¡Hagase Tu Voluntad, Señor!

Your will be done Lord, that is what I am learning to say with more and more fervor and less fear. Especially now that this past Friday, I officially joined the Asociación de Fieles del Fiat, the lay movement here. ¨Fiat¨ being the ¨yes¨ that Mary gave to the Lord when the angel told her she would concieve the Son of God, we strive to imitate this same profound ¨yes¨ to ¨la voluntad¨, will of God, no matter what it may be. Even if it means leaving this place I love, I strive to give that complete and trusting ¨yes¨ to the Lord. Well, it´s a work in progress :)

I do want to apologize if I came off a bit strong in my last post. Actually, I don´t apologize if it got your attention, I do apologize because it was lacking in hope. You see, for all of the physical needs of this base, these children, I had forgotten our primary mission. Above providing medical care, education and nutrition to these children, we must first be striving to get them to Heaven, meaning, to learn to know and love the Lord. Yes, the Gospel says we must feed the hungry and cloth the naked, but Jesus also said that the primary comandment was to love one another. And so, I have rediscovered what I truly wanted to do here - love these children so profoundly, meaning with that love that Christ brings, that it reaches down into their little hearts and stays. As Pope Benedict XVI says in Deus Caritas Est,

¨Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave.¨

And that is my mission. I can´t believe that I forgot this simple thing, as it is demonstrated to me by the misioñeras every single day, in every patient reprimand, in every hug, in every look of love that they give these children for whom they care for.

So now, as my days really and truly are numbered, I look to pour out as much love on these children and on these misioñeras as possible so that in ten years, when they might no longer remember me, they will remember that someone loved them with a different type of love and hopefully, for this memory, they will live their lives or even just make one small decision for the better. As Mariya says, let´s not hope they remember us, let´s hope they remember the Jesus in us. That´s the goal and that´s why I´m here. More than this, of course, I will continually seek to provide for them materially as well because action always follows true sentiment, but I have hope once more that maybe I just did do something for them in my short time here and that same something I can continue to do, even if it is from a million miles away.

I hope to have one more post from the flipside, I am currently waiting for my mom´s flight to arrive as she is coming just in time to visit me here and meet the people I love. I am so glad to be able to share it with her and am going to try to show her everything I can in the short time she is here. Mostly though, I hope she experiences the love I have received from these people. And I hope to be able to write to you all about it in the week to come. With that said, I´m off and running, but as always, you have my prayers and I hope I may still count on yours, if not for me, for this beloved people.

The Labourers are Few

Hello all. I hope this finds you all doing well and defrosting up on the northern continent. We ourselves are quite warm, and according to Jim, experiencing the heat of ¨La Niña.¨ As for this little missionary, I´m livin´ it up and loving what I have realized to be the best job in the world (thanks Rya). I have only a week or so left with the people I love so intensely and so I am trying to take advantage of every moment and finish up a thousand little projects that will hopefully help them just a little.

I will admit, I have been a bit frustrated lately with my inability to really help this foundation with what it needs. Even if I stayed, I couldn´t be the experienced and fluent-speaking social worker that they need (or really, need about 5 of), I couldn´t be the psychologist they need, and I can´t be the family that every one of these children so desperately need. I don´t even have enough money to pay for someone to be that for them. All I can do is buy them the occasional clean water and fresh fruit, I can only give them hugs and hope that someday this world might wake up to the reality that my little brothers and sisters suffer every day. And even this little bit is coming to an end as I am being called back to the States, back to a life that I simply don´t want. I don´t want hot showers, I don´t want a comfy bed, I don´t want to pay 3.50 a gallon for gas or buy new clothes so I can look ¨professional¨ for grad school. In fact, the thought of all that money makes me sick. And I just don´t understand.

I was watching Hotel Rwanda the other day, about the massacre of the Tutsi people back in the ´90s in Africa. At one point in the movie, the main character Paul says to a reporter that he is glad he is here because now the world will see what is going on and will come to help. And the reporter replies that no, the world will see what is going on, comment on how sad it is, and keep eating their dinner. And he was right, no one came to help, at least not until it was too late, and over a million people died. I don´t want to be this pessimistic about this world I live in but when I watch this foundation fight day to day to give these children bread, eggs, clean water - and no one comes to help us. I have been writing to you all for six months now and a few of you have made your way to the foundation´s website and made a donation - and I thank you, I really do. But today I am not asking for another donation. In fact, if you are only going to make a donation and then forget about us, please don´t bother. What I seek is a change of heart, I seek for help to wake this sleeping world to the harsh reality that is life for the majority of the 6 billion on this planet, I seek long term change. I myself have decided for this change, I don´t know yet how I will accomplish it but I pray that the Lord might bless my feeble efforts. In Matthew 9 He tells us:

