Dando Amor Boy's Home

El Paraiso is the place where the orphans live.  Travis, a commercial artist from the United States,  came to Ecuador and saw a need to help orphans in the country.  There are many orphans in state run orphanages but children need a home.

Through generous donations this home was rented and currently about 11 boys and a single mom with 4 children live here.  The single mother is the cook for the17+ people.

Bishop Meza and the acting grandfather of the young boys are seated on the left.  RS presidency on the right.  They presented the family home evening lesson.

Jorge pointing out missing pieces on the huge puzzle mounted on the wall.  He's very proud of their work.

All of Quito stands on end!  Everywhere it is hilly. Hey!  We're in the Andes.

After FHE hoagies were served!  We opted not to eat anything.  Mom brought carmeled popcorn for the boys to eat.

Happy children!

Playing the guitar.  Before FHE started Mom told her conversion story.  In SPANISH!!!  Everyone else followed her example.  The young boys shared beautiful conversion stories.  All of them are members of the church and are looking forward to serving missions.  Travis, the founder got the guitar player, Jorge out of jail.  Others hear about the HOME for orphans and come looking.  They have had hard lives but seem to be doing real well in this home for young men.

Sangolqui Hospital

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Today we went to visit a small hospital about a half hour outside of Quito.  It is close to Cotopaxi, the volcano.  The name of the city is Sangoqui. We need to find a hospital that we can partner with to develop a project in neotalalogy or pediatrics.  It needs to be in a poor area and help many disadvantaged people.

Waiting room at the hospital

Front view

Two of the 20 beds at the hospital.  This hospital serves an area of 350,000 people

Small emergency room!

Pharmacy

This is the newborn intensive care area.  This hospital is having trouble repairing equipment so they are asking for new incubator, monitor and phototherapy unit to treat jaundice.  There were 2 babies in the room.  Hopefully we can help them get the needed equipment.  We have to send a report to Lima and wait for their approval. 

Missionary Christmas Dinners

Many of you may have been wondering what we've been up to lately.  We've been making Christmas dinners for the missionaries in our mission.  Each zone takes a turn coming to the mission president's home for training and for dinner.  It takes a lot of preparation and planning to feed all the hungry missionaries.  Hermana Christiansen, the mission president's wife asked us to help and since our work slows down in December we were happy to help.  She likes things very nice so there are chargers on the table, goblets for the juice and dishes that have to be washed so there's lots to do each day.  She makes cinnamon rolls for breakfast, sandwiches and a veggie tray for lunch and then turkey or ham for dinner with 3 different kinds of desserts. 

Here's President Christiansen  carving some turkey.

The tables ready for the missionaries.  She makes the centerpieces as well as the rolls.

President and Hermana Christiansen and their 16 year old daughter Katie.  They have 11 children!!

Decorating the tree with all the pictures of the missionaries.

Hermana Walton our senior sister who is the secretary in the mission.  She is from St. George!Under the tree are presents for the missionaries.  A jounal, pen and a Christmas card with all the missionary's pictures on it.  They also receive a bag of cookies, popcorn balls and candy.

The mission assistants ready to dish up the dinners!  We all got aprons with our names on them!

Chowing down their Christmas dinner!

After dinner games and playing Christmas carols with bells.

Las hermanas playing the bells!

The mission president eating with the sisters

Cleaning up in the kitchen after the BIG meal.  Lots of dishes and pots and pans to wash.  Sister Walton and Amparita, the maid.  The candy on the counter is for a game the missionaries play.

Dad preparing all the jello salads.

Elders young and old!!

On our way home we took a taxi that had a TV in it and he was watching a soccer game while driving.  It was amazing and we made it back to our apartment in one piece!!

Trip to Manta AGAIN!

On Friday we had to fly to Manta, a city on the coast with a doctor and another man in charge of Area Projects for the Church.  They are trying to help us make our projects more meaningful rather than just donating equipment.  We went to visit a small clinic where we had previously donated some medical equipment for children and expectant mothers.  Now we are hoping to have some doctors come from the church to do some training next year.  The reason we went to Manta was to meet with some of the staff of the clinic as well as people from the community to see what training they would like. 

A view of one of the 5 volcanoes that surround Quito.  Not a very clear shot from the airplane window.  The flight only takes about 40 minutes but we have to get up around 3:30 am to make our early morning flight. 

When we arrived at the airport there was this huge sign and a crowd of people.  We learned later that a missionary was coming home after his 2 years of service!

Here is the newly returned missionary hugging his father.  The hugged for a long time!!!!  Maybe that's what heaven will be like when we arrive.  Lots of hugging and smiles and tears!!

