Chet Pittman and his son's Paxton, left, and Brody ride home after a day of working on fences in Bevier, Mo.

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Cattle branding on the O-R ranch outside of Rozet, Wyoming.

Alyvia Ludwar holds a stuffed bear in her bedroom on Wednesday. Although many children with 16p11.2 display autistic symptoms, Alyvia only has a few “autistic quirks”. For example, she won’t give high fives, isn’t great at making eye contact and hates crowds. However she’s a social butterfly, loves her friends and shares many common interests with girls her age.

Vidal Cruz takes a brief rest after climbing up a hill adjacent to the river where he just took a bath. Despite his disability, Cruz walked the entire 74 km, 3-day pilgrimage, which he has been doing for 18 years. “When I am walking on the pilgrimage, I can go all day and it doesn’t bother me,” Cruz said after the pilgrimage. Cruz’s struggle did not go unrecognized by fellow pilgrims and he received a near constant stream of alms from fellow pilgrims.

Toni and Chet Pittman lead a prayer in their kitchen before having dinner with their friends, the Schnetzlers, at their home in Bevier, Mo. Although the Schnetzlers are much younger than the Pittmans, the two couples bonded and became friends through their shared Christian faith.

Javier Guaillas looks out the window in wonder at the new scenery in Machala, Ecuador, a city located on the Pacific Ocean. Guaillas was on a field trip with a group of students from a Loja-based school for lower income families. Guaillas, like many other students on the trip, has spent most of his life in the mountainous region around Loja and this was the first time in his life visiting the ocean.

Rhiannon Harry puts her husband Mike's wedding ring back on him while he shaves at Campbell County Memorial Hospital. Mike Harry has lost so much weight from his battle with esophageal cancer that his wedding ring is too big for his finger and so he wears it on a necklace. Harry and his wife Rhiannon were high school friends and married in 2010. This is Mike's fourth battle against cancer and the couple have spent much of their marriage so far dealing with it. “If it weren’t for the cancer, we’d have a happy life,” Mike once said to Rhiannon. “It’s not that it’s not happy,” she replied. “It just would be less complicated.”

From left, Tereza, Milton, Eddy, David, Inti and Luz María (front row) Lozano, pose for a family portrait outside the two rooms that the family calls their home in Loja, Ecuador. The room on the left is a small kitchen and eating area and the room on the right contains two beds that all six family members share. The Lozanos are from Saraguro, Ecuador a mainly indigenous and poor city in southern Ecuador, and came to Loja to find work. All four Lozano children attend a local non-profit school, called Educare, in Loja. Although not all the Educare students’ families are indigenous, the Lozanos are typical of the families whose children attend the school.

Students show off their projects for local leaders—known as Mallyku—during a science fair in Chama, Bolivia. Chama and other rural, indigenous villages voted for autonomy from the Bolivian government—a provision that allows them to retain traditional structures a government—, which was made possible by the new constitution ratified under the Evo Morales administration.

Shea Sneathen waits backstage during a dress rehearsal for the Gillette Community Theater's annual melodrama in Gillette, Wyo.