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.