¨Jesus made a tour through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and all kinds of illness. And when he saw the crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers to his harvest.'¨

I rest in this promise that the Lord will send more labourers, that He will not let these people languish like this forever, that He will continue to bless them with a joy that still inspires me daily. But I ask you too - what are you doing to help them? I ask you to think about that the next time you ¨need¨ a new pair of shoes or crank the AC up because 80deg. is just ¨so hot.¨ Please, search your hearts and help me find a way to help my little ones here, help me help the misioneras who have given their lives to working for these children. And not just here, if this mission doesn´t speak to you find one that does. Hundreds of millions of children are starving, are without clean water, are without families. Will no one help them?

Right now, I close so that I can get back to them, give them one more hug and maybe start a tickle fight that will help a few little girls forget for a little bit that their mom can´t take care of them. And as always, I remain faithful in my prayers for you all, until next time with more from the flipside...

Jesús ha resucitado! Aleluya!

A very happy Easter to all. I hope this finds you all well recovered from all that rejoicing, Easter egg hunts and jelly beans. This monday, life is back to business at El Santuario as we are busyly preparing for the return of more of our children from vacations and the arrival of new ones. Easter and the days leading up to it were lovely here and oh-so-latino, I loved it. I will insert a photo from Palm Sunday where the people of the town put a statue of Jesus on a donkey and then lead a procession before Mass, you know, Jesus ¨entering Jerusalem on a donkey with palm fronds across his path¨, yep, we acted it out, it was amazing. Then we the Masses for Holy Thursday and Good Friday with stations of the cross acted out by some of our older kids and then our really long but pretty cool Easter vigil Mass Saturday night and our Easter day Mass yesterday morning. Lots of Masses, lots of processions, lots of love for the risen Christ - it was unforgettable and my words can never do justice.



Our trip to Cuenca was a mild success, we were impressed with the foundation, met with the director and got to see one of their homes. But, they can´t take Jamil right now. We have hope that in June, when they are supposedly opening a new facility, it is then that they have promised to take him. In the meantime we will continue to look for other options for this precious baby. Please continue your prayers for that.

I have four more weeks to spend in this place that I love so dearly and I am trying to spend them well and get a few projects done. I need your help with one of these. I need to come up with $3,000 in the next few weeks so that some of our kids can stay at home with their newly rehabilitated families. It takes $50 a month to support a family with schooling and groceries. I am looking for 5 kids ($600 per kid) for a year, equaling the $3,000. If you can help, please go to www.missionsantamaria.com where you can pay with credit card or bank transfer and then please send me a message so that I can have that money set aside from the general account. Whatever you can give, whether be 1 time donation of $20 or a promise of monthly support, it would be so very much appreciated.

Off and running to get back to the children and misioñeras that I love. I am so sorry that I cannot better express to you how wonderful a place this is and how much it means to me. Suffice it to say that as I sit and stare into the Pacific ocean and think about being on the other side of the world away from it all, all the love that I have for this place presses against my chest and threatens to explode. The difficult thing is that I know that I am going back to new and exciting things and people I love as well, I just don´t know how I´ll ever say goodbye here. Jesus, I trust in You.

Felices Pascuas from the flipside...

Return from the Jungle/Beginning of Goodbyes

Hello one and all, as always, I beg pardon for the delay in blogs, I think I´m losing my blogging-steam.

Much new to report from this end of the world. First, the mission to Tena with the FUS students was awesome and grace-filled, thanks to all of you who brought so much zeal and love for missions, it was great to see you all. Second, it´s official, my mission compañera of six months has left. Mariya has returned home to study for the MCAT as she feels called to apply to med school. It was a very sad goodbye and we still miss her very much, I am not looking forward to telling the children (who are now returning from vacations) that their beloved nurse has been lead off by the Lord down another road. Pues, hagase tu voluntad Señor (be it done according to your will Lord).

Next, my news. I have been recently accepted to the grad programs at both Georgia State and Kennesaw State Universities. I am planning on entering the program at KSU and am excited about this new adventure. The sad news is that, while I thought I would be beginning much later, I actually have to be back April 23rd for orientation and then classes May 12th. It is bittersweet. I am excited for grad school but am heartbroken to be leaving this base that has become my home and these misioñeras who have become my family. I am blessed to have at least one more month with them and that time to wrap up some of my projects here. Please pray that I am able to find enough joy to enjoy these last few weeks at the most beautiful place I have yet to encounter on this earth.

