Updates

Betty has been a missionary sister for 27 years. She spent her first few years serving in parishes before joining the Mission Home. She has dedicated her life to taking care of children for the past 25 years. Most recently, Betty has been in charge of a group of little girls, ages 2 to 12.

She is known for her gentle care and astute wisdom. Recently one of the littlest girls under her care did not want to go to school or complete any of her school work. From years of experience working with traumatized youth, Betty recognized the behavior as a result of broken family ties and fragmented identity. She made a schedule with the little girl to spend specific time with her brother every day. Betty herself spent time every morning with her to talk about what she was excited for that day and to review her homework before going to school. In this purposeful but soft manner she has been able to reconnect the little girl to learning. 

Small but mighty! Betty with one of the little girls that has been at the Mission Home since she was 18 months old.

In addition to her labor of love caring for a group of little girls, Betty is also in charge of the Mission Home kitchen. She wakes at 4am each day to open and start preparing breakfast for the 100+ children, missionary sisters and volunteers that eat at the home. She then returns to her group of little girls before the school day begins to prepare them for the day. By 8am she is back in the kitchen preparing lunch. She spends the afternoon back and forth between the kitchen and her little girls, making sure that once they have returned from school they complete all their schoolwork, have time to play, and are showered before bed. After all her little ones are asleep, she ends the day back in the kitchen ensuring that everything is clean and ready for the next day, often not going to sleep until 11pm or 12 midnight. She is assiduous in every meal she prepares, and has brought the quality of the food to that of restaurant standard. Over the past few years, there have been times when money was short due to delayed government payments. Betty always managed to find creative and nutritious ways to feed the home, at one point making bread every single morning to ensure breakfast for the next day. On top of that, the bread she baked was often crafted into adorable child-friendly shapes and concoctions…snail shaped cinnamon rolls, flower shaped rolls with jelly centers, to name a few. 

Betty’s perseverance and love is epitomized in her dedication to her Catholic faith. She is committed to cultivating her spiritual well being and often speaks about how her life and work would be impossible without the support and calling from the Lord. Her schedule may seem daunting to just about anyone else, but to Betty it is her life mission and her absolute joy. She inspires us to care for every child and person in a more loving way, and to take on all of life’s daily tasks and responsibilities with patience, love, and commitment. We are so grateful for her life! 

In addition to all the care she shows to her group of little girls, Betty somehow finds time to love Regan as well!

We are one month into the new school year in Ecuador. Here is what has been happening at the Mission:

We have over 250 students in our scholarship program at the Mission School this year. These families cannot afford the $25/month tuition to send their children to school. For the first time ever, we were also able to provide school supplies and books to ALL of our students in our scholarship program. We purchased, packed, and delivered the school supplies and books over the last several weeks. You can read more about the school supply distribution process in our last blog post.

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, students returned to virtual learning this school year. Those that have internet access connect to classes throughout the day and complete their homework and testing using an online portal. Students without internet access are given weekly packets to guide their learning. The vice principal at the Mission School shared that many more students are able to connect to their virtual classes this year compared to last.

A few of our scholarship recipients in their home ‘classroom’. These siblings share the laptop to connect to their virtual classes at different times throughout the day.

The children at the Mission Home are in a far better situation than most, both with access to the internet, as well as access to the tutors we hired. The children are divided by age and grade level into groups of 5-12 students and spend all morning with their tutors. They connect to their virtual classes and receive supplemental lessons, as well as homework help and test preparation.

Our 10 university students are doing well! They continue to receive classes virtually but have all advanced on schedule so are that much closer to receiving their degrees. We also have 12 students in a preparation course for university. The course is helping them get ready for an entrance exam that they will take in August. If they receive scores high enough they will be able to enter a government sponsored university in the fall.

We hope the children return to in-person instruction at the Mission School soon! Vaccinations are under way and most of the teaching staff at the school has had the chance to be vaccinated already. Despite the many challenges of virtual learning, we are proud of our students, as well as the staff at the Mission School, for their perseverance and commitment to education. And most of all, we are grateful to all of you for supporting them!

As every parent and teacher knows, going back to school requires a lot of supplies! Historically, we have provided all of the necessary school supplies and school books to the children at the Mission Home, as well as to some of the most resource limited students in our scholarship program. We have always wanted to expand the program to include all of our students on scholarship, and this year we are happy to share that we were able to do so!

