JAN-FEB-MAR-APR 2005

MISION MEXICO, DANDO AMOR, VIDA Y ESPERANZA. A.C.

Saludos a Todos!

We have started receiving mail from supporters asking what has happened to us. We are still here!!! Though, we are extremely busy with virtually no time for ourselves.

I do apologize for taking so long to write to you all. Time gets away when there is so much to do.

We now have 34 children who live here and we are still receiving children on a temporary basis from immigration.

Alan had to go away for five weeks and our helper who works in the mornings had to take time off during that time also.

We were so fortunate to have a volunteer from Australia here who has dedicated three months to helping us.

Toni McCosker is an art and photography teacher from Inverall in NSW and has been a life saver. Unfortunately, we have not been able to do many art classes, as we had hoped, due to the fact of being ´snowed under´ with work.

We had one boy who ran away from school because another boy here had a fight with him. He was found two days later living in the smelly market area and is now living back here. The boy that punched him also ran away from the school a week ago and by chance was found by our daughter Brooke running toward the beach which is 25 kilometers away. He had gone into depression after hearing a song that reminded him of the canteen where his mother worked. He is now having psychology sessions.

With Alan away I had to do the ´bus´ driving to all the different schools and additional classes that the children are involved in. It is such a relief to have him back.

We now have two babies who are very demanding. Alejandra is 20 months and Fernando (Sam) is around one to one and a half.

Toni has taken on the demands of Alejandra and I look after Sam. Both babies are a handful. Ali had obviously not had the chance to experience life like a normal child. She would not do anything by herself, not even take a few steps without someone holding on to her. One day, Toni was walking with Ali and let go of her hand and Ali just stopped, not moving another step and stayed there for about 20 minutes until someone took her hand again. She woke continually during the night for milk and sometimes would not settle and screamed when she was having a bath.

Alejandra´s mother is 16 years and is pregnant again. She virtually abandoned Ali when she was a month old, leaving Ali with her mother while she went back to the streets. One of our boys, who lived on the streets a few years ago recognized her.

Ali´s grandmother is an invalid and has been bed ridden for two years. The grandmother has two other daughters, aged 10 and 7 years. The elder of the two looked after the baby, getting up a number of times during the night to make bottles of milk. During the day the baby lived in a make-shift bed, boxed in to keep her in one place. The house, where they lived, is a one room dwelling with a dirt floor and no electricity. They shared a communal bathroom with others living under the same conditions.

After a lot of hard work and sleepless nights by Toni, this little girl is now bright, alert and independent.

The grandmother is being helped by the Presbyterian Church for the medication that she needs and is now able to sit in a wheelchair. The other two girls, Yessenia and Teresa are also living here, the older one is now in school for the first time. Teri will start in September.

Before I go on to Sam, I have to tell you of a little incident with Toni.

Toni came into the dining room with this long, thick tread like thing on her hand and asked; "What is this, I found it in the baby´s cot?" I looked at the ´thing´ that was about 8 inches long and said, "Toni, that is a worm and it is alive and it has come out of the baby´s bottom!" With a stunned look on her face she dropped it in a flash. I laughed. Like me when I was first here, she had not seen anything like that before in her life. We gave Ali some parasite medication and she passed so many, that size and larger, over a few days.

Sam, as we call him, was starved and ended up in hospital for ten days. When we received him he was so thin, just skin and bones. He face was distorted also where his teeth looked too big and he has cross-eyes.

When you picked his little body up all you could feel was bones. He was so fragile.

At first, Sam was waking every two hours during the night for a feed and often would cry for half an hour after his bottle.

Now four weeks later, you wouldn´t know him. He has become strong and is sitting up by himself. Actually today he started to crawl!

He is looking quite chubby in his cheeks, his ribs are not showing and his long legs have filled out.

He smiles a lot and looks so cute with his funny little face. (Photos following)

Once again, we have a number of children sick with colds and fevers. Once one person brings in a virus, it doesn´t take long for it to infect the others and I must admit, it becomes quite stressful keeping up with it all.

Since our Christmas photo our family has grown considerably.

I wrote about Marina in the last newsletter, the 13 year old who worked as a cleaner in a brothel. Well, we have since found out that she is only twelve and it now looks like she will be staying with us! She has settled down and is now in school, in grade four. She is doing very well and enjoys being involved with the family.

Another two 13 year old girls are also here. One has only been here a few weeks and was a prostitute. I don´t know much about her past other than her step father abused her so she ran away to the streets.

The other ones life would have probably ended up the same except that she ran away before the stepfather got his way.

