.jpg)
.jpg)
As many of you know we have had so much rain these past months. I think altogether there has not been 7 days without rain in a 3 month time period. You know when it has been raining a lot when everywhere you go the mud covers everything up. So much of the very nice grass that we had is now a big mudhole. Finally, we have had 36 hours with no rain! It has been overcast today and occasionally the sun will peek through to look at all the mud below, and then it jets back behind the clouds once again.
I noticed the middle of this week that water was pouring out from under the corner of the outside wall of the kitchen. I thought it was a broken pipe but it was a spring that had decided to come up right in that area. I could put my fist in the hole that the spring had made. The workers we nonchalant about it. They said, "It is a spring". So I got to looking around and there are many of these springs over our farm right now! That is the reason for the areas of saturated muddy/grassy blotched up places all over our farm. It looks like the beginning of a bog. It happens to be in a high traffic area, the kitchen and the barn the others are close to the animal shelters. So we sludge through the mud getting from point to point and the water from the spring is pouring out like a opened spigot. The water table from beneath has met the water table from all the rain and so now we have these springs. I am told they will eventually disappear when it get dryer. It is supposed to rain tomorrow.
Now our circumstances are not desireable, but there is a neighboring aldea in the next mountain that have a problem that is more severe. They have lost their homes because these springs have come up in the middle of their dirt floor houses. They melted the adobe and their houses fell in. Fourteen families in all have this situation going on. I have been told that 2 of the 14 homes are totaled. The others will be able to move back in a make repairs, but it will be a while. Meantime, they are living at a local school. School has been closed because the children couldn't get to class.
Please pray for these 70 people who are homeless. We are hoping to carry some supplies into them this week.
One of our girls that had graduated out of the farm about 4 years ago had her baby this past week. She had the baby within 3 hours of arriving at the hospital. She called me early that morning and said that she had been visiting her family in a remote area close to the El Salvadorian border. Her pains began and she asked her dad to find a 4x4. He finally found a friend who had a 4x4, but he would only carry her half way. She called me to please bring her papers to the hospital so that they would admit her.
I caught a ride with Chilo in the bus . He was going to take the girls to school. Normally the girls walk to school, but it was raining and the entrance was covered in extremely soft mud. The bus bogged down in the entrance into our farm. We couldn't open the bus doors, so the girls had to bail out the back. I felt like I was directing paratrooper operation, telling them to "Jump".
Chilo did get the bus out of the mud. Before that happened, we got out and started walking towards the school. The school teachers drove up and I asked if there was school today. They said that there was but the only students that came were ours. so they were going to cancel classes. We loaded the girls back onto the bus. I asked them if they knew if the buses were running and they said the local mayor has suspended buses from traveling the roads for now. The roads are destroyed. The ruts are 2 to 3 ft deep in some places and the buses are scraping the bottom as well as some of the smaller cars and trucks. The teachers had just come from La Esperanza where I was headed, and they told me the horror stories about the roads. Chilo drove me into Yamaranguila and dropped me off, and I got my umbrella out to wait for a 4x4 to pass by. The teachers came by thankfully and let me get inside. What a blessing! I told them what was going on and so they said they wanted to help and they would carry us directly to the hospital. It was raining hard at this point.
We found her standing where the father's friend had left her in the middle of the road, in a light weight black car coat holding a borrowed umbrella and she was crying. As she got into the cab of the truck. I was sitting in the back and I wanted to just hold her. I remembered back to an earlier time when she came to live with us at Project Talitha Cumi. Her mother had died and her 3 sisters who still live here came to the farm first . She came later because she had been living with her grandmother for years. She told me yesterday, that she had been told that when North Americans get Honduran children they strip their skin off and cook them and eat them. When we picked her up years ago she had her face hidden in the crook of her arm and crying like a crazy person. She cried for about 3 days. I guess because we didn't break out the big stew pot to cook her in she finally calmed down.
