USC nursing team at Zambiza Dump, Tosagua and Mindo

On Wednesday last week, we took the team out to the Zambiza Dump where we did medical screenings for about 40 children in the morning, then fed them a meal. These children are cared for and go to school at the dump daycare while their parents are working sorting out the recyclable materials. In the afternoon, the children have a little play area built by another team and we entertained the kids with face painting and loving on them. We left for a while to go have dinner and then came back to the dump to do medical screenings for about 70 of the night workers. The USC team wanted to do something special for them so they bought two huge pots of Chinese food and we distributed that about 8:30 that evening. There were a few out of the box thinkers that wanted more, so they took 2 liter coke bottles and cut off the top and filled them up with left overs and took food back to their families that stayed back to continue to shuffle through the trash. Jose and Theresa, the Pastor and his wife, who have been working with the people at the dump for about 4 years, always use this opportunity to share the Gospel with the workers and to build relationships with them. Extreme Responses ultimate goal is supply the need and be able to come along side and support the local pastor and his ministry.
The next day we left early for a 9 hour journey to Tosagua with a short stopover in Santo Domingo to teach CPR to a local church group. Dr. Moss and a few other team members instructed them with a Red Cross video and mannequins. They were very eager to learn and were very appreciative. From there we drove through the rainforest to Tosagua. The first day we did medical screenings for about 92 people in the village where they didn’t have any electricity or running water. One lady accepted Christ and that was the biggest highlight of the day. We are always so amazed at how the local people bless us when we want to come to be a blessing to them. They managed to serve us a home cooked meal, Ecuadorian style of course, and provided all kinds of fruits throughout the day. They were very thankful for the team coming out and it was a great opportunity for the team to see how people live on very little means. The next morning we had a screening from 8:30 to 11:00 at the church and saw 80 people. We left for Manta, on the coast, and then caught a plane back to Quito. This was a wonderful experience for all of us and a wonderful opportunity to see more of Ecuador.
The last day we drove to Mindo where the team had a little R&R before flying back to the states. They got to go on 11 zip lines over another rainforest and then stop over for shopping at Mitad Del Mundo, middle of the world. The team came back to the team house for a wonderful dinner and debrief and then we took them to the airport for the red eye flight.