From what it sounds like, her mother was a prostitute and as far back as she can remember her mother would bring men back to the house, to the bed that her and her mother shared. Her mother has had a number of babies whom she has given away.

This girl has never been to school and doesn´t know how to do the most basic things. She is learning slowly but it can be very frustrating when you are dealing with so many children.

We have 15 girls living here and six of the girls are 12 or 13 years and they are like girls anywhere, just with a lot of added problems. It takes it´s toll on you at times but then you have to remember where they have come from and you see how far they have come and realize that you can´t expect miracles over night.

Basically, they just need a lot of love.

All the girls who are having ballet classes are doing quite well. One girl, Maria, is in a separate class to the others as she has been taking ballet classes a couple of years and is a natural. The ballet teacher, who is giving the classes for free, had a talk to me one day about the girls progress. She explained why she commenced additional classes for our girls. At first, the girls were quite badly behaved, acting like what she called ´ranch girls´, so with the threat of loosing her paying students she started a separate class on Saturdays. Some of the girls are developing very well, but a few of them are not made for ballet or have just started too late.

The teacher didn´t want these girls in the class as she is going to combine the classes soon. I explained our desire for them. We don´t expect to turn them into ballerinas but these classes are ´fine tuning´ them. These girls need so much attention in so many areas and these classes are helping to refine them. The teacher has done amazing work with them and we need all the help we can get.

The teacher has agreed to keep them for another year.

Four different children go each week to take etiquette classes with a friend of ours who has a restaurant. This amazing lady, who is 70 years, gives up her day-off to do this. She also gives them talks about respect etc. The children have never learnt how to respect people, places or things. Their models were not taught these qualities themselves so we have to try and break the cycle.

Leonel, the 15 year old who was shot in the head and left to die along with every member of his family, eight in all, is doing really well in his studies. He had never been to school before and is now in an adult school where he should be able to pass primary school in one year. In a recent exam which was his first exam, he got a perfect score. We are very happy for him.

Leonel, Moacir 16yrs and Jose 13yrs are now doing a little part time work. Moacir helps our friend John in his little park that he is establishing and our daughter Brooke´s father-in-law is employing the other two. This is mainly to give them work experience but they also earn money that they are saving.

We have been giving the children intensive swimming training each Sunday in John´s pool and we are starting to see results. I get so excited about their progress that I am sure I bore everyone when I start raving about ´our kids´.

I was very enthusiastic when we had some recent visitors from an exclusive club in Tapachula who had offered to help us for one year. I mentioned some items that we need on a regular basis that they could help with and then had the bright idea that maybe they could give us two or three scholarships for swimming for our best swimmers. Our best swimmers are great kids who are doing well in all areas of their lives, with two of our older boys really excelling. These ladies took the idea to a meeting but we were knocked back. I guess these kids aren´t good enough to mix with the cream of Tapachula.

Our new house has come to a standstill due to the fact of not having enough money to continue. Even though the threat of being kicked out of this place has diminished for the moment due to a change of government, we have outgrown this house, well I guess it isn´t the house so much, but there just isn´t any area for the children to play. The other house has a huge yard with lots of lovely trees but there is still so much to do to make the house livable.

Hopefully I will be able to return to Australia to fund raise the funds needed to complete this project before the end of the year.

If by any chance you know of anyone who may like to support us in this work, please pass this newsletter on. If they write to us with their email address we will include their name on our mailing list. Also, included here are the details to forward donations:

Donations can be forwarded to, ´Mission Mexico´

MSC Mission Office
P.O. Box 177,
Kensington NSW
Australia 1465

Thank you for your help in this area. Also, thank you to all those who have sent money already for this project. What has been completed so far was only possible by your generous support. I am sorry I can´t write to each of you personally, I wish I could, but I want you to know that we really appreciate your thoughtful kindness.

Also, to all our regular supporters, thank you. You are the backbone of this refuge. God bless you all.

Honestly, if it wasn´t for the generosity of our friend John, who has got a huge heart, who lends us his house at the beach every weekend and who helps us in so many ways, we would be crazy by now!

During the last school holidays Alan stayed at John´s house at the beach with all the older boys. Toni and I went out with the girls and little ones on a daily basis. It was extremely tiring but it is the only way to occupy such a large amount of children and they love it, especially that Alan is back as they can now surf again.

During the recent Easter holidays there were a few drowning incidents at Playa Linda, as there are every vacation period. That is why we feel it is so important for these children to be skilled in these areas. Hopefully, when they are older, they will be able to train others in swimming and surf sense.

With love to you all,

God bless and keep you,

Pam and Alan Skuse