The main square in Montecristi where our meeting was at.  It is a city about 30 minutes from Manta.  We were a bit early for our meeting so we sat in the square and had a little preliminary meeting.

Here is Dr. Archibald on the left, a retired surgeon and Steve Dobbs on the right who works for the church.  They were here to help us find out what more we could do to make this project more meaningful and helpful to the people.

Montecristi is a small city and I guess the newspaper thought our meeting was newsworthy.  Here they are interviewing Steve Dobbs and in the background is the stake president, his wife and counselor.  The lady in the foreground is Yolanda Loor and we are doing a vision project with her clinic in a city about 30 minutes away called Portoviejo. 

Here we are talking to Pablo Herrara, the director of the clinic. 

The newspaper reported wanted to interview Elder Francom as well.  Guess we made it into the newspaper!!!  To these wonderful Equadorian people, Dad is a giant!!!

Some of the attendees.  They asked for training in non communicable diseases, diabetes and emergencies. 

More attendees.  The nurse in the middle is from Japan who is studying here for a few years.  She speaks really good Spanish!

Dr. Archibald speaking to the people and Yolanda was his translator.  She was good!!  It's hard to translate between 2 languages.

We had some extra time so we visited a dialysis center in Montecristi.

Some of the people that we were with went inside the sterile rooms.  We waited outside.  We've been there, done that!!!  Now we are home and recuperating from our trip.  We're not as young as we used to be!! 

Barrio Colon

Pablo and Jeremy Trujillo, High council, fast food out of home, 6 children 4 live in Canada

Jeanneth Tonato, Nahomi Castillo Guapulo, single mom, dinner and family home evening with them.

Pablo Rivera, High priest group leader, taxi service

Olga and Ramiro Rodriguez, hair dresser, lived in 15 yrs w/o family in New York, 3 children, 4 grandchildren

William Vera, Virginia Ramon, Hanna, Salome, Abigail: Sunday Dinner and FHE with missionaries.

Aracely Montalvo, bishop's wife, David Romero, SS and institute teacher,

Milton Oswaldo Mora Orellana: Gave him blessing

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo de los Colorados, simply referred to as Santo Domingo, is a city and seat of the canton that bears its name. It is the fourth most populous city in Ecuador with a population of over 305,000, is an important commercial and industrial center, and serves as the capital of the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas Province.

We didn't see anyone with dyed faces but found 

picture on internet

History

The name, "de los Colorados", refers to a local ethnic group, the Tsáchila, and the custom of men in that tribe to dye their hair with extract of the achiote plant; hence "Santo Dominigo de los Colorados" or "Santo Domingo of the Dyed." This group, which is indigenous to the area, is recognised with a substantial statue near the town center.

Geography

Santo Domingo is located approximately 133 km west of Quito at an altitude of 625 m. Santo Domingo lies in the foothills west of the Andes. It is important stopping point on the road from Quito to the Pacific coast. The city also connects other lowland cities like Quevedo, Chone, and Quinindé.
The city is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santo Domingo de los Colorados.

Climate

Santo Domingo has a tropical monsoon climate under Koppen classification (Am) with influences of altitude. Average temperatures hover around 71 degrees Fahrenheit.^[4] Like many other cities on this side of the Andes it floods easily. Roads between Quito and coastal cities such as Esmeraldas and Manta are often washed out and require frequent work.

We went to Santo Domingo last Wednesday.  The road was very windy but really pretty.  Lots of green fields and a few waterfalls.  We went to a school where we donated some used church computers.

Director of the school with the Stake and ward relief society presidents who accompanied us to the school.

Restroom facilities.

View of the school!

Cute young ladies who wanted their picture taken! They also wanted to try and speak English to us.

Classroom for the little children.

Small daycare center for babies to the age of 4.  You can see all the playground equipment.  Just old tires buried in the ground.  Inside there wasn't anything just a bare concrete floor.  Mothers took turns tending the young children.

Edge of the playground!  Sheer drop off to the stream below.  They needed a fence.

Road back up from the daycare center.

Medical facility that we visited.  We talked with director and staff to determine needs and if the Church could help them.

The church had previously donated benches to the clinic.

They requested exercise equipment for expectant mothers to use at the clinic.  Currently all they have is the ball and it's pretty flat!

We didn't find anything interesting that we could pursue as a project and we were getting a bit discouraged but miraculously our driver said that his daughter in Quito worked for the central ministry of education.  He got us the name and number of the provincial director from his daughter and we were able to find the location.  We visited with the director who was very nice and hopefully we will be able to develop a project to help poor schools in the province.