A wave of helpfulness spilled from Miesbach to Ecuador. District citizens donated 20,000 euros.
Miesbach / Tababela - Padre Heinrich Rosner is downright flat. Because of the dramatic conditions in his parish, but also because of the wave of helpfulness that has spilled from his homeland Miesbach to distant Ecuador. More than 20,000 euros for Corona aid in Ecuador went to the 82-year-old clergyman's account within a few days of being called up in the home newspaper. Old friends, church foundations, associations, companies and many donors unknown to him would have gathered this incredible amount, enthuses Rosner. He was very touched by this spontaneous help for the poorest in the poor country at the equator. "My old home is really home in the best sense," the padre thanks the people in the Miesbach district.
Padre Rosner
© private
It is a gentle glimmer of hope in the darkest time that Rosner had to experience in 48 years in South America. "The corona pandemic far outshines everything, really everything," he says. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, dictatorships, revolutions, corruption and many other catastrophes had never had these dramatic consequences. Officially, the virus in Ecuador infected 40,000 people in early June and claimed 5,500 lives. Rosner fears that the number of unreported cases is many times larger. "Somehow everything is shaking, where is there still safe ground under your feet?" The padre asks desperately. At 82 years old, he felt challenged in pastoral care and organization like never before.
The money from Miesbach helps the Padre to do at least something for the people in his parish near the capital, Quito. He ordered and distributed countless grocery packages, masks and rubber gloves. Sometimes Rosner also has to negotiate hard, especially when it comes to the “mafia prices” of oxygen cylinders and coffins. "The padre is not very peaceful there," says the 82-year-old. In the meantime, the dead had to be buried in boxes. The cemetery in Tababela is being expanded.
Rosner is there for people even in the last hours of her life. In a protective suit, he visits the dying Corona patients, donates the sacraments and arranges last phone calls with the relatives. Triage and final sedation are daily routine in the hopelessly overloaded hospitals, Rosner reports visibly affected. “The sick then sleep towards their deaths.” All of this drains people and him as a 82-year-old twice. Nevertheless, he tries to give dignity to dying. He now always carries out funeral Psalm 104, says Rosner. "He speaks of God's breath of life."
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The padre himself often has to take a breath during this breathless time in order to be able to assist the people in Ecuador. "I'm pretty broke," says Rosner and asks the Miesbacher "more violently than ever" to continue donating to the Ecuadorians. The money is used for groceries, agricultural leases, seeds, electricity, water, telephone and internet (for school lessons), hygiene and disinfection articles, medicines and of course corona tests - also for the Waorani Indians in the jungle, whom Rosner is fond of are.
Although he is needed more than ever in Ecuador, the padre wants to start his healthy vacation in Miesbach in mid-July. He asked the faithful there to include the people of Ecuador in morning and evening prayer. The padre promises that he will only use the donations in his parish of Tababela. "I can't save half of Ecuador."
