Date: Fri 13-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

snapshot-Kiquis-Donovan

Full Text:

SNAPSHOT: KIQUIS DONOVAN

Occupation: I'm a sophomore at Villanova University. I'm studying sociology

and theology, and haven't decided yet which will be my major and which will be

my minor, but I've known since I was seven that I want to be a missionary. I

also work ten hours a week at a convenience store on campus, and I've worked

part-time at the Booth Library as a library aide since I was a sophomore in

high school.

How long in Newtown: My family moved to Newtown in 1986, when I was 12 years

old, from Mexico, where I was born. We lived about an hour away from Mexico

City but I went to school there.

Family: My parents, Kevin and Queta Donovan, and my brother, Kevin, who is a

senior at Providence College. My mother was born in Mexico and attended an

international school. She was in Vermont when she met my father at a Mexican

(theme) party that she organized. He went into the Peace Corps and spent two

years in Peru, but they kept in touch. Then they married and lived in Mexico

while he worked for General Electric. Now he has his own translating and

interpreting business.

Organizations: I volunteer on Thursday evenings with other Villanova students

at a soup kitchen that feeds between 75 and 150 people each night at St Mary's

Church on the old campus of the University of Pennsylvania. I also belong to

Hope, an outreach organization that assists the homeless on the streets of

Philadelphia.

Interests: I'm very service-oriented because my parents set that example for

me [while I was] growing up in a third-world country. I used to accompany my

mother to rural villages where she worked with the poor. I've made four

service mission trips back to Mexico, two with Opus Dei, a Catholic

organization, and two with my mother. I've also made service mission trips to

Nicaragua and El Salvador during school breaks. We've built classrooms, taught

catechism, cleared the jungle -- whatever is needed. On one school break I

volunteered on a Habitat for Humanity project in West Virginia. Last summer my

mother and I went to Calcutta, India, for six weeks where we worked with

Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in a home that gave shelter and love

and dignity to persons who were dying on the streets, people who were

diseased, starving, and even had wounds full of maggots. I'm fortunate because

although I'm still a student, I'm already doing what I want to do with the

rest of my life.

Personal philosophy: God is a big part of my life. I used to be caught up with

the material aspect of helping people who have nothing, but now I believe it

is far worse to be spiritually poor and lonely. Mother Teresa always said the

greatest suffering is to be unloved, uncared for, unwanted. I'm not "nurse

material" but in Calcutta God gave me the strength to look beyond the wounds

and disease of dying people. I found Jesus in each person; it was the biggest

gift I've ever been given by God. I want to go back -- there's so much that

needs to be done. But I need a sponsor to do that because you have to pay for

your own transportation and accommodations.