Almost overwhelming

Mari with her foster son, Ronald

Almost overwhelming. Operative word, almost. A big grin made it all worth it. But I'm ahead of myself. Meet Mari. If you believe in angels on earth, you can believe in Mari. A Quito native, she started volunteering at Camp Hope at the very beginning. At age 16, her church asked for volunteers to help in a week long vacation bible school type summer camp set up by American missionaries. By age 19, she and two other teen volunteers were organizing a full day care for special children. Nineteen years old! She has devoted her entire life to these children, received her degree in education-- and now she is in medical school, while taking care of Ronald, a severaly disabled child she practically kidnapped from the orphanage. She was providing respite care to Ronald, but when they asked for Ronald back, she refused. Sounds like quite a battle that she won (no surprise there!). We met him (now 10) at dinner tonight. She is a dynamo--a slight woman who never stops moving, talks with her whole body and laughs easily and often. I feel like like I've known her forever and I want to know her forever. She is our guide here. She spent her day orienting the team to our work and to local culture--example--Ecuadorians are friendly, talk loudly, interrupt freely, love to hug and if the cheek kiss doesn't have a loud enough smacking sound, the person will think you are mad at them. Good to know-- I'm perfecting the cheek kiss smack now. She led us in team building games, set team and personal goals, and toured us around the neighborhood. (Fortunately, the mountains are to the West, just like home, so we can't get too lost).

 The limited down time from orientation after lunch was spent unpacking and repacking and unpacking and counting and sorting, sorting and counting. We were using the second floor lounge as a staging area (there are only a couple of other guests here-- can't imagine what they think). When Mari came up the stairs at 3 to resume, she got her first look at the contents of the boxes. She gazed in stunned amazement. Like a child showing off their latest stick figure drawing, I started showing her particulars, and she grinned. A ear to ear Mari grin. I would carry a 100 white boxes for that grin. I love Mari. She is truly one of this world's special people. Probably, most definitely, an angel.

Dr. Christy Weiland sorting meds

Mari orients the team

Later, the president (Jacqueline) and the executive director of camp hope (Rita) came and showed us a video that made me cry all the way through it-- they take the abandoned and poor kids that no one else will--did I mention the boy whose parents kept him outside, naked, in a cardboard box and poured cold water on him every morning for his bath?? Mari told us that every orphan there has a terrible story or they wouldn't be there. Just as I was recovering from the video,



our schedule for the next two weeks was passed around--this is where the almost overwhelmed part fits in.  I knew you were wondering. We had spent every spare second packing and planning to be at Camp Hope tomorrow. For six months we have been planning to start at Camp Hope with the children. The schedule has us starting our mobile clinic tomorrow. Tomorrow. Not the next Monday.





This Monday.  Christy and I just looked at each other-- plan B. How much work will it take to reverse course? We have two more bags of adult meds arriving this weekend--but we will be seeing most of the adults this week. AND we also found out that the last two days of our mission will be at a daycare in an indigenous community with 50 children under 5, their mothers and siblings. Bigger eyes. The pharmacy students had already divided up our 3000 chewable children's vitamins. It all needs recalculated, redivided, repackaged. However, we are all very excited about the plan. After another great meal, plenty of laughter and team bonding, we sprinted upstairs to redo reload reconsider repack recount and respond. But that is the nature of this type of work. The great thing about teamwork?? The works gets done by a team. In less than two hours, our mobile clinic was ready to roll!! We will tour camp hope in the morning, then at 11 am, in a church somewhere in Quito, we will start seeing the first patients. The pastor who has organized this portion anticipates 70 patients a day. Count calculate divide up the supplies. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?? Can't wait.