Vienna Resident Meets Elderly Friend in El Salvador

By Liz Quirin
Special to the HERALD
(From the Issue of 7/12/07)

Humbling. Inspiring. Eye-opening. Frustrating. A truly spiritual adventure.
A recent mission awareness trip to El Salvador, sponsored by the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA), sparked these observations from 25 travelers from the Diocese of Arlington and across the United States.
Tracy Ryan, a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Vienna, decided to make the trip for two reasons: to meet Toribio Mira Morales, 91, the elderly man she had been sponsoring for five years through CFCA, and “to immerse myself in something very ‘other’ service-oriented,” she said.
“In a letter I received from Toribio in late 2005, amidst his usual updates on his health, and his activities, he thanked me again for my sponsorship, and he commented that his fondest wish was that some day he might get to meet me,” Ryan said.
She was determined to go to El Salvador and meet Toribio and “to try — for a brief time — to put myself in his shoes.”
The week-long trip provided a variety of experiences, including work with school children in CFCA-sponsored projects. During the trip, sponsors learned about the benefits their support provides including school uniforms and supplies, and access to health and dental care for children and the elderly. Money from sponsorship programs also pays for staffing at a CFCA project headquarters.
With the help of CFCA’s local project leader in Santa Ana, El Salvador’s second largest city, Ryan and Morales met at a national park with a larger group of sponsors, friends and interpreters who moved among the group to help communication.
Ryan said it didn’t matter if she could understand every word Toribio said. She sat in the shade and smiled, holding his hands and listening to his stories.
CFCA links the child or elderly person with a friend in the United States, and helps the pair develop a relationship through letters that are translated by CFCA into each person’s native language.
While visiting Toribio and other communities where children and the elderly were sponsored, Ryan was overwhelmed by the hospitality and warm greetings the group received.
“I kept wondering what we had done to warrant being heralded like heroes,” she said. “It was clear that the communities were grateful for the support they received — the food, clothing, housing, medical care and education assistance — which was really so little by our standards.”
The people appreciated the group’s interest in showing “that we know that they exist, that they are important to us — that they matter to someone, to us,” Ryan said. “Their openness, willingness to share the little that they had, and generosity in planning such extravagant welcomes and performances for us — given their means — was something I will never forget.”

CFCA began sponsoring children and the elderly in El Salvador in 1985. The organization, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2007, currently serves 318,000 people in 25 countries worldwide. CFCA has sponsored 10,381 children, 714 elderly and 65 vocations through the Santa Ana project. For information about CFCA, go to www.cfcausa.org.