Loving the Least of These

Those of you who read my blog regularly have heard me talk about the dump before, and read as I explained the desperate situation that these people live in. Well, Monday night David, Ashley, Mike, Jen and I made peanut butter sandwiches, and Tuesday morning we loaded up the suburban, grabbed some water, and headed for the dump. As you drive up the dirt road flies and the worst smell I've ever smelled invades the car. Piles of trash line the road and once you reach the top you see mounds of trash with people, both adults and children, cows, vultures, rats, and dogs digging through them in search of something to eat. Visiting the dump this time was a little different than the last because this time I was able to actually interact with the people. I was able to look into their eyes as we handed them a sandwich and bag of water that would likely be the only meal they ate that day. I was able to see the pain in their eyes and desperation on their face. I beg for you to pray for these people. We know that going to the dump and feeding them once a week or once a month won't solve the problem, so I ask that you pray as we search for a long term solution, and the best way to help them. 

This past weekend we picked up the boys in Comayagua because they had called saying Francisco might have broken his arm. So we brought them to our house for two nights and took Francisco to get his arm checked out. He ended up with a cast because he broke both the bones in his arm from falling out of the pila at their house. So Saturday while he was at the doctor the rest of us took the other boys out to San Miguel to help a family add on to their house. Jen is close with this family because this past April while the Belpre team was here they were out in San Miguel and the mom had just had a baby, and the baby died shortly after birth. So Jen and Kay spent the day with this family loving on them and simply being by their side as they mourned. Jen has kept up with the whole family since then, and the last time we visited the dad mentioned wanting to build onto their small house to create more room for their family. So we offered to help. Saturday morning we showed up and leveled the ground, then moved the mound of dirt off their property so that we can start the actual building process. So for about 5 hours we dug, and then moved dirt with shovels and 5 gallon buckets, it was hard work but the boys loved it. It was so neat to be able to pick up a shovel with our boys and serve right along side them. 

This morning I was laying on my bed working on a couple of things when I heard something that sounded much like the shower running...so I kept working and about 30 seconds later I looked up to see David running down the hallway with water dripping off of him. Then I heard him telling Jen to hurry and turn off the water supply to the house.  Side note- when we first moved into our house we didn't have water for the first two days and we searched and searched for the pipe where we can turn the water on and off and never found it, but someone came and turned on another switch, and we now have water. So anyways, David went running back down the hallway, so I jumped up and went into his bathroom to see that the toilet was spraying water all over the place. By this point the water had completely flooded David's bathroom and was quickly filling his room, so I picked up the valuable things off the floor and stood his mattress up and then ran through the house in search of a mop. By the time I left David's room the water had started working it's way down the hallway into my bathroom and bedroom. [This was only about 3 minutes after it started spraying everywhere, just to give you and idea of how much water was coming out, and how quickly.] I couldn't find the mop, so I grabbed a broom and went running back upstairs to find that the water was headed for Jen's room next. David was in his bathroom with a bucket under the water leak and was dumping the water into the shower to try to keep the flooding to a minimum. So Jen calls the landlord and he came to shut the water off in a matter of minutes. So the water stopped spraying...and we were left with a flooded house. In some areas there was at least two inches of water on the floor.  So while David was in his bathroom Jen and I stood in the hallway surrounded by water, and all we could do was laugh hysterically. We weren't too sure if David found this to be funny at this point, but every time he turned around we broke out into a silent laugh. It was pretty hilarious, and by the end of it we were all laughing about it. After the water stopped spraying we realized that there was a LOT of water in the house...and we weren't too sure how we were going to get it all out, because mopping wasn't an option, and we certainly don't have enough towels for the amount of water that was on the floor, so we decided that we would build a tunnel through Jen's room and sweep the water out the door in her room onto the patio. So for about 45 minutes we swept water out of our rooms,  and then turned on fans to dry the water that was still on the floor. It was an eventful morning to say the least, and we finally have everything cleaned up and our mattresses are in the process of drying. :) Never a dull moment in Honduras.