Impressions from Bolivia-Part II

Dear friends and family! Hope that everything is doing well whenever you are right now and thanks for your prayers. By this moment we are in Cotoca, a town located at 18km of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. In this place we are volunteering at the orphanage Santa Teresa de los Andes. This is an orphanage created for children with physical and mental disabilities.

First of all, I would provide you a brief description of the orphanage. It was founded on 1986, by a Colombian priest who in his way to Peru had a layover on Santa Cruz that was longer than expected. Given the additional time he had, he decided to go and visit the city. While, the priest was touring the city, he found a disable child that was begging for food in the street and this encounter ignite in him the desire to establish an organization to take care of these kids.

Actually, the orphanage has 147 children. The total capacity is approximately 170. However, they prefer to maintain a reserve margin in order to offer the kids quality and to maintain the cost within manageable limits. They received children with four different disabilities: Down syndrome, autism, encephalopathy, and cerebral palsy. Also, the orphanage receives kids with different levels of severity ranging from normal to severe.

The kids are distributed according to their age and the severity of the disability. The distribution is made in houses of different colors (e.g. brown, blue, red, green). There were children with moderate levels of disabilities, like the ones that live in the orange house (e.g. can walk by themselves, swallow) to children with severe disability like the ones in the red house (e.g. they spend the day from the brick-mattress-wheelchair and vice versa).

In my perspective, it was almost impossible to be mentally prepared to the experience we are facing in the orphanage. Definitively, it is a heart-touching experience working with these kids. While, I was walking them outside in the afternoon in the wheelchairs, I was constantly remembering the words of Fr. Patrick when he expressed that these children are surely creatures of God, because they do not have the ability to sin. Honestly, it was comforting to me to know that these children would more likely make it to heaven than me, but I couldn´t hinder my sorrow for the mental conditions of the children. Tomorrow is going to be our last day at the orphanage and we´re hoping to get there as early as possible given that the main bulk of activities occur in the morning.

Once again, I sincerely appreciate your prayers and support. I would be updating the blog with more details concerning the work at the orphanage at our visit to Conception, Bolivia. Finally, I have been able to upload some pictures. I promise that I would be updating more pictures once I am back to the US.

Best regards,
John