ARTICLES

You Were Feeding Christ Himself

Pacific Beach Woman Assists Mission Parish in Ecuador

BY ANNA KRESTYN

Guayaquil, Ecuador is a city of two million souls. Although an economic center in Ecuador because of its port, it harbors many of the country's poorest. In the poor Guayaquil barrio of Guasmo, dirt roads, hemmed in by ditches full of muck, weave through the bamboo shacks which dot flats hillsides. Street children, ragged and underfed, play soccer in the sweltering heat. Odds are, each of them has at least one relative dead or dying of AIDS. Sewage seeps into the ancient city water pipes. Contaminated water is piped into showers and kitchens, and must be boiled or chlorinated prior to drinking. During the winter, rising water floods the barrio and spreads filth and disease. Parasites, hepatitis, and typhoid plague the area.

By anyone's standards, Guasmo is true missionary territory. And one of its leading missionaries is a little old lady from Pacific Beach. Her name is Katie Brown, a wife, mother, and retired physical therapist who describes herself as "shy." But it was not shyness that took her on her first venture into Ecuador. In September of 2003 Katie Brown went on a mission trip to the country with Monsignor Ray Kirk who was at that time the head of the mission office for the Diocese of San Diego. "She wasn't sure she wanted to go at first," said friend and fellow missionary, Betty Matteson of Pacific Beach. "But it has truly changed her life."

It was during that trip to Ecuador, when Brown visited Parroquia Nuestra Señora Del Quinche, that she became aware of the need in Guasmo. The parish is headed by Father Ed Veasey, an Irishman from the diocese of Glasgow, Scotland who, at 52, decided that he must visit the South American missions. Nineteen years ago, with the assistance of an order of Columbian nuns, the Sisters of the Annunciation, he established the parish.

Besides spiritually sustaining the people of Guasmo, Father Veasey and his helpers tend to their physical wellbeing and educational needs through the parish's school and hospital. In the words of Brown, "It's all one mouth, one heart, and one mind at a time."

These days, 800 children are learning at the school, the soup kitchen serves 200 each day. And hundreds of patients come to the hospital each week. But during that first visit in 2003, Brown saw only the beginnings of the now-thriving hospital -- a clinic, pharmacy, and empty rooms devoid of medical equipment. Now it's a fully operational facility. This is due, in no small way, to the contributions of Brown and her friends.

In September, 2006, I sat in Brown's Pacific Beach living room and listened to the story of her fourth trip to Ecuador, which took place this past August. Accompanied by four other San Diegans -- Josh Emerson, Yolanda Galaz, Adele Nafziger, and her original traveling companion, Betty Matteson -- she landed in Guayaquil on August 4 with eight suitcases weighing over 80 pounds each. "We brought one extra bag that we had to pay extra for, but we felt the value of all the stuff we had was definitely more than the hundred dollars it was going to cost," she said. "We said, 'Let's do it,' and never thought about it again. And when we got to the airport, three of the sisters were there, waving and going berserk the minute they saw us."

The sisters had hired a bus to pick them up. "What a thrill to get off the plane and see a crowd of little faces beaming at us," said Matteson. "The sisters steal everyone's hearts."

Since the San Diego group's last visit in 2005, Father Veasey and the sisters had managed to buy the two houses adjacent to the hospital. They had expanded the dispensary, built consulting rooms, and finished the second floor. It's now a complete hospital, with dental, prenatal, ophthalmology, and general departments. The facility could at one time boast only six rotating doctors. Now 45 are on staff, some paid and some volunteer.

Brown says the hospital is an impressive, modern building with full furnishings. "Father says, 'Just because they're poor, doesn't mean everything has to be second-class,'" she explains. "All the finishing work is being funded by donations. Father is paying workers, which helps bring money back to the community."

The mission group spent the majority of their day assisting in the soup kitchen. Last year, their gift was an industrial-size rice cooker. This year, she received a request two weeks before their departure for Ecuador: a new freezer. She sent an emergency email to everyone she knew (close to three hundred individuals), and immediately received an influx of donations totaling over four thousand dollars. "The anticipated cost of the freezer was about $2500.00, so I told Father to tell the sisters to go shopping," she said. "They got an enormous chest freezer before we got there, and were ecstatic about showing it to us when we arrived."

The sisters serve one 12:30 p.m. meal each day to crowds averaging 200, mostly elderly and children. The kitchen they serve them from is by no means luxurious. "One of our concerns in past trips has been that they have no hot water in the soup kitchen," said Brown. "Julio --the handyman -- could manually adjust the water heater at mealtimes to make the water warm, but it never got hot. So we went out and bought a water heater. It's an on-demand propane water heater. They were just ecstatic about that too."

Brown and her group had a new fan installed above the kitchen sink to lessen the taxing effects of the Guasmo heat. "The day we installed the fan, above the kitchen sink," said Brown, "they were so busy marveling at it that no one turned it on."