We spent the last two weeks preparing the supplies, and it sure was a process! It started with a 20 hour trip to Guayaquil, the large city that is 3 hours away from the Mission School. We were able to buy bulk quantities of school supplies at reduced prices. We then spent a morning dividing the school supplies into individual bags for each recipient. 

The last step was getting the supplies and the school books to the students. It would have been simpler to have the students pick up their supplies and books from the Mission School. Unfortunately, many of our students cannot afford the cost of transportation when they do not otherwise have to be at the school because of virtual learning. As a result, we had the privilege of delivering supplies and books to some of our most remote students. 

It was quite a process preparing our 250 scholarship students for the beginning of the school year. But they now have the books and supplies necessary for another year of learning! As we made the deliveries, many of the families shared their deep gratitude for helping their children start the school year off well. We pass this gratitude to all of you! 

Thanks to the generosity of so many of you, we reached our goal and raised $100,000 over the past 6 weeks in our Education Changes Everything Campaign! THANK YOU!

We will be using this money for scholarships for children from poor families, school supplies and books, and new school equipment. As the new school year starts in Ecuador, these children will be better educated because of your support.

Since we cannot thank you in person, we made this short video to share our gratitude.

We are so excited to share this video from Jenny in our final week of our Education Changes Everything Campaign.

There are 5 days left to help students like Jenny. All new or increased monthly donations will be matched for the next one year. We are so grateful for your generosity!

As you can see in this video, a university degree opens doors and permanently changes a young Ecuadorian’s life. Despite graduating in the midst of a global pandemic when job opportunities are scarce, Jenny will soon start working and earning 3 times the average salary in Ecuador. We are so proud of her accomplishments, and eternally grateful for all of the support from our donors that made this opportunity a reality for her.

Moms, thank you for all you do for us and for the world!

As our Education Changes Everything Campaign continues and the final countdown to the Ecuadorian school year begins, our Vice Principal sat down with us to make a short video for you.

In this short video, Tania and Michelle share how Michelle’s scholarship has changed their family. Watch to see how our scholarship program is impacting lives!

Help us reach our goal of raising $100,000 to support our scholarship program and families like Tania’s by donating today.

• $250 gives a scholarship to a family that lost their income during the pandemic for the next school year
• $500 buys a new computer for the computer lab
• $1,000 provides new desks for one high school classroom
• $10,000 buys new desks for the entire elementary school

One of the most popular dishes along the Ecuadorian coast is a fish stew called encebollado. It is tuna fish based, with tomatoes, onions, yuca and spices, garnished with pickled onions, and always served with a side of chifles (plantain chips). Though we would understand if the sound of fish stew does not immediately entice your appetite, we are here to share that encebollado is absolutely delicious. And no one makes it better than the mission home kitchen. 

At the mission home, the children eat encebollado once a week. Cooking begins at 5am when the albacore tuna starts boiling. Yuca is peeled and chopped and placed in a separate pot of boiling water. Next all the vegetables are chopped, sautéed, and added to the yuca along with spices to form the base of the soup. Once the tuna has been cooked, it is a long process of deboning and separating the filets into small slices that finally get added to the base of the soup. Simultaneously, the plantains are peeled and cut into thin slices using a “mariquitera” or plantain slicer. They are then fried and sprinkled with salt to create the crispiest most delicious hot chip you have ever tried. 

By about 12 noon all the food is ready and it is divided into portions based on the size of the various “houses” within the mission home. The “chicas”, or adolescent girls’ house, gets a large pot of soup, since they have over 25 people in their home. The “niños” or little boys, get a smaller but equally impressive amount given the 19 people in their home. And so it continues until each house has their portion. Designated children from each house arrive at the kitchen around 12:15 to retrieve the food for their group. The children eat in their respective homes with the missionaries overseeing them. After all the children have eaten, the missionaries take turns eating their own lunch. As we say in Ecuador when food is served, buen provecho! 

A photo catalogue of cooking encebollado at the mission home:

1. Peel and chop yuca. Chop all veggies. Boil tuna, yuca, and sautéed vegetables.

2. Add vegetables and spices to boiling yuca to form base of soup

3. Debone and separate tuna meat.

4. Add tuna to soup base to form encebollado

5. Divide into smaller portions for serving

6. Peel and cut plaintains using a “mariquitera”

7. Fry plaintains to form chifles

8. Garnish with pickled onions. Buen provecho!