Yes, I Am Aware That This Is Crazy

*Imagine you have been abandoned with two small boys, and you are forced to move back in with your parents along with your sisters and sisters in law who have also been abandoned by their husbands...19 of you in total in one small household.  Your alcoholic father is the only man in the house, and his example in front of your two small boys is appalling.  The fighting between your sisters and sisters in law is never-ending, and you're stuck because there's no where for you to go.

*Imagine you are an elderly widow with no children, and your husband sold your home before he died.  The new owner graciously has given you one tiny corner of the house he only uses to store junk so you have somewhere to sleep...in the dirt. You also have to squat on 87 year old knees to cook for yourself over an open fire on the ground.

*Imagine you are 19, have special needs, and are about to give birth to a baby because some pervert took advantage of your innocence. The only person in your corner is your 80's+ grandma. You cook on on open fire on the ground and sleep under a pile of old clothes on a dirt floor.

*Imagine you live in steep mountains and live in fear of being buried alive in a mudslide every single rainy season, but there's nowhere to escape to even temporarily when you need to.

Here's the thing:  I don't have to imagine any of these things.  These aren't random scenarios for me; they are people I know and care about and situations I have seen with my own eyes....and there are a WHOLE lot more I could tell you about but I'll spare you that.

The name of my ministry is Loving InDeed (Amando Con Hechos in Spanish).  The house on our property has its own name though:  Casa El Roi-- El Roi meaning "the God who sees me."  I have been feeling for a few months now that it's time to add another ministry to the mix:  Refugio El Roi.  

I know there's a pile  of reasons you think I'm nuts--I'm not even finished building Casa El Roi yet.  I just started the program for the elderly.  I'm trying to get my own home built.  I don't have the money. I haven't even bought land in Cochico yet, and I have a whole plan for what needs to be built up there.  But I know that this is supposed to happen, and it needs to happen soon.  The current property--Casa El Roi--will be full once I finish building the final ministry center for the widows.  There is no more room to build anything else other than a bathroom and maybe another small greenhouse. 

So here is my crazy-ridiculous plan that could only have come from the Lord because it feels too big for me.  (God never gives jobs that are doable apart from Him.)  I want to buy at least 12 more cuerdas of land in Santa Barbara.  A cuerda is 21 square meters.  Three cuerdas will be designated for a future clinic, lab, and pharmacy. Jessie may or may not choose to run that someday.  One cuerda will be set apart and fenced off for an Alcoholic's Anonymous group to meet.  I cannot personally take on that ministry since the vast majority of alcoholics in Santa Barbara are men, but I can make space for it and find a solid Christian man to run it. Alcoholism is one of the biggest reasons that Loving InDeed's widows are in the situations they're in in the first place.  The other eight cuerdas will be divided up into small homesteads, each with a small house and land that the tenant will have to cultivate with corn, beans, squash, and amaranth.  For some, it would be temporary housing until their crisis passes; for others, like the 19 year old special needs girl with a baby on the way, it might be more permanent. There are a whole lot of reasons that might not occur to most Americans why a person here would need a temporary place to stay: earthquake made your house unlivable, for instance. One house would be for a couple or a "house mother" who could keep an eye on things there in our little ready-made community. This is not an impulsive thing; it's been on my mind and in my prayers for months, and I can't shake it. Have you ever been asked what you'd do with a million dollars?  This is what I'd do.  In fact, I'm so sure that God is in it that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone read this and funded the whole thing all at once, and I don't even know how much money we're talking yet!  If that doesn't happen, know that from this point forward, some of your donations will be set apart to make this happen as soon as possible.  

So here's what you can do:  

1.  Pray God gives us the perfect piece of property with easy water access for a good price.  Decent neighbors this time would be really spectacular.

2.  Pray God sends me more construction workers and the money to pay them.  Rogelio's job is Casa El Roi. I'll need another Rogelio for Refugio El Roi, but I'm not sure one exists. Finding a man as trustworthy and skilled as Rogelio is a bigger miracle in my opinion than God sending me a million dollar check to cover the whole thing.

4.  Pray that the money comes in.  Ask God if you're supposed to be a part of that.  I have friends who struggle and send me $10 a month, which I appreciate so much because I know it really costs them.   I also have friends who are millionaires who send chunks at a time, and a whole lot of you in between. It is ALL appreciated.   No matter what you send, God multiplies it; no gift is to small to be significant.