We are off tomorrow to Cuenca to investigate a foundation that can potentially care for one of our babies, Jamil, who has cerebral palsy. It is a foundation that specializes in children like Jamil and can provide the therapy and education that he deserves. I am also in the middle of the investigatory phase for a new program for local young widows with small children. Mamita Isabel has seen a great need in this regard in the area, as once the husband dies they are often left with no income and few skills/opportunities, and so we are hoping to educate them and provide them with some skills to learn how to support themselves and their families. So, the next few weeks will be busy ones and hopefully blessed.

That is about all that I have for now, not feeling all that inspirational or deep at the moment. Perhaps after this last week of spiritual ¨dying¨ my blogging motivation will be resurrected with the Lord, haha. A prayerful holy week to all and a very blessed Easter, more later, as always, from the flipside.

The Dengue Diaries

Well, it´s official. I am a true foreign missionary. I have contracted my first tropical disease - dengue fever. Sounds impressive, doesn´t it? Now don´t worry, I´m not dying and we don´t think I have the hemorrahgic type which is a good thing. And I have a good nurse, la señorita Mariya, taking good care of me.

In other news, before I got sick, Mariya and I played mom for 13 of the kids that live in Casas Familias while the house mom was on a weekend vacation. Let´s just say, taking care of 13 small children in Ecuador is way different than taking care of them in the States. You don´t realize how great things like plenty of diapers and paper towels are or washing machines to help with the piles of underwear that result from pottytraining. It was a beautiful if not trying experience and I am thankful to now know more first-hand what that part of the work here is like. I also now have an even greater appreciation for the consecrated women who serve as these house moms, or ¨educadoras¨. We were supposed to continue with caring for the children this week but due to other pending work and my subsequent illness, we did not.

A part of our time with the children included the welcoming and acclimating of three new babies, Stiven (es-tea-ven) de 4 años and twin 2 year old girls, Ximena (he-meh-nah) and Sara. The first few days were rough as Stiven was very sick and Ximena cried the majority of the time as she tried to make sense of her new surroundings. However, by the end of the second day, they began to smile and oh - how precious and hard-won those smiles were. Stiven was placed quickly in a foster family but Ximena and Sara stayed with us and have now completely stolen our hearts. In fact, I have created a new album on shutterfly dedicated to them and the rose farm, babies and roses, two of my favorite things. Mariya is talking about bringing them back with her but I intend on putting up a fight to bring them to Atlanta. Oh, they are adorable and are very special to us.

Ximena Smiles...


Currently, I am hanging out in my room, in my bed and working on being better. I am so thankful that they let me borrow the base´s one computer with internet so that I could reach out to the outside world, thanks Fatima. Prayers for a speedy recovery so that I can go on the medical mission with the kids from Franciscan Univ. next week (we´re goin´ to the jungle) would be much appreciated. As always, if any of y´all have prayer intentions, post a comment or email me and let me know, I would love to know how to pray for the folks back home.

Much love to you all, hope to have an exciting post next time, recounting my adventures in the jungle :) Check www.lavidaloca.shutterfly.com for more pics!

¡Perdoname! (forgive me)

Please accept my apologies, I was shocked when I finally logged in and it showed that my last post was Jan. 22. Wow. So much for the New Year´s resolution for better communication!

Well, the best excuse for my long absence is that we have been quite busy and on the move. There was much to do organizing after the kids left for vacaction, endless visits to see how the ones who were with their families were doing and then plenty of time to practice my spanish writing skills as I faithfully documented the updates and visits that we had done (My professor Dr. Gilham would be proud that one of my biggest roles here is enforcing documentation, haha). All of this was crammed in the last weeks of January because Feb. 6th we departed for Quito to welcome our newest missionary, Sara Ogrodnick, RN. We then spent a week with her in Quito, getting her settled and we were going to go back to Tena to do the final planning for the March mission but plans fell through and so we had a few more days with Sara and the wonderful Arroyo family. In fact, on Valentines day, we went to the Arroyo´s rose farm, an amazing experience and of course, we came home with roses. It was a wonderful suprise/treat as we didn´t think we would be there to do it - even far from home and without boyfriends, the Lord found a way to romance our hearts on the day of lovers.

I am afraid I don´t have much time this evening to share anything more of the little blessings and funny stories of the last few weeks, I really just wanted to let everyone know that I was still alive. I cannot make a promise of more frequent updates in the next few weeks as starting Wednesday, Mariya and I will become ¨moms¨ to the remaining children so that the house moms can go on vacation. We will be with the little ones for a week and then it´s off to the jungle with the March medical mission from FUS. I hope that in between it all I will be able to post again but if not, I promise a big exciting post for when we get back.

I do have new pictures up on the shutterfly website, www.lavidaloca.shutterfly.com check them out, hope you enjoy.

As always, I send my love and I pray that everyone enjoys a blessed Lent.

