Three jobs, two cars and a mortgage
This is Marie Louise, who passed away Sunday.
This is the devastating reality of trying to help the poorest of the poor, so far away, where you have zero control over anything at all. It makes me feel like none of us--myself least of all--will make an impact with any of these kids, no matter what any of us try to do. This is the second sister the children have lost this year. They're understandably frightened about their own health, and their future outside of the orphanage. I want to tell them I won't let anything bad happen to them, they're going to be all right, but I can't promise anything. All I can do is love them, and try to help them smile.
We sent over some funds to purchase a flowering shrub the children planted after a church service for her. Some of our volunteer teachers made a little reception after that, where the kids talked about Marie Louise and what they loved and won't forget about her.
At our zoom meeting, we saw pictures from the service which broke my heart, but seeing the kids smiling sent me into orbit.
We talked over an hour tying up summer projects and got working on the school year. One of my tasks was to find a centralized place where we could store photos, videos and other project pieces where everyone can access it on the web instead of Dropbox... which resulted in my calling my nephew into the fold (upper right). He's a geek from Citrix, and in half an hour set up a Meetings space that'll keep us all connected, even when it's raining in Yaounde (which crashes their servers). He's come such a long way from his pre-K Legend of Zelda days; I'm so proud of him!
The same day the world lost Marie Louise, Chris introduced us to his son, Charlie:
I hope you're doing okay. It's been a rough year.