*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 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.