She left our farm about 3 1/2 years ago. We tried different technical training schools, but she just didn't have it on her mind to study. So we had gotten her an apartment and a job and she was busting to be on her own which is a normal thing for an eighteen year old girl. She had found herself a boyfriend this past year , and a respectable job and it seemed like it was going to work out for her. Sadly though, there was a problem like so many young people experience, and she was alone. She has been working part time these last two months at the farm to be able to provide for some of the things she wanted to buy for her baby.
We got her to the hospital at 9 am and she had the baby at 11:48 They made her take a freezing cold shower afterward and was going to do the same for the newborn baby and she said she would take care of it when she got home. We had to wait until 4 pm to be able to see her and the baby. I waited most the day with the dad. I read a book, sent facebook messages from my Blackberry, hoping we could get in sooner to see the baby.
After we saw the Mom and baby I grabbed a taxi to get us to the exit of the town hoping to catch a ride. A red pick up truck stopped at the corner where people who have missed the bus usually stand hoping to catch a ride in the back of a pickup truck. I was about to ask where was he going when he got out of the truck. His head was shaved and had a squint in one eye when he talked. He was seriously spooky looking. Seeing a shaved head around here is very "sketchy". So I didn't pursue my hitch hiking ways. I decided to go get some french fries and called a friend to come and help me to get home.
I hired a truck the next day to take me over the bad roads to get me to the bank, grocery store, the feed store, and the last stop was the hospital. We got her and the baby checked out and loaded into the truck. We slipped and slided all the way out of La Esperanza until we got to a point in the road where traffic had stopped. A large blue bus had bottomed out. None of the passengers wanted to get out of the bus because it could mean that they would be walking in the mud that was the consistency of chocolate pudding. So they refused to lighten the load. The line behind us kept getting longer. About 40 men got out of their vehicles and started scavaging rocks to place under the wheels of the bus. It was wonderful to see how much could be done when everyone worked together.
They were almost finished getting the bus in a position to get it out of the mud when a red 4x4 truck broke through the line of patient motorists and drove over to the right side of the bus. As it was passing by everybody couldn't believe he was going to complicate an already strained situation. He cruised by and then slowly slid off into the ditch. All the men who had been working through their arms up in frustration and set up a cheer of sarcasm "Uh huh good job" to the impatient truck driver. They were almost giddy about what happened.
I will have to confess that Corinthians 13 was not on my mind at that moment. I was in agreement with the others. We were all trying to get home for one reason or another and this guy hindered the work that was going on. Ben , the new intern, gave a devotion the other day about Corinthians 13. I told the girls when ever anyone was acting unloving manner unlike Cor. 13 tells us to do, we were allowed to say "Corinthians 13" to that person to remind them that they are not abiding in love. Well, I found I had to say it to myself.
I felt really good about going to pick up the mother and baby and doing all the good works of getting her to hospital and all that entailed. I was really feeling kind of good about myself and then, boom, I get convicted once again. I should have had some compassion on the guy in the red truck when the other people refused to help him, but I confess I did not. I have so far to go.
So after an hour the bus finally cleared the ruts, and was out. The new mom and I were freezing because Don Chilo and the owner of the car were in the front with the windows down because they didn't want to miss any of the carnival type atmosphere that began to take place around the bus.
We finally got home and unloaded the truck. The owner was a different kind of guy who wore a gold plated chain and big medallion with a big gold tone looking watch. He didn't talk much at all. I asked him where he went to Church and Chilo answered for him, "He doesn't go anywhere, but he is a canidate". I found out later that he has a problem with alcohol and the reason he was letting Chilo drive his truck is because he legally could not. I thought that was pretty nice. He was different but he needs God and he knew it. The most reaction that he had the total day with everything going on was that he was amazed at the groceries we buy per week. I told him that because we have 27 girls and some staff that eat with us it ends up being about 34 people at each meal. While we were loading up he kept saying incredously "More?" So it took us a while to unload because there were a lot of supplies and it was raining.
