Plastic Surgery Clinic

In November we had a team of seven wonderful people who came to the clinic to perform plastic surgeries.  It is always amazing to me how generous the volunteers are.  They pay their own way, collect supplies for months before their arrival, spend their vacation time and do such fantastic things here in Ecuador.

There was a young boy named Alexander (photo below) who had been burnt with a gasoline fire as a young child.  The scars from this accident prevented him from opening one of his hands, straightening his two arms and lifting his left arm.  The surgeons in a long surgery were able to transplant skin to open up the scars for improved movement.  In just four hours of surgery Alexander regained the use of his hand, arms and his shoulder.  He is such a brave little boy and a few days after surgery, when he was feeling better, he started telling stories.  It was amazing to hear such a young boy tell such good stories.  He had the parents of the other hospitalized children laughing.

I am so grateful for the surgeons  and all the team that came from Austria.  They helped 73 people to regain movement of legs. feet and hands as well as other types of surgeries.    Their generosity with their time and talents helped many people to improve their lives.

Thank you to each and every one of the volunteers who have come to Guadalupe offering so many different types of help.  It has been a pleasure to meet so many amazing people.

Reflections of Being a Missionary

I am very thankful for the opportunity to have been a missionary for over 30 years.  I have been blessed getting to know so many wonderful people of many cultures.  The people I have come to know are poor materially but have often been very rich in generosity and values.  Often they have taught me to improve my own values to things of more importance. 

For example, my next door neighbors in a small village in Guatemala taught me generosity.  The wife had just left the hospital from a difficult miscarriage.  The husband had a hernia that kept him from working in the fields to plant their food crops.  The two eldest children abandoned the farm and went to live in the city to work.  The two older girls were both developmentally disabled with violent tendencies.  The other two children and grandchild that they were raising were all too young to work.  Thus they were very poor and to me needed lots of assistance.  

The wife would offer me dinner with them so I would not have to eat alone, offered me clothes when I got wet from the rain and heated water for me frequently on their fire.  One day they asked if I had any food and if I had time to visit a family with them.  Off we went.  This family that I considered very poor took me to visit what they considered poor.  There was a family of 5 with four of the adult children severally handicapped and unable to walk or even stand up.  The mother of 97 years old who had taken care of them all had recently died so we brought them food and cleaned the house.  My “poor” neighbors went weekly with food and help to this even needier family.

Another example is when an elderly couple in Guatemala taught me the importance of relationships.  I was new to Guatemala and visiting a distant village staying in a home.  When the husband returned from the fields he told his wife all that had happened in the fields and then she told him what she had been doing.  I asked the husband, who had been planting and harvesting a corn crop three times a year for over 60 years, what he thought of his wife’s work.  He said “oh my poor wife.  She works so hard all day long inside the house and never gets to be outside!”  I then asked the wife the same question and she said “Oh my poor husband.  He has to work outside in the sun and rain.”

With my upbringing of constant stimulation and change of pace activities I thought to myself ‘What can they possibly have to talk about doing the same activities for all their lives?’.  They were interested in what the other did and valued what the other did. 

Life Long Missioner

My name is Amy Anderson and I have been a lay missioner for all of my adult life.  I started working in an orphanage in Mexico, then in group homes for orphans in Venezuela, then 12 years in Guatemala working with a child sponsorship organization and doing health promotion.  In between these times I worked in Nicaragua and was a few months in Bolivia.  The last country prior to where I am now was my three years in Panama doing promotion of women and construction projects of bridges (not my most suitable work but someone was needed to finish the project).  

For the past 14 years I have been in the Amazon area of Ecuador working at a small clinic.  I am the clinic coordinator working under the parish priest who is the founder and director of the clinic.  We have daily medical and dental consults as well as vision eye exams for glasses.  Several times a year there are groups of surgeons who come to operate and the clinic becomes an ambulatory surgery hospital for anything from hernias to cataracts.  I enjoy the work, the people of Ecuador are welcoming and the nature is beautiful.