5.  Pray God sends me reliable people to help me in this endeavor--I mean the running of it, not the building of it. I'm not terribly worried about this one, honestly.  God has a tendency to see I need help and just plunk the perfect person right in my lap.  He's done it lots of times before, I'm sure He won't abandon me now, but prayers about it certainly won't hurt.

5.  Since Refugio El Roi will not be built in 2 months, pray that I will know what to do with the situation with Mari's baby.  It is a hard, hard thing for which there seems to be no easy answer.  I'm praying about how much of the answer I am supposed to be.    

Is not this the fast that I choose... 
Is it not to share your bread 
with the hungry
    and bring the homeless 
into your house;
when you see the naked, 
to cover him,
    and not to hide yourself from 
your own flesh and blood?
Isaiah 58

A Plea to the Father of the Fatherless

Sometimes there are no easy answers; sometimes there are no answers at all.  This is one of those times.  I got a call from Rogelio this morning:  "The two girls disappeared a week ago; they just found them at the bottom of a ravine."  Of course, I assumed that the three of them were dead.  I say "three" because one of the girls is pregnant.  Rogelio tells me that he's going out there to meet with authorities and see what happened and will call me as soon as he knows something.  I pace by the phone and impatiently call him a million times anyway, "Any news yet?"  While I waited, the thought crossed my mind that if they were dead, at least they were with Jesus and no one could ever hurt them again. I was almost happy for them; their lives here are torturous. 

I have known these 2 girls (who we'll call Rosa and Mari to protect their privacy) for quite a while now.  They live with their well-into-her-80's grandmother who loves them and does the best she can and with their mother who has some serious special needs. Their mother was repeatedly raped as a young woman because that's just what happens to people with special needs here; her 2 girls are a result of that abuse and do not know their father.  Both also have special needs.  Mari, the youngest, is the sweetest girl; you never find her without a shy smile on her face. Her older sister is the same. 

In fact, couple years ago, a man beat Rosa's face with his fists, a rock, and a log because she accidentally wandered onto his property in search of firewood.  Jessie went with me to their house to try to patch her up.  Even in great pain with 2 black eyes and her mouth full of infection, she still tried to smile at us.

A few months ago, 15 year old Mari was raped by a family member and got pregnant.   They came to me for help and asked me to fix it...to fix generations of systemic poverty and abuse.  As much as I wanted to, there is no fix for that.  All I had to offer was pre-natals, extra food, baby supplies, and a hug, but each time I took a step closer to Mari, she smiled at me and took a giant step back.  She knows who I am, but the trust in people is gone.  There really isn't anything else I can do for them.  They refuse to go to the authorities and denounce the rapist for fear of retribution.  How are a grandma and 3 special needs women supposed to defend themselves?  We debated taking Mari to a doctor, but doctors are obligated to turn in reports when they have minors who are pregnant...investigations can be opened by very untrustworthy government entities...Mari, who only speaks Mam, could have been removed from the only home she'd ever known and moved to one of the government-run hellholes that are supposed to be safe houses for girls.  It didn't seem to be the right thing to do.  We were still pondering and praying when the girls disappeared. 

The good news is that the girls are not dead; they just happened to turn up at the bottom of a ravine.  We don't know if they were pushed (an attempt by the father to get rid of the baby?) or if they were kidnapped. Authorities think that an old man took them both to be his "wives," which means he wanted sex with two disabled girls whenever he wanted it without fear of punishment.  Sicko.  The only thing we do know for sure is that they've been gone for a week, and no one knows what happened to them during that time.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was nothing good. The authorities are involved now.  I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but in either case, it does remove me from the equation in that I will no longer have any input as to what happens to Mari. Maybe that's a good thing since I didn't have any answers anyway.  

I wish I could help you to understand how difficult it is to live in a land with zero justice for the poor, for the oppressed, for those with special needs, for women, for children...there just is no justice here AT ALL.  I don't remember the exact figure, but I do know that it's more than 95%....MORE THAN 95% of crimes in this country go unpunished.  People do what they want with impunity.  And it's sickening.  

Thankfully, this is not a permanent situation.  There is One who sees it all; it won't go unpunished forever.  " Oh Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more."  Please, God, have mercy.  Defend them.  Protect them.  Vindicate them.  May the baby be blessed with a different life than her mother, and her grandmother, and her great grandmother, and her great great grandmother have had.  

