Something I wanted to share with you all

Hello all...just a quick update to let you know I am doing well and keeping VERY busy. We are in the process of starting a new reading curriculum at Santa Clara and I have been meeting with Annie to help decide how we will train Honduran staff on using it. Additionally, grades are due in at the end of this week. Not a whole lot to report on as I've mostly been busy with paperwork and planning (no exciting travel yet!)

I would like to share with you an email correspondance I've been having with a woman from Kansas City, MO. Her family hosted one of my students a couple of years back when she had a major hip surgery. This year, the same woman and her family decided to sponser this particular student's Santa Clara education. Sandra is one of my favorite students. She is a beautiful, bright, loving child. I did not realize that anything had ever been wrong with her until I received this email. I hope that you are all touched by this woman's kindness just as I was.

Miss you all, and hope to write up an longer update this weekend!

Erin

Erin;
How we met Sandra is sort of a long story but I love to tell it and I am chatty so here goes . . . Mario Castro is a pulmonologist here in St. Louis who goes to Honduras every year on a medical mission. I was a youth minister at the church he attended, Our Lady of the Pillar. I had his 3 sons in various VBS, Confirmation, etc. He has become friends with Bishop Muldoon and is trying to help Muldoon get a Catholic hospital going there. He knows a woman, Kathy Corbett, who runs a non-profit here in St. Louis called Healing the Children. They bring kids over to the US for surgery - all of it paid for by donation. One of Sandra's legs was longer than the other and it caused her to limp, It was b/c of a hip problem she had ... possibly from birth ... it was never in socket properly. She was used to walking with a limp and it did not really cause her much trouble but as she grows and into adulthood, the pain would become more severe and there would be more problems for her. Dunia, Sandra's mom, heard on the radio that some doctors from the US were going to be somewhere in Juticalpa checking kids to see if they qualified for surgery in the US. Sandra qualified so Mario sent out an email asking for host families. At the time, we had 2 sons, RJ and Michael who were 2 and 5. We had just moved into a bigger house which was VERY handicap accessible down to bars in the bathtubs, etc. We met Kathy Corbett, saw the pictures of Sandra and asked if we could host. The VERY NEXT DAY, I found out I was pregnant again. I do not have the easiest pregnancies but I did not want to back out on our commitment either so they allowed Dunia, Sandra's mom, to come with her. Well it was a good thing b/c Sandra's surgery was very invovled and she was in a full body cast for almost 8 weeks . . . flat on her back in a LONG wheelchair that she learned how to manuever in our house in about a day. She needed a bed pan, someone to assist her with most daily tasks and most of all . . . to help alleviate her boredom!!!! :-) Dunia and Sandra ended up living with us for almost 6 months and became like family to us. They left a few weeks before my baby was born but accompanied me through the whole pregnancy! Sandra's surgery was very involved and required round the clock care. She had lots of therapy and had to learn to walk again, etc. Dunia, her mother, was a diligent, loving, devoted caretaker. She kept Sandra very CLEAN (difficult to do w/a full body cast on), and made her do her exercises all the time. Sandra is a doll but those last 2 weeks in the cast were pretty tough on everybody. I learned a lot about patience and perseverence from DUNIA at that time. We also learned how smart Sandra was. My Dad made her learn her Spanish alphabet. Somewhere around here, we have pictures of her out on our patio flat on her back in a wheelchair with MY DAD pointing at an easel w/ the ABCS on it. Before they left we were struggling with trying to figure out how to help them. When we realized how bright Sandra was, we knew that the key to breaking the poverty cycle in her family was a good education for Sandra. It was sort of complicated though. Sandra had never lived with her mother. She lived with her "Abuelos" and aunts and uncles in a small town outside of Juticalpa. Dunia lived in the city and sent money home to Sandra and her abuelos, seeing Sandra on weekends, etc. Dunia had Sandra very young and Sandra's father was abusive to Dunia during the pregnancy so she left him. Sandra definitely has issues with not having a relationship with her father but she is very blessed with loving faithful grandparents and a loving patient mother in Dunia. As with most families there, there is very little money to go around and Sandra went to school but not so great as far as academics. We asked Dunia if we could pay to send Sandra to a better school . . 1. B/c the education so important and 2. so they could live together. Dunia said yes and so with just a few days before school started, Mario looked into it and the Bishop helped us arrange it all. Our Lady of the Pillar Vacation Bible School actually helped pay for a good portion of her schooling this year just by bringing money with them from their piggy banks. They met her b/c she went to Bible School there - wheelchair and all! Just last week we found out that Dunia lost her job in the store where she cleans in Juticalpa. I guess the economic struggles are everywhere. We really are praying she finds a new job soon so she can keep her apartment, etc. If you hear of any good cleaning jobs, maybe you can let me or Dunia know. There is so much more to tell but my husband just walked in and saw this email, laughed and suggested I keep it brief so you will keep reading them! :-)
Hope to write more later. Please give Sandra a kiss from us! Sara Clark