Meet the Residents

Carina
Carina is 16 and was entrusted to Santa Teresa Home ten years ago. Her mother could not care for her. She was unable to hear or speak because of untreated jaundice as an infant. When she arrived she could not walk unaided.

Although Carina she still suffers from involuntary movement, she can now walk on her own. She attends a special school and communicates in homemade sign language.

Jonathan
One of the youngest residents of Santa Teresa Home is Jonathan (6) who arrived in August 2003. Jonathan is from the town of Aristóbulo del Valle, 65 km from Oberá. “Neighbours alerted us to the sad plight of Jonathan,” says Fr Liam Hayes. “He was undernourished and dehydrated, and weighed only 9 kg. He was living with his father and an aunt by the side of a dirty stream in conditions not worthy of an animal. His mother had run away and his two sisters had died, one of them drowning in the dirty stream beside which he lived.”

“The day we found Jonathan we immediately noticed the crushing weight of sorrow in the eyes of his father and aunt. His father begged us to take the child, saying he could do no more for him.”

Jonathan’s father is a wandering labourer. “The suffering and exploitation of the wandering unskilled labourer in South America is one of the world’s greatest injustices,” says Fr Hayes. “They live a nomadic life as they have to travel long distances to find work, and they receive only subsistence wages.”

José
The oldest resident of Santa Teresa is José Santa Cruz Chaparro (62). José is hemiplegic – paralysed on the right hand side of his body – and unable to speak.

Originally from Paraguay, José worked as a night watchman in Buenos Aires. He was attacked in the course of his work, suffering severe head injuries including a bullet which lodged in his head and which cannot safely be removed.

Abandoned by his wife and family, José was found by Santa Teresa in 1995 at a centre for lepers. “Like all our other residents José has improved no end since coming to the Home,” says Fr Hayes. “But he is not always easy to deal with. He likes to be alone and undisturbed.”

Miguel RIP
Miguel had a terrible past. He was discovered by Fr Hayes in 1994, in a hut with his grandmother.

“He was living in sub-human conditions when we found him. He had long straggly hair and was tied to a post - preyed on by flies, mosquitoes and other insects.
Since all births are registered in Argentina it was possible in time to discover more about Miguel. He was 22 and had been born with perfect physical and mental health into a fairly happy situation. But when he was two years old, his mother died. Miguel suffered various illnesses but, being very poor, did not receive adequate medical help.

“His father told me he had walked long distances on mud roads with Miguel on his shoulders only to arrive at the public hospital and receive no medical attention,” reports Fr Hayes. “This is how the majority of the poorest of poor people are treated.”

In time, Miguel’s father was unable to cope and disappeared to another part of Argentina.

Miguel’s life changed a lot after he came to St Teresa’s Home. And in October 1999, about a week after St Teresa’s Home had been visited by the relics of its patron, St Thérèse of Lisieux, a remarkable event occurred. A man arrived at the home asking to see Miguel. It was his father, there to see his son after 26 years. The father sobbed and asked his child to forgive him for being so cruel to him and for running away from his responsibilities. “I asked him what prompted him to now seek out and visit Miguel,” Fr Hayes recalls. “He told me it was fear of his own death and judgment by the Lord.”

“For me personally, this reconciliation of father and son in the year dedicated to God the Father was the highlight of the year.”

Miguel departed this life for a better place in 2005.