Ten Tidbits of Wisdom From Ten Years in Guatemala

1.  Never trust a llama. Their sweet little faces are deceiving.

2.  Always be prepared.  This means having these things on hand:  toilet paper, rubber boots, a change of clothes, toilet paper, snacks, a book, nausea medication, a phone charger, a strong pain pill, toilet paper, hidden cash, wasp spray for self-defense, one of those little knives with all the extra gadgets on it (what do you call those things?), and car fix-it stuff that you can sweet talk some random guy into using on your behalf if the need arises. Oh, and toilet paper.

3.  Never cut a couple pounds of hot peppers without gloves on and then go to the bathroom. 

4.  Experience is a wonderful thing.  It allows you to recognize a mistake when you've made it again. Refer back to #3.

5.  You'll miss a lot of great stuff in life if you always err on the side of caution (except when cutting hot peppers or kissing llamas).  

6.  Mentally prepare yourself to be able to hear crazy things, stuff down your natural reaction, and respond with kindness. This means learning to control your face and not shriek "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!" when people tell you that rubbing a bloody rat carcass on a rash will cure it or that you need to suck the air out of a woman's uterus with a big syringe after she gives birth because when the baby comes out, air goes back in, and her abdomen could explode.

7.  Street tacos are absolutely worth the fallout.  Pun definitely intended. 

8. You can live just fine without a lot of the stuff you think you need. 

9. "Emergencies" are rarely that. Unless it is literally going to kill you, it's not worth getting riled up about. 

10.  Sometimes a single letter makes all the difference in the world.  Try going into a tienda to ask for a comb (peine), leave out the "i", and see what happens. 

"Someone once told me that not even for a million dollars would they ever touch a leper.  I responded, 'Neither would I.  If it were a case of money, I would not even do it for two million.  On the other hand, I would do it gladly for the love of God."  --Mother Teresa

Michael Jackson and the Laxative

Before you read this, let me just assure you that I did not make any of it up. When you finish, I think you'll understand why I made that disclaimer. I am not going to share any names either because...well, just because.  

So apparently I am a hero. Why?  Because I saved a little girl from certain death.  Or at least that's what her parents think.  A couple of days ago I got a phone call from someone dear to me, and she was incredibly upset.  "Hermana....my daughter...two days ago....(sniff, sniff)….she....(sharp intake of breath)…"  and I prepared myself for the worst thinking she was about to tell me that her daughter had died in a freak accident.  "My little girl...she stopped pooping."  I was so relieved (no pun intended...ok, maybe a little) that I barely choked back the laughter that all this drama was over a constipated 10 year old girl.  I visited them later with a laxative, and I am happy to report that all is now right with the world.  This morning I visited them again, and the normally shy little girl came flying out to greet me, threw her little arms around me, and thanked me profusely for the magic pill.  Her mom and I chatted for a bit, and she tearfully told me how terrified she was that her daughter was dying and how grateful they all were that I went out to see them that day and gave them a pill.  She called me their hero, and again I refrained from laughing.  The fact is, the girl was fine 45 minutes after my first visit, and laxatives don't work that fast.  I really had nothing to do with it, but sometimes you just can't make people understand and it's just better to let things go.  

A few minutes later the same woman was telling me about her little sister who has vitiligo, the skin disease that causes loss of skin color in blotches. It's pretty noticeable in dark skinned people. She told me how they'd taken her to a place hours from here to see a specialist who gave her very specific instructions and several vials of expensive medicine.  I'm sure the "medicine" is as bogus as the instructions were:  lay in the sun for exactly 1 hour every day between 7 and 8 in the morning.  Then in the evening, take your own blood from your arm and reinject it into your bum.  As delicately as possible, I explained to my friend that there is no cure for vitiligo, and that the "specialist" was scamming them.  And then she looked me dead in the eye and said, "But what about Michael Jackson?"  

"Uh....what?  What about Michael Jackson?"

"Well,  he was born black but changed to be white. Can't we use that same medicine in the reverse to turn the white blotches back to dark skin?"

And try as I might to hold it in, I had to laugh.  Here I was in the middle of nowhere having a conversation with indigenous people about Michael Jackson.  I asked if they even knew who he was, and they admitted that they didn't.  Someone had just used him as an example of a person who changed his skin color.  It was tons of fun explaining that one, by the way.

The moral of this story is how important it is that we are there for each other. Interactions that may seem pretty insignificant to you may mean the world to someone else.  So smile...make that phone call...give that hug...share that laxative.  You just might become someone's hero.