Kids and such

Just a quick note to let you know...

I introduced myself in person to Luis Mutre last Sunday. He´s the guy who´s supposed to be my contact person at República for putting my street kids officially under their social-services care. He asked for patience (imagine that...) to wait til September to talk, as he´s bogged down with some other things right now.

I´m taking advantage of this waiting time to polish, amplify and complete about 30 workshops - to provide the language library for Compassion/Nuevos Amigos (Have finished 3 powerpoint workshops with their corresponding written reports - am working on the last one now, only lacks ppt and references.) The rest are Dysphagia workshops which I can be paid for presenting, and/or supply as a library to the hospital - whichever works best. I´ve gotten those workshops sorted, and will start them as soon as I get the Compassion ones done and printed up. Plan to hand the language ones in to Fernando when I get to meet with him. In total, this workshop prep should take me through September. That´s good, because am also still waiting finalization on the Dysphagia Book from Compassion, meeting results from Dr. Vásconez (Medical Education - Vozandes), and meeting results from Professor Plaza (Univ. Talca, Chile). There will likely be more professional presentations and meetings that I´ll be required to participate in after that.

And just a little tidbit of info... I bumped into Johnny a week or so ago (I don´t think I mentioned that yet.). He told me he´s not hanging out on the street anymore. Of the 15 kids (3 main family groups) I started with 6 years ago, that means that only Joey (Johnny´s twin) and their little brother Michael (who Joey drags along) are still on the street... supposedly. I haven´t seen them lately, either. I´m praying it´s because they´ve made the same decision to stay home. The 3 family groups represented were 1) Willian 2) Jesús and Jesseña and 3) Edison. So the tally is, Jesús and Jesseña´s family left the street after the first year working with them; Joey & Michael are the last of the 5 from Edison´s family group who are still on the street. Johnny says that Edison will be graduating soon as a baker/pastry chef --- I asked them to let me know where he gets work so I can go visit him. I continue praying for Willian, as I haven´t found him since his Mom passed away. Johnny says they haven´t seen him lately either --- he´d have to be about 17 now, I think. He had brought 4-5 of his younger siblings to meet me, and I had the privilege of personally meeting his Mom, too.

So the ones left to really target are the Iñaquito kids --- from what I´ve seen, that´d be the perfect group for the República men to take on. I´m looking forward to meeting with Luis Mutre in September.

I´m comforted to see God providing all kinds of people pulling together to take on these incredible challenges, and I´m happy to have the time here in Ecuador still to share this all with them. It´s so much more fun working together on these things.

Trust you´re all doing well on your end. I hope you get to see God being really big, too! Sincerely, M