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Home > Archive > Apr 3, 2008

A 'Mommy' to Many
By Cami Cox
Staff Writer
Whether she's volunteering at a retirement home, working with developmentally challenged infants and toddlers, running in the Relay for Life or mentoring her “Little Sister” in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, Lindsey Esplin strives to give service. But this 21-year-old decided there was still more she could do to make a difference in the world, so last summer, Esplin departed for Cuenca, Ecuador, to spend six months working with orphaned children.
“It was crazy. I didn't know what I was getting myself into!” she said with a laugh.
Paying her own way with some financial help from the local community, Esplin signed on to be a sites coordinator for the Orphanage Support Services Organization, a Rexburg, Idaho-based group providing financial and volunteer support to more than 12 Ecuadorian orphanages.
As a sites coordinator, Esplin took on the mammoth task of overseeing operations at seven different orphanages and children's institutions in Cuenca. She was in charge of training new volunteers and coordinating their efforts, teaching the orphans and conducting physical and cognitive therapies for the babies, communicating between the English-speaking volunteers and the Spanish-speaking nuns and religious groups running the orphanages, and also working with the disabled children at two orphanages for handicapped kids. In the midst of all that, Esplin still found time to volunteer weekly at a Cuenca rest home.
“I love (volunteering)!” she said. “I'm telling you, that's where you get to be happy. It's the thing that makes me smile the most. It's so great.”
Esplin's favorite aspect of volunteering in Cuenca was, by far, working with the children.
“They have nothing. That's the most incredible thing is they have nothing, but they're the happiest kids I've ever seen in my entire life,” she said.
At Christmastime last year, Esplin's mom traveled from St. George to Cuenca to visit her daughter, bringing toys, treats and other stocking stuffers, donated by people back home, to give to the orphans. When asked previously what they wanted for Christmas, many of the kids said they wanted toothbrushes, so a dentist in the St. George area donated toothbrushes for all of them.
“The look in their eyes was just absolutely incredible, and they were just so grateful for just a toothbrush,” Esplin said. “I remember one of the girls, I had given her a toothbrush, and it had Strawberry Shortcake on it, and she just squealed. It was so cute. She's never been so excited in her life, and it was just for something so simple like that. So I am so grateful for the community. They seriously gave me so much support.”
Though volunteering with the orphans was “the best decision I've ever made in my entire life,” Esplin said, a daunting part of the experience was the language barrier. Prior to going to Ecuador, Esplin had taken a few Spanish classes, but her mastery of the language was not sufficient to prepare her for the job she was undertaking. Becoming more fluent in Spanish while there was a big initial challenge, she said, but the real challenge would come later, when it was time to go home and leave the orphans behind.
“I have never cried so hard in my entire life,” Esplin said. “It was so devastating for me, because they became my kids – especially where I was there a lot longer than any other volunteer.”
Most OSSO volunteers spend a week to two months at the orphanages, she said, but as a sites coordinator, Esplin stayed six months. To the hundreds of orphans she taught, worked with, played with and came to love during that time, Esplin became much more than a volunteer.
“I truly feel like I'm their mom,” she said. “A lot of the kids called me mom.”
“It's just hard to leave them, you just love them so much,” she went on to say. “It's so worth it, but then your heart just aches every day. There's not a second that passes that I don't think about my kids.”
Though she came to love all the children, Esplin formed special bonds with a few favorites – kids she would now like to bring home and keep forever.
“That would just be my dream,” she said.
Esplin is currently looking into adoption, to see what the possibilities are for becoming “Mom” permanently for some of the kids. In the meantime, she keeps photos and fond memories close.
“The last day I was there, one of the little boys got hit in the head by a swing, and he was just crying, so I was holding him,” she said. “All the workers and the nuns were taking care of him and trying to take him from me, and he would just cry, and he was like, 'No! Mommy, Mommy!' and he was just calling me mommy.
“It's been hard, but it seriously was life-changing.”
Esplin is planning a return trip to Ecuador soon to visit the kids that have become like her own. Meanwhile, she hopes to inspire others to reach out and help the orphans there.
“Everyone can help. You don't have to go down there to be helping,” she said.
The OSSO organization supports many orphanages in Ecuador, including one owned by the group called Los Pequeñitos de OSSO. Financial contributions are accepted by the group to aid in its efforts, and individuals can also volunteer, as Esplin did. But whether someone gives money, volunteers with OSSO or volunteers elsewhere, Esplin encourages service in all of its forms.
“I think the biggest thing that I learned was just not to be selfish and to give of everything,” she said. “I found that that is where our happiness comes from, from giving and serving other people. I learned to love – I've never loved somebody so much in my entire life as those kids. They are just absolutely incredible, and they love unconditionally. You just look in their eyes, and you can see the love that they have for you, and it's amazing.”
For more information about the Orphanage Support Services Organization, including ways to volunteer or contribute, visit www.orphanagesupport.org or call (208) 359-1767.

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