Manuelito Navajo

Children's Home

 

 

Gallup, New Mexico

Manuelito Navajo Children's Home is a childcare facility and school operated by the Gallup Church of Christ, in Gallup, New Mexico.  MNCH specializes in providing care to children and families from the Navajo Nation.  Services include 24-hour residential care of children, single mother care, and a school for children Kindergarten thru 12th grade.

The Navajo are among the most numerous Native American people, and the Navajo Reservation covers over 27,000 square miles in the states of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.  The Navajo are a good and honorable people with a long and noble history.  While possessing great promise, today, the Navajo are beset with many challenges, both economic and social in nature.  Unemployment among the Navajo is as high as 50% among those living on the Reservation and alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant.  As a result, families have suffered, and there is a great need for assistance, particularly in providing stability for disaffected children.

Manuelito Navajo Children's Home provides a place of safety, stability, sophistication, and spirituality to Navajo children.  Our goal is to help raise these children to be adults who are hard-working, responsible, capable, filled with potential, and who have grown to know and love the Lord who loves them beyond measure.

 

Our History

Manuelito Navajo Children's Home has been in operation since the late 1950's.  It began as a preaching mission to the Navajo and was located in the small community known as Manuelito (named for the renown Navajo chief), approximately 18 miles west of Gallup, New Mexico.  This evangelistic work was initially sponsored by churches in Albuquerque and Farmington.

The missionaries at Manuelito were increasingly spending their time and efforts caring for children left with them by families who could not care for them.  Evangelistic efforts among the adult Navajo were not progressing as quickly as had been hoped, and so the focus of the mission became centered on the care of disaffected and abandoned children; hence, the inception of the Manuelito Navajo Children's Home.

In 1960, primary sponsorship and direction of MNCH was entrusted with the Gallup Church of Christ.  In 1965, the home was relocated to its present location, 2 1/2 miles west of Gallup between historic Route 66 and Interstate 40.  By the end of the 1960s, the MNCH campus had been developed to include four cottages and an administration building.

In the early years, MNCH provided care for as many as 70 children at a time.  The cottages remained full and there was a constant rumble of activity.  Regulations policing child care agencies were much more lax in these early years and the limitations regarding the number of children under care were not as stringent.  Since the mid to late 1980's, however, the state of New Mexico has mandated a maximum of eight children per residential cottage at MNCH.  At present, we are licensed to provide care for a maximum of 24 children at a time in our 24-hour residential care program.

MNCH was blessed to have the leadership of L. D. ("Vernie") Atchinson, who served the home as superintendent from 1961 until 1984.  L. D. and his wife, Norine, gave so much of their life to MNCH, blessing the Home with their devotion, tireless work, and love.  L. D. spent the final years of his life working in the area of Development for MNCH; he passed away in 1988.  Following the service of L. D. Atchison, several men have led the home as superintendent and executive director (as the position is now titled).  These men include Joe Booth, Hal Rogers, Mike Gray, Brent Murphy, Darrel Henderson, and, presently, Joe Hodges.

There have been many who served as house-parents at MNCH over the years, including Buck and Ellen Macrae (Buck was instrumental in helping to build much of the campus), who served the Home for 21 years, and Merle and Annette Roehr, who are at 17 years and counting.  Norman and Kathy Atchison joined MNCH as house-parents in 2008.  Norman is Navajo and was raised at MNCH.

In August 1982 the Gallup Church of Christ established the Gallup Christian School.  For the first several years, the school was housed in the building of the Gallup church.  In 1997, the school was relocated to the MNCH campus and its operation was placed under the direction of the Home.

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P.O. Box 58

Gallup, NM 87305

(505) 863-5530