October 11, 2010

Mission accomplished

Ashley Dixon's fall vacation is down to the final hours. Friday, she met with Dr Antonio Salas, pictured here in front of La Vida Dulce Casitas, to pass along a wheel chair for a grandmother of an Isla Mujeres man. Armando is a maintenance worker/handyman who recently moved off island in search of work. His mother is a Mestiza now back in her Maya village between Merida and Campeche.
For the past six months, Armando has been trying to assemble money to get his grandmother a wheelchair so she can be amongst her great-grandkids. Things are so slow now, his family's needs so great, he could not assemble the 2500 pesos to buy her a wheel chair.
Dr Salas turn to me for help. I didn't have enough time in Ohio in June to pull it off. I turned it over to God and Facebook. Then, Gladys Galdamez got involved. She enlisted our mutual friend Kathleen Price, founder of Ohio's Mission of Love Foundation, a woman without limits, who had just finished a cleft pallet surgery brigade at the orphange founded by Gladys's mother, Casa Guatemala. Robin Mostachetti recently blogged bout her visit there.
Kathy called upon one of her donors, who made a donation in memory of his father, a long time Mission of Love volunteer. Kathy shipped the wheel chair to Ashley, who brought it down on her vacation. It didn't hurt that she has an aunt working as an airline nurse in case there were transportation issues.
Armando was leaving for the village where his grandmother now lives on Friday afternoon. Everything timed out great! The rendezvous was at 2pm and bam! the job was done.
Armando has a camera he got when times were better. He promised to take a picture of his grandmother in her new wheel chair, scooting amongst her great-grandchildren.
It doesn't take much to make a difference in lives. The motto of Mission of Love: You are not here to save the world, but to take the hand that reaches out for you.
Thank you Ashley Dixon. You made a difference.

2 comments:

Ann said...

What a wonderful story, Zina!

Jackie said...

How nice to be able to pull something like this together. You are all heros for accomplishing this.To some it may seem a small task but for grandma it will change her life.