I was thankful for the man who lets us rent his truck for the day, and that mother and the baby are doing well ,and for the girls who have been really helpful and trying to be quiet. They are not used to babies being around. Mother and baby will be here for 2 weeks and then she moves to Teg. to be with her aunt who is going to help her with the baby while she gets a job. Pray for her plans to come together. Pray that I will not think more highly of myself and really walk with everyone, not just the folks I know, in a Corinthians 13 kind of way. Blessings, the Hitchhiking No Longer, Honduran MOM
I noticed the middle of this week that water was pouring out from under the corner of the outside wall of the kitchen. I thought it was a broken pipe but it was a spring that had decided to come up right in that area. I could put my fist in the hole that the spring had made. The workers we nonchalant about it. They said, "It is a spring". So I got to looking around and there are many of these springs over our farm right now! That is the reason for the areas of saturated muddy/grassy blotched up places all over our farm. It looks like the beginning of a bog. It happens to be in a high traffic area, the kitchen and the barn the others are close to the animal shelters. So we sludge through the mud getting from point to point and the water from the spring is pouring out like a opened spigot. The water table from beneath has met the water table from all the rain and so now we have these springs. I am told they will eventually disappear when it get dryer. It is supposed to rain tomorrow.
Now our circumstances are not desireable, but there is a neighboring aldea in the next mountain that have a problem that is more severe. They have lost their homes because these springs have come up in the middle of their dirt floor houses. They melted the adobe and their houses fell in. Fourteen families in all have this situation going on. I have been told that 2 of the 14 homes are totaled. The others will be able to move back in a make repairs, but it will be a while. Meantime, they are living at a local school. School has been closed because the children couldn't get to class.
Please pray for these 70 people who are homeless. We are hoping to carry some supplies into them this week.
One of our girls that had graduated out of the farm about 4 years ago had her baby this past week. She had the baby within 3 hours of arriving at the hospital. She called me early that morning and said that she had been visiting her family in a remote area close to the El Salvadorian border. Her pains began and she asked her dad to find a 4x4. He finally found a friend who had a 4x4, but he would only carry her half way. She called me to please bring her papers to the hospital so that they would admit her.
I caught a ride with Chilo in the bus . He was going to take the girls to school. Normally the girls walk to school, but it was raining and the entrance was covered in extremely soft mud. The bus bogged down in the entrance into our farm. We couldn't open the bus doors, so the girls had to bail out the back. I felt like I was directing paratrooper operation, telling them to "Jump".
Chilo did get the bus out of the mud. Before that happened, we got out and started walking towards the school. The school teachers drove up and I asked if there was school today. They said that there was but the only students that came were ours. so they were going to cancel classes. We loaded the girls back onto the bus. I asked them if they knew if the buses were running and they said the local mayor has suspended buses from traveling the roads for now. The roads are destroyed. The ruts are 2 to 3 ft deep in some places and the buses are scraping the bottom as well as some of the smaller cars and trucks. The teachers had just come from La Esperanza where I was headed, and they told me the horror stories about the roads. Chilo drove me into Yamaranguila and dropped me off, and I got my umbrella out to wait for a 4x4 to pass by. The teachers came by thankfully and let me get inside. What a blessing! I told them what was going on and so they said they wanted to help and they would carry us directly to the hospital. It was raining hard at this point.
We found her standing where the father's friend had left her in the middle of the road, in a light weight black car coat holding a borrowed umbrella and she was crying. As she got into the cab of the truck. I was sitting in the back and I wanted to just hold her. I remembered back to an earlier time when she came to live with us at Project Talitha Cumi. Her mother had died and her 3 sisters who still live here came to the farm first . She came later because she had been living with her grandmother for years. She told me yesterday, that she had been told that when North Americans get Honduran children they strip their skin off and cook them and eat them. When we picked her up years ago she had her face hidden in the crook of her arm and crying like a crazy person. She cried for about 3 days. I guess because we didn't break out the big stew pot to cook her in she finally calmed down.
She left our farm about 3 1/2 years ago. We tried different technical training schools, but she just didn't have it on her mind to study. So we had gotten her an apartment and a job and she was busting to be on her own which is a normal thing for an eighteen year old girl. She had found herself a boyfriend this past year , and a respectable job and it seemed like it was going to work out for her. Sadly though, there was a problem like so many young people experience, and she was alone. She has been working part time these last two months at the farm to be able to provide for some of the things she wanted to buy for her baby.
