comfortable for all of them.

The field director would like Bill and Juliana to be in Jarabacoa to take more advantage of their spiritual gifts with the other Kids Alive ministries there. They plan to move there this summer so that the children can finish the school year in Constanza. One thing that will not change is their commitment to the children who are living with them now. They will make the move to Jarabacoa with Bill and Juliana. The children are very emotionally attached to Bill and Juliana, and they to the children. Bill and Juliana want the children to stay with them until they graduate and get established on their own. The Bill and Juliana were hoping to add another child to the Home in January, but that didn't happen. Instead, the father of Jorge Miguel withdrew him from the Home. Bill and Juliana were very sad to see Jorge leave because he was a very pleasant boy to have in the Home. He got along well with everyone, and it was a delight to have him. However, his father missed him, too, and they had to respect his right to care for his own son. Since it is hard to enroll a student in a school in the middle of a semester, Bill and Juliana will probably wait until the summer to take in some more children.

Donations to support Bill and Juliana may be forwarded to:

Restoration Fellowship

264 Village Drive

Pagosa Springs  CO  81147