Abuela's House

~That night we went to this really poor area of town to Abuela's House. It's really just a shack about 10' x 20' next to a dump. She lives there with her 10 grandchildren. There is a 4 month old baby there that didn't have a name. When Mamo asked what his name was Abuela asked him, “What's your name?” And so they named the baby, “Mamo”. The first time they went to the shack the baby was drinking rotten milk. They have no electricity to refrigerate the milk and no money for powdered formula. Across from her shack was a soccer field and a basketball court. We walked in two groups up and down the streets and invited people to come to the park. There were about 50 kids that came. Some of the children had visible head lice and were wearing little to no clothing that was filthy rags. There was one little baby about 2 years old who was wearing nothing but a pair of muddy underwear. We got him some shoes and his mom found him a shirt and and I put a little pair of overalls on him. We gave them clothing and stuffed animals and used shoes. We gave the gospel presentation and 3 ladies prayed to receive Christ. Lee and I played this game with these kids and they were having a blast. We gave out stickers and candy.

~Notes... a year later...

I remember being amazed that people actually came to our presentation. When we pulled up and they told us what we were doing I was very skeptical. But we quickly learned the Spanish phrase we needed to say to invite the people to the field. When we got back one of the men on the team had pulled the van seats out to form a little seating area. I was amazed with the number of people who came. I mean they just stopped whatever they were doing and came to hear what we had to say. Also, earlier in the day when I was washing the donated clothing to pass out I remember thinking that I wasn't sure anyone would want any of it. It was old, dated, and had holes and stuff. But the people needed it so badly. They were very happy that we gave them what we had. I had never seen true poverty before that day and they told us this wasn't the worse area they had ministered to.