Last Holy Week I spent it in the Sacred Heart community of Xalapa, Veracruz in Mexico, where Esperanza Orvananos rscj, Socorro Guerrero rscj, Lucila Cerrillo rscj, and Maria del Mar Clapera live. During this week, five other volunteers were visiting: Bibi, Marisol, Rosa, Ana Yetsi and Mariana, and one candidate: Griselda, so, the house was full.

It is amazing that, even if it is the forth time I have been there, the poverty the people face, still shocks me, specially the women and children. So, I would like to share with you a few stories that have touched my heart and changed my life forever.

The first one is about a seven-year-old kid, his name is Mario and he weighs about 24 pounds, he speaks very little and is very aggressive, this is because he has brain damage in the language and discipline area. Right now he has a rash all over because he has very little zinc, so, the community is working to help him. I send his picture so you can see the look in his eyes. He is the most tender expression of God's love for children.

There is a woman named Gloria, she has five children, they all live in a very small room, and to get there they have to climb about one hundred steps. The last time she had a kid, her water broke in her house, so she walked down the 100 steps, took a bus and went to the hospital. Luis, her child, was born in the evening and in the next morning, the doctors told her to leave because another patient needed the bed. So, she carried her son, took the bus, climbed the steps and went home.

The last story I want to share is from a woman named Isabel. I don't know her personally, but I am very fond of her six-year-old son, Hilario. They live in a very small house next to an open sewer canal. She is a prostitute, and has AIDS. So, she knows she is going to die very soon.

Each face has a heart-breaking story, and in the middle of all this poverty and pain, people talk about the love of God, their faithful Father, and believe in Him, and live the way He taught humanity to. Esperanza Orvananos rscj, my aunt, told me that what really evangelizes her is the attitude these people have. Once, she saw a woman return home after a day of work as a cleaning lady in one of the houses nearby, she got off the bus with less than a dollar in her pocket, and went to buy tortillas for her children. On her way home, she stopped by to visit a neighbor who was sick and could not go to work that day. Seeing that her children did not have anything to eat, she shared half of the food she had bought with her day's salary. The little she had, she shared it with love.

What is overwhelming is the presence of the Society of The Sacred Heart and what they have accomplished by educating and being educated by these people. I have witnessed the changes that their work has produced. Some years ago, they organized women to start making breakfast for their children, at first, they participated a lot, but little by little, they started making the women responsible for the cooking and cleaning. Right now, the women are totally in charge of making breakfast for all the children, and the Religious of the Sacred Heart hardly have anything to do with this, except providing the ingredients. This year, I enjoyed seeing the children who have breakfast, bigger.

I have learned that they are not there to solve the community's problems, but to educate the people and let them be the motor for their own growth. I have seen how they open their hearts to the poor, risk their lives, live with a very special charisma and enjoy they sold it all to follow Him. And the way they live, has been a very important lesson in my life.

A few weeks ago, I came back to Mexico City, where I live and work as an Economist. But something big happened in me: I believe in the presence of God, father and mother, among the poor. I am very grateful for having had this experience, for having carved in my heart the faces of all those people and for being touched by the hope of a more peaceful and just world.

I thank the Society of the Sacred Heart.

Marigela Orvananos is an Economics teacher in Mexico City. She attended the Sacred Heart School in Mexico City for for six years.