"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Let me start with the worst of times...
Today was the most difficult day of our trip. It started with a great morning delivering 8 mattresses and 99 (yes, 99!) heavy wool blankets to the girls home, Madre del Redentor. It is a home for young girls 11-18. It is in a very poor area of Piura but has a 10-12 foot brick wall with barbed wire on top for protection. The girls are clean, well fed, schooled and genuinely seem happy. Why they need a blanket of any kind is hard to understand as this is their winter and we sleep with fans blowing on us to keep cool. But, they were happy to get them!
Kathleen and I then spent 2 hours in the kitchen helping the three girls on lunch duty prepare lunch. It was fun as we (Kathleen, who by the way is quite fluent in Spanish) got to talk to just a few at one time. Normally when we go there, they all rush out and want to be with us (it is usually a large number of volunteers, too), but today they had to go back to class after they helped unload the truck. So, all in all, a good morning.
After lunch and siesta, Kate and I helped to deliver food in the Family to Family program. Families from the US donate $25.00 a month and their 'family' is given staples to help them feed their Peruvian families. We delivered to 15 homes and I have never seen such poverty. Nearly all had small children, one home had only 3 children, no adult home, the oldest looking around 8. They were all appreciative. The social worker with us asked them to show us (Kate and me) their homes. I am still bothered to tears when I think about how they live. There are no windows and most of the walls are made of woven bamboo. Bamboo tends to cave in and crack as it ages. Most of the floors were dirt and you had to be careful not to trip in holes or on mounds. There was no running water or toilet. Most had a burner to cook on, but one had a small fire going on the floor with a kettle on it. Many had chickens in the back end which was outside with lots of clothes hanging on lines. The chickens seemed to have free range inside the homes, too. There were flies everywhere! Few had electricity. The sun sets here around 6 so their nights are long. The children in the homes were all very solemn. One young girl carried a baby around until I took her from her. When it was time to go, I put the sleeping child in a stroller. I could not give her back to the little girl as my arms were sore and tired from holding her. There are dogs everywhere and today was the first time I was bothered by them. They must not get any traffic on their dirt roads because many dogs barked and ran along with the truck. Our little room at the parish seems like a palace and I will never again be upset by our cold water shower.
I can be strong physically, but today really challenged me emotionally and spiritually. Why do some of us have so much and these people have nothing? Please pray for God to give me the strength I need to continue.
Since I am typing through blurry eyes, I will ask Kathleen to write about our weekend. It was 'the best of times' I referred to earlier.
Everybody has heard this story but it's good to be reminded of it sometimes:
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
I am so incredibly proud of you both. Just remember that their lives are improved because of the two of you.
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