The Bluebirds are a Cancer Support Group who meet at Lakeshore twice a year. They were so happy to talk with us and to see the upgrades that we were able to complete.
We are now going to take some time to replenish and going over our options for our next project. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Trina and Mel
Click Here to see pictures of the projects we completed.
Bluebirds Decorations after our painting was done:
(The blue matched their New York City theme.)
Please read the message below from our friends in Puerto Lempira. It is so heart wrenching and heart warming at the same time. Please keep them in your prayers.
In Hell!
Another issue of Lamplight Newsletter
Written by: Katrina Jo Ryan Engle, October 18,
2012
“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall
I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up
into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.”
Psalm 139:7-8
A couple of
months ago I felt like I visited hell. I
was doing a home visit for a baby that had been abandoned in the hospital and
brought to us by the local Human Rights representatives. The baby’s name is Charlie but we nicknamed
him Carlos. Carlos was badly
malnourished and had an extreme case of worms that was very hard to treat and
caused him diarrhea for months.
At first we
did not know who his family was but then we found out that his grandmother is
the owner of a local bar and a well-known crack dealer. I also found out that the father of the baby
had broken the mother’s leg and that she had not been treated and therefore
could not come to visit the baby. So
after having the baby for two months without a visit from the mother, I took
him to see her.
I’ve seen
squalor, death, disease and poverty so many times I have to fight against
becoming numb to it, but I have never been to such an awful place in my
life. When I pulled up, got out of my
little tractor cart and asked for directions from a nearby resident, she asked
me if I was giving the baby back. I told
her no I just wanted to visit the mother, to which she replied, “That’s
good. You should take the little girl
that is there as well.” She showed me a
small alley way in between two cement block walls from which the smell of urine
and feces wafted overpoweringly.
On the
other side of the alley I came to a little square lot occupied by three deteriorating
houses all enclosed by a large cement wall.
It looked like a prison and smelled worse. I cannot describe the feeling of filth and
hopelessness in that place. I can only tell
you it is a living hell.
Carlos’s
mother sat in a piece of a chair, her broken leg still swollen after more than
two months. She looked wretched. When she saw her baby she reached out for him
but could not smile. I learned that her
name was Patricia, that she had three children, and that although she did not
look it, she was pregnant with her fourth.
Quickly the
grandmother came down to see me and explain to me that her daughter was a crack
addict. (She failed to mention that SHE had been her daughter’s dealer, as well
as the dealer who supplied drugs to her eleven other children that were also
using.) She complained that Patricia was
good for nothing and used other language regarding her that I found disturbing.
Patricia never tried to defend
herself. Grandmother told me the children’s father was
no longer living with them because she ran him off when he broke her daughter’s
leg.
I noticed a
sad little girl in dirty clothes whose eyes were sunken in and whose belly was
swollen. This was Patricia’s four year
old daughter, Mia, and she was in desperate need of care. I asked both women if I could take her and
care for her until the mother had recuperated.
The grandmother agreed and I left, the little malnourished girl in tow. The mother never really answered me.
Mia, the
four year old, got a good bath when we got home. She was dressed in
some new clothes, and
given a baby-doll and a treatment for parasites. She never once cried
for her mother. She had a foul mouth and it took weeks for
her to smile.
I took both
children to visit their mother three times during which she was too high to
talk to me. I noticed she had burns and
scars on her back and chest. The grandmother
told me the boyfriend would burn her with matches and drip burning plastic on
her when she was passed out if she would not wake up for him. Patricia had vulgar jailhouse tattoos on her
arms and thighs. I felt very bad for her
but did not feel at that point that much could be done for her except to
pray.
A few weeks
later Patricia limped to House of Hope to see her children. She was cadaverously thin and both of her legs
were badly swollen. She begged to be
able to stay with us until she gave birth because her family did not want to
help her. She said she was hungry and she
needed help getting off the drugs. She
told me she felt like she was in hell and that it was only a matter of time
before she would die there. I was hesitant to take her in. She had a very bad reputation and my workers
were scared of her. But I agreed to take
her in and then immediately took her to the hospital. It was the first visit she had made to a
doctor during her pregnancy. She smelled
an awful lot like dog food and I honestly couldn’t wait to get her home and
give her a bar of soap and a towel!
The next
few weeks saw lots and lots of medical tests for Patricia and her baby. Day after day we would sit in the hospital
waiting to be seen or awaiting test results. One day while we sat there I remembered going
to the health department with Donna Fernandez, the director of the girls Teen
Challenge in Davie, Florida. I remembered
that although I was not pregnant I had to get all the tests done to see if I had
AIDS or some other disease. I had
wondered why this woman even cared enough to take me and sit with me during all
those appointments and I wondered if Patricia felt the same way.
She would
sit slouched, head down, waiting to be called.
We talked about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother and
her boyfriend. She’d had a broken arm (untreated
as well) that still looked crooked. She
showed me the scars, in her forehead due to brooms and sticks broken over her
head. We talked about the two
miscarriages she’d had when the boyfriend threw her down the stairs or punched
her in the belly. She told me about the
times he had chased her down the street with a machete threating to cut her
into little pieces. I came to the
conclusion that Patricia is a miracle and that God has something very special
for her.
When we got
the results for the HIV test, they were negative. For the first time since she had come to stay
with us she laughed that day. She told
me she thought for sure she had been infected and it was a miracle that she was
not.
Patricia
now wants to change her life for her children’s sake and to stay off the
drugs. She wants to go to church to learn
about God and learn to be a Christian.
Patricia has a long way to go; I had to get on her case a few days ago
for cursing at one of our workers. I told her that at House of Hope nobody would
be allowed to curse at her, but that means she could not talk to others that
way either because God wants to fill her heart with love, not hate. She cried repentantly.
Please keep
Patricia in your prayers. She has gained
weight and been treated for a parasite infection and a urinary tract
infection. She is due to give birth in November. I am looking into getting her a house built
by Habitat for Humanity so that she does not have to return to her old home
next door to her mother.
Both of
Patricia’s children, Charlie and Mia, love her and are very protective of
her. The children are doing well and,
like their mother, are now gaining weight.
But Patricia cannot live at House of Hope forever. God will have to open a new door for her
after the baby is born. We can only help for a season.
Roger and I
wish we could have helped our neighbor years ago. She lived on the lot
in front of our house and
died when her head was cracked open with a heavy piece of re-bar. Her
husband is in prison for that crime. She was only twenty-two and had
two
kids. We also would have liked to have helped
a lady that lived near House of Hope who was virtually decapitated by
her
husband in broad daylight. She left seven
children behind. This weekend another
woman I know was shot twice in the stomach by her husband. She is
alive, but very weak. This is the second time he has shot her.
There is no
safety net for these women. Unfortunately
they did not come and ask for my help, either.
But Patricia did and I will do what I can to help her, to protect her
and give her a safe environment in which to give birth to her new baby. I will give her the basic things she needs to
take care of it. It is because of you,
our supporters and the supporters of House of Hope, that we can do this little
bit for her.
Sometimes I
get discouraged and feel as though I’m not accomplishing anything. At those times, somebody like Patricia will
come along and I will see God’s grace manifested upon them. I can see that He is still working and still
on the throne in Heaven. He still wants
to deliver the oppressed and set the captive free. Thank-you
for being a part of that!
Katrina
