The founder and director of the home, St. Maria Elena Beltran (I added the saint part)

Hola! I know I just wrote the other entry, but I'm on a roll (and I have a few hours to kill and a good internet connection here) so I thought I'd write another. This entry is about Maria Elena, the director and founder of the home. In short Maria Elena is as close to a saint as I have met here on this Earth. She is amazing and I think everyone should meet her. Here is her bio:
195?: Maria Elena is born. Neither she nor her parents are sure of exactly the date. Her parents did not declare her when she was born (that is very common here, it is estimated that !/2 of the population are not declared). When she later declared herself in order to go to school they put down her age as 53, so she thinks she's 53-55 years old. Her real name is also not Maria Elena but actually Sentola. She did not know this either until she tried to get her papers. It is common here for people to have 2 names, the name that their parents give them that is on all their official documents, and the name that everyone calls them, or their apodo, nickname. However, the apodo, unlike the nickname Bobby for Robert, Maria Elena has nothing to do with Sentola.
Maria Elena was born in a campo (rural-country community) called El Ceibo outside of La Victoria. Shas 13 brothers and sisters. They all lived together in a 2 room house with a zinc roof, dirt floors, and no runnning water or electricity, and the slept on the floor on palm tree branches. They struggled just to have enough food to eat. Her mother bought chickens from the country to sell in the city and her dad helped harvest sugar cane.
Maria Elena always knew that she wanted more in life. She decided that she would not have 12 children the way most of the women in the campo were doing at that time. She convinced her father to let her go into La Victoria to go to school. She worked hard and studied by candle-light during the dark nights in the campo without electricity.
Maria Elena wanted to do something with her life to help people and she felt a strong calling from God. She thought that this meant that she should be a nun, so she went to two different convents. She soon realized though that she did not want to be a nun.
She then got married and was making a life for herself by teaching sewing. But the married life wasn't for her either. She wasn't happy, she knew that there was something that she should be doing with her life but she didn't know what. She stayed with her husband only a year before she left him.
Then one day two little girls came into her life. Their mother was unable to care for them and Maria Elena felt compelled to offer to take care of them. That night she had a dream in which the Virgin appeared to her and told her to take care of these children. She asked the Virgin how she was supposed to be able to provide for them and the Virgin said that God would provide. This was 13 years ago and the very beggining of the home. Maria Elena took in the two girls plus many more. In the 13 years girls have grown up and left the home and gone to the university, gotten good jobs, are married and have children, and new little girls take their place in the home. There have been times when it looked like the home wouldn't make it, there wasn't enough money, but somehow they always make it through.
There are now 21 girls in the home and they are ages 4-16. They live in the same home that Maria Elena started the home with.
Maria Elena is the kindest person I think I have ever met. She has endless patience (like during the first month when I was constantly breaking down and crying,,,,I would have gotten sick of me but she never did). She is the most selfless person I have ever met, she is always thinking of others and putting them in front of herself (she gave me her bed when I moved in the home. I tried to tell her not to give me her bed, but she refused and insisted that I take her bed. That is just the kind of person she is).She is endlessly energetic. I am exhausted at the end of each day at the home but she is always still going; she is up from 5am and goes to bed at 11pm, sometimes later and sometimes she doesn't sleep at all. My admiration for this woman is endless. I can only hope to be like her some day and to learn as much from her as possible.