We got her to the hospital at 9 am and she had the baby at 11:48 They made her take a freezing cold shower afterward and was going to do the same for the newborn baby and she said she would take care of it when she got home. We had to wait until 4 pm to be able to see her and the baby. I waited most the day with the dad. I read a book, sent facebook messages from my Blackberry, hoping we could get in sooner to see the baby.
After we saw the Mom and baby I grabbed a taxi to get us to the exit of the town hoping to catch a ride. A red pick up truck stopped at the corner where people who have missed the bus usually stand hoping to catch a ride in the back of a pickup truck. I was about to ask where was he going when he got out of the truck. His head was shaved and had a squint in one eye when he talked. He was seriously spooky looking. Seeing a shaved head around here is very "sketchy". So I didn't pursue my hitch hiking ways. I decided to go get some french fries and called a friend to come and help me to get home.
I hired a truck the next day to take me over the bad roads to get me to the bank, grocery store, the feed store, and the last stop was the hospital. We got her and the baby checked out and loaded into the truck. We slipped and slided all the way out of La Esperanza until we got to a point in the road where traffic had stopped. A large blue bus had bottomed out. None of the passengers wanted to get out of the bus because it could mean that they would be walking in the mud that was the consistency of chocolate pudding. So they refused to lighten the load. The line behind us kept getting longer. About 40 men got out of their vehicles and started scavaging rocks to place under the wheels of the bus. It was wonderful to see how much could be done when everyone worked together.
They were almost finished getting the bus in a position to get it out of the mud when a red 4x4 truck broke through the line of patient motorists and drove over to the right side of the bus. As it was passing by everybody couldn't believe he was going to complicate an already strained situation. He cruised by and then slowly slid off into the ditch. All the men who had been working through their arms up in frustration and set up a cheer of sarcasm "Uh huh good job" to the impatient truck driver. They were almost giddy about what happened.
I will have to confess that Corinthians 13 was not on my mind at that moment. I was in agreement with the others. We were all trying to get home for one reason or another and this guy hindered the work that was going on. Ben , the new intern, gave a devotion the other day about Corinthians 13. I told the girls when ever anyone was acting unloving manner unlike Cor. 13 tells us to do, we were allowed to say "Corinthians 13" to that person to remind them that they are not abiding in love. Well, I found I had to say it to myself.
I felt really good about going to pick up the mother and baby and doing all the good works of getting her to hospital and all that entailed. I was really feeling kind of good about myself and then, boom, I get convicted once again. I should have had some compassion on the guy in the red truck when the other people refused to help him, but I confess I did not. I have so far to go.
So after an hour the bus finally cleared the ruts, and was out. The new mom and I were freezing because Don Chilo and the owner of the car were in the front with the windows down because they didn't want to miss any of the carnival type atmosphere that began to take place around the bus.
We finally got home and unloaded the truck. The owner was a different kind of guy who wore a gold plated chain and big medallion with a big gold tone looking watch. He didn't talk much at all. I asked him where he went to Church and Chilo answered for him, "He doesn't go anywhere, but he is a canidate". I found out later that he has a problem with alcohol and the reason he was letting Chilo drive his truck is because he legally could not. I thought that was pretty nice. He was different but he needs God and he knew it. The most reaction that he had the total day with everything going on was that he was amazed at the groceries we buy per week. I told him that because we have 27 girls and some staff that eat with us it ends up being about 34 people at each meal. While we were loading up he kept saying incredously "More?" So it took us a while to unload because there were a lot of supplies and it was raining.
I was thankful for the man who lets us rent his truck for the day, and that mother and the baby are doing well ,and for the girls who have been really helpful and trying to be quiet. They are not used to babies being around. Mother and baby will be here for 2 weeks and then she moves to Teg. to be with her aunt who is going to help her with the baby while she gets a job. Pray for her plans to come together. Pray that I will not think more highly of myself and really walk with everyone, not just the folks I know, in a Corinthians 13 kind of way. Blessings, the Hitchhiking No Longer, Honduran MOM
No comments:
Post a Comment