Since the beginning of the year, so much has been accomplished! The teams who have come from various churches have been awesome. Yellow houses have been built in Jasmin; work has been accomplished in Anonos and in Veinte Cinco de Julio for FundaVida.
But this month I would like to tell you the story of two women.
These women are from Los Anonos. They are two women with broken lives, two women who MUST come to know the Father.
Theresa is the wife of Rafa, a crack addict. Her husband doesn’t live with her. She, herself, is a crack addict. She has two sons, both of whom are crack addicts. Tony, on two separate occasions, has been shot in the eye and stabbed in his stomach. He also has a punctured lung from a stab wound. His brother is named Luis. Luis is typically in the Quebrada (the road where all of the drug addicts live) with only a pair of shorts on…. no shirt, no shoes. Isn’t it interesting that “quebrada” means broken. These are broken people.
Theresa begs on the corner every day. For the whole day, she stands with her hand outstretched to passing motorists. She will go into the grocery store to buy a little food for her two addicted sons. She feels responsible for her family. Neither of her sons have a job.
She hasn’t wanted to go into rehab, because she is the only one who will care for her sons, but I heard recently that she is considering going. Please pray that she would follow through with this.
While prayer walking on one of the streets of Anonos one day with our friend Luis and another lady, Marianne, who was visiting us from Hawaii, we had the privilege of leading Theresa to Jesus. Jesus is her only hope. She may never be rich by our standards, but she can know the peace and the richness of having a relationship with Christ that God can give her through knowing His Son. Please pray that she would come to know His riches and peace.
The second woman is Sandra, who we have talked about before. Sandra is the mother of 8 children, one of whom was just born this week. She lives in a two room shack with a dirt floor. She is a jolly soul, always laughing at her situation. She had no stove and was cooking on a fire. So the last team that was here from Mechanic Falls, Maine bought her a stove and a gas bottle and installed it for her. She, however, now has no money to buy food. We did send some to her house and hopefully, she will get by for awhile. There were a few who were there with Rodney who had an opportunity to pray for her. At that time she was in a destitute place because her partner had left her. Her relationship with him is not good. We are not sure of her marital status. Most women will not acknowledge if they are not married. They call their boyfriends “husbands”, whether they are married or not.
Recently there have been a few homes that are in a dangerous locations that the government has removed. Theses two families also live in physically dangerous areas, where there could be mudslides. Hopefully, they will be able to be relocated to another place with new homes.
This will certainly be a blessing to Theresa. Perhaps it will get her away from her environment of crack.
And to Sandra, a new home with a dry floor and no holes in her roof … She will no longer have to trudge up a muddy path during rainy season to get to her home. She will no longer have a muddy kitchen floor in the rainy season, peppered with buckets to catch the rain that drips through the holes in her roof.
Please pray that these two women will be on the list for new homes in which to spend their lives.
In the photos: Sandra’s house with one of her sons and a photo of Theresa.
Blessings to all and thank you for your support!
Rodney and Cindy
