It’s that time of year again - time for the annual Extreme Response Christmas parties. This year we’ll be holding parties in Quito, Ecuador and Cape Town, South Africa. The parties will run from Dec 2 - Dec 11th and we’re planning on celebrating with over 14,000 people between the two countries. Keep checking back for more updates!

For His Children is an orphanage which has been operating in Quito, Ecuador for 19 years with over 550 orphans having been cared for in the home. There are currently 45 children in the Quito home. A new home has been opened this year in the city of Latacunga, Ecuador, about 1 ½ hours from Quito, in order to help the orphans in that area of the country. Children are brought to the home by various means such as the police, who often find them abandoned in the parks, from hospitals, where the mothers give birth and leave the children, or from the court systems. Schooling is provided for all the children, including the many special-needs kids. While the new building is still under construction, the first floor is in use with 19 children. They expect to have 35 – 40 children eventually with room to increase up to about 70 children if needed. Work teams are coming from the US and Canada to help with the ongoing construction of the house. Extreme Response is offering to help them with the teams and short-term workers who desire to serve at the home. This will take a lot of the burden off the directors and give them more time to concentrate on the needs of the children. That’s what we do at Extreme Response.

by Mike Bishop

On August 30, six people from the Extreme Response Quito office went to the coastal town of Manta, Ecuador to help with a fundraiser for the Montañita Verde Children’s Home run by our partner organization Por Amor. A favorite Ecuadorian dish called Fritada (fried pork) was served with hominy and a salad. It was truly a cooperative effort between the orphanage, Extreme Response, Mr. Chancho (providing the pork), about 30 students from a cooking school, the local Howard Johnson’s Hotel and a local TV station, Manavisión. Everyone worked together to raise funds for the orphanage which cares for about 25 children. Over $3,000 was raised.

A team from Kensington Community Church of Troy, Michigan is currently on the coast of Ecuador, building a security wall around the Montanita Verde Orphanage.  They’re doing a great job with not only the construction, but also with building relationships with the children of the orphanage.  Thanks for all your hard work, team!

After months of planning and paperwork, fundraising and collecting of donated items, it seemed so surreal to finally be in Manta, Ecuador. I was part of a team of 11 Canadians from the Simcoe, Ontario area that flew to Manta to help put on the Christmas Outreach Events for 2008. We went loaded down with 22 suitcases, all weighing in at the 49.9 allowable pounds, ready to bring joy and encouragement to the poor people in the coastal area of Manta. We had brought with us toys, hygiene items, and school supplies to make up gift bags, for the approximate 600 children that we were to bring Christmas greetings to. We brought cash to purchase food supplies to make lunches for the folks at the parties and food baskets to take home with them as well. What a grocery shopping trip that was! Games were assembled for the parties. Simple things like plywood painted with cut out circles to allow bean bags to be tossed through. Stick fishing poles to play “Go Fish” were constructed. Plastic pop bottles filled with beach sand to toss rings onto. Laughter and love filled the room as the gift bags were put together. We were there in our minds, to bring encouragement to these forgotten folks. We just were not really ready for the 180 turn around that was about to happen to us as we set out for the locations of the Christmas parties. The big longing eyes, the smiles, the grateful hugs, the emotional out spring of thankfulness to us for coming. We saw children and adults together play our games, colour our crafts, and receive our gifts with enthusiasm as if we had taken them to Disney for the day. We thought we were to be the bearers of great joy, but I think we recieved just as much in return. I will never forget the encounter I had with one little guy and his mother. He had just received his gift bag, besides the toothbrush, toothpaste, face cloth, bar of soap, the bag also contained a little teddy bear and the “treasure of his eye” a shiny red Corvette Hot Wheel car. He turned to his mother so excited, she looked at him and then up at me. I asked our translator to have a quick conversation. The mother got up gave me a hug and told our translator…”thank you for coming far away from your home to bring us these gifts, I could never have enough money to be able to buy my son such a nice toy” To think that a hot wheel car that cost our team 64 cents a piece could bring so much joy. We all went back to Canada, lives a little changed…we live in the land of plenty, help us to be more generous to those who have nothing.