Greetings, September, 2010

Thursday afternoon after our big workday in Pana had finished and the remaining people were slowly leaving, Lidi* crowded in and presented me with a prescription from our doctor. She needed a blood test for her baby boy, and of course had no money. I've known Lidi since she was a child. She, along with her brothers, have spent lots of time in the penitentiary and rehabs and it isn't hard to tell as she is covered with tattoos. I referred Lidi to Hortensia.

She gets handed another heartache.

Hortensia, one of three ladies on our staff, is our screener. She was born in the Tijuana dump, adopted and educated by an American couple, and returned back to Tijuana. She has a family and works full time with us. Hortensia has a servant's heart and is a rare blend of compassion and common sense. She knows her people. And with Lidi we enter another heartache. Like herself, her little baby has syphilis and hepatitis D (fatal in many cases). We haven't checked her middle son yet. Luis*, her cute eleven year old boy, runs the street dressed like a girl to pick up a little extra cash. (I talked with Luis that same day on this). It's a constant heartache seeing little children paying the consequences of irresponsible adults.

Hortensia works faithfully with little Pepe each week. Unfortunately he seems to be slowly losing strength. Pepe lives on the bottles of chocolate Ensure we buy for him. He can't hold his food down to well. Pepe is in swimming therapy, and school Monday. His mother had a little baby girl a few months ago, now she is pregnant again! Talk about frustration, this simply isn't going to work out ... but somehow it will.

Hortensia keeps tabs on Joshua, who just came back from lengthy plastic surgery in the U.S. He's planning on entering Jr. High School next week. Joshua is scared, and he should be as he enters into a new school. Kids can be cruel.

Hortensia is our key to Roberto and his family. Roberto is now with a family some distance away that loves him, they have two boys of their own. They're placing him into Jr. High. Roberto's mother and father still live in the "little shack on the corner of hell!" Little brother and two sisters are still in the government orphanage for AID's kids ... again, playing out the consequences of irresponsible parents.

Kids love Hortensia. The other day a teenage boy, a street kid living in an orphanage, dumped out his short and scarred life's story on her. Then, with tears, said he wished he had a mother like her. I'm sure when she looked at him he reminded her of her own teenage son who was shot not too long ago.

We're fortunate to have the staff we have. We're fortunate to have someone like Hortensia. They're not in it for the money, that's for sure; none of us have had a raise in years. Hortensia defines ministry.

*Lidi and Luis are not their actual names.