Painting Poverty

What a week! First, we are blessed to have Mariya´s mom and sister here visiting which has added some fun to the gringo house. Next, in honor of the family visit, Mariya, myself and the family went to Cuenca (middle part of the sierra) for the weekend. While there, we mixed business with pleasure by taking a jaunt out to investigate a foundation for disabled children in the hopes of placing one of our precious babies, 8 year old Jamil with cerebral palsy, with them so that he might receive the therapy and attention that we can´t provide for him here. We also went to a symphony (free presentation), had a literary conversation with an American owner of a bookstore in Cuenca and meandered through seemingly endless knick-nacks and works of art. But as I was wandering through paintings, clay figures and such, I kept thinking to myself, ¨this isn´t my Ecuador.¨ It may have partially been because we were in the Sierra and they have their own traditional clothing and such. But more than that, even the Sierra doesn´t always look like that. Well, it got me thinking...

Why doesn´t anyone paint poverty? Why can I only find palm trees and toucans from the Galapagos, women in colorful shaws and felt hats sitting with baskets from the Sierra and sunsets over the beach from the coast? Where are my barrios, my houses made of cane and cement blocks, my little boys selling juices in plastic baggies, my old men mending their fishing nets before the next tide, my women poking sticks into open fires roasting corn and plantains, where is my Ecuador? All of these things are so beautiful to me that if I had any artistic talent, I would paint them in the bold colors of salsa dancing and the softer ones of the ocean outside my window. I would paint them with the humor of Norman Rockwell and the tranquility of Thomas Kinkade. But I can´t paint (unless there are numbers) so I can´t capture this beauty that I find hiding in the often times horrible reality of life. I can only hold it in my heart, to guard the memories there as I learn to love it even more, despite the abrasive smells, the mud, the chickens and dogs. Maybe no one can paint my Ecuador or maybe no one has tried.

I challenge anyone out there with artistic talent to try to capture this life around me. But capture it in a way that isn´t dreary and sad, doesn´t hide the reality of what it, but shows the joy, the life, the beauty amidst the garbage and dirt floors that I see everyday.

In the meantime, I will remain your little missionary, still learning Spanish, still learning Ecuador and still learning how to love in the way I am meant to. May you all have a great next week, hope all enjoyed the MLK weekend, many prayers to those at the March for Life in DC, and as always, more to come next week from life on the flipside...

Los Sueños de Gaby

Hello again to one and all, please forgive the extended absence from my blog, to all those concerned, I am not currently buried under lava from the currently active volcano and am in fact about 9 hours away from it. No worries, Olón is not about to be the next Pompei :)

This week has brought a return to work in force. We are currently planning for the new year and also for the summer vacations (remember, it´s backwards here since it´s the southern hemisphere) for our little ones. This is an interesting task, as we are currently short staffed but the Lord is blessing it. Just when I have had enough, having spent 7 hours in a meeting (yep, serious) or the whole day reviewing files in the office, the Lord blesses me with a reminder of why I am doing what I am doing. Let me tell you a story about los sueños de Gaby (Gaby´s dreams)...

Gaby is a 9 year old little girl who has lived on base now for almost three years with her two brothers. She is an incredibly smart and special little girl, one of those 9-going-on-35 kind of kids. Yesterday Gaby, who is usually bubbly and smiling, was having a rough day. So we went for a walk, (was taking a break from files anyway) stopped at the little store on base for some juice and crackers and went and sat on the cliff overlooking to ocean.

While there, she was telling me about how she was sad because her mom hadn´t come to take her for Christmas like she promised and she didn´t think she was going to see her mom this vacation either (probably true). We were talking about how this is a hard thing but how our faith can help us, how when we feel really small it´s okay because we have a God who´s really big, bigger than the ocean and everything, and He knows what we want in our hearts and He won´t let us down. As soon as I started to talk about the Lord, her little face lit up and she really started to pay attention. After a few minutes of quiet, she bashfully told me that she had seen ¨Papito Dios¨ (affectionate name for God) in her dreams. That sometimes in her dreams, Papito Dios comes and takes her and they visit all the families in the pueblo that don´t have a lot and that they give them things from a backpack full of toys and food that Gaby has. Papito Dios carries her in his arms and they go around the pueblo and then sometimes to the Santuario, our church. As she was telling me all this, she became a different kid, for a few moments, she became a happy kid again.

And I was reminded of something. That even though I feel frustrated sometimes because I don´t have the words to console these precious babies in the way I want and sometimes there aren´t words, that it´s okay. That the Lord indeed has a special protection for these little ones, that He is speaking to their heart when no one else can and He is consoling them. Thank you Papito Dios, for reminding me that even though I am small, that You are big and You are taking care of these niños too.

Love to you all, may you too share the sueños de Gaby...