Eva, TN Project Completed!!

The three weeks are over.  We met so many wonderful people.  There was an Women's Emmaus Walk there our first weekend and the Bluebirds of West TN there our last week.  That made our work meaningful to Mel and I. 

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