Some of the group's more fluent Spanish speakers took several days to do an inventory of all the medical supplies (syringes, bandages, etc.) they had brought with them. The rest of the group spent most of their time cleaning the soup kitchen, serving the mid-day meal from it, and taking their own inventory of what was needed that they could go out and buy. "We spent a lot of time shopping for them," said Brown, "taking note of what was needed and making trips to the Ecuadorian equivalent of Costco. We must have been there at least ten times. Someone from the parish would drive us. They use the American dollar, but every time we bought something, we were surprised by how much less it was than we expected. We made the sisters get everything they needed, and two of each thing, even down to their own shampoo."

From beach trips planned by the sisters to a traditional parish festival to passing out frozen chickens to hordes of townsfolk to a day with the Missionaries of Charity, Brown's group never relaxed. "One day sister said, 'You've got to come down to the kitchen now, we've just been given tons of chicken, and we need your help to pass it out. And wear old shoes and grubby clothes because you're going to stink.' The Missionaries of Charity had called and said, 'We've just been given a truckload of frozen chicken.' The soup kitchen packed as much as they could in the freezer, and took the rest out to distribute to the townsfolk. So we get down there in our grubs and stood behind a gate, waiting as the sisters announced to the town over the loudspeaker, 'Free chicken.' Within minutes the children were pouring in with plastic bags for their share. We were just laughing so hard the whole time, taking note of the little children coming back for more and more. We decided they had a black market going on. Then a police car goes by, and next thing we know here comes a policeman with a big plastic bag.'

On Tuesdays Father Veasey says mass for the Missionaries of Charity, so Brown's group was able to spend a day with them. "They put out chairs for us, and sat on straw mats themselves. It was being in the presence of holiness that you can't express. Their joy is overwhelming. They served us breakfast, and afterwards, Father left us to stay with the Missionaries for more of the day. The sisters came out to us and said, 'Take a dish and go feed somebody.' We were so overwhelmed. This was the home of the destitute and dying. These people have been picked up off the streets, the police have brought them in. The lady I fed was blind, and I put milk and bread into her mouth. The sisters are all gorgeous. We thanked them for letting us feed the patients, and their response was like hearing Mother Teresa, 'You were feeding Christ himself.'"

The San Diego group spent some quality time with the students at Father Veasey's school, which is funded by some wealthy individuals in Guayaquil. "Tuition is seven dollars a month per child," said Brown. "Still, about half of the children cannot afford it. But the teachers have to be paid the standard wage. That's a challenge."

Perhaps the biggest problem facing Father Veasey's parish is AIDS. "It's out of control," said Brown. "It's as bad there as it is in many places in Africa, and Father Ed's area is one of the worst." So bad, in fact, that one group of children put together a nativity scene with a baby Jesus but no Mary or Joseph. The children's explanation was: 'We are all orphans here, Padre.'"

The parish addresses the problem with a workshop for HIV positive individuals in which they produce materials they can sell for profit. "Father Veasey has just begun teaming them together to make purses," said Brown. "This is a way for them to make some sort of income when they cannot work a regular job."

Brown offered to buy 100 purses, and brought back the six they were able to finish while she was there. "We've sold all but one since our return," she said.

Their last night in Guasmo, the parishioners gave their group a surprise party in one of the conference rooms, complete with live music, dancing, drinks, and flan. "At ten o'clock at night they were coming around with hot dogs. Each of us (in the visiting group) got a whole hot dog, and everybody else got half. This was for us. They talked and thanked us for being there and gave us hug after hug. I was in tears. After two weeks, I was ready to come home but leaving was terrible. They just kept reminding us that they are our Ecuadorian family. My heart was touched by the joy of the people."

The mission group came home on August 20 with a long list of needed supplies. Brown and others have met about launching a non-profit organization to benefit the work of Father Veasey and the Annunciation Sisters. She has a lawyer willing to walk her through the legal steps and a grant writer who has volunteered services. The process is taking months, and Brown admitted to growing impatient. "I want the foundation started," she said, "there are fees we have to pay, but we need to get it going. Without that foundation, I can't go after grants. I have a list of medical supplies and equipment that's not just bottles of aspirin. We need an adult mobile X-ray at the hospital. They have only a child's right now. They need surgery equipment, and the list goes on and on. For treatments they don't have the capability of giving, they have to send the parishioners to other hospitals, where they won't get the same low fees that Father Ed and the sisters require."

When the foundation is formed and running, it will be a nonprofit organization with a name connected to the order of the Sisters of the Annunciation. "The resources have just sort of come together -- I met the grant writer on an airplane, I got a number for someone who knows how to ship containers for the kind of heavy-duty equipment we're going to ship. And we need this organization to get these things done. Father and I won't be here forever, and we want to have the assurance that these people will be taken care of when we're gone."

Brown shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. She is already planning next year's trips to Ecuador.

To donate to the cause, please send a check made out to Hospital Madre Berenice to Katie Brown at 1229 Wilbur Ave., 92109.

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