LUZ When Daisy talks to the women about the need to forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us, Luz has always been adamant that this is something she can’t do. There is a man she hates. She considers him her enemy. There are reasons, most of them good reasons, for why she feels this way. In her mind and heart, she would never forgive him.
Yesterday when we met with the women, Luz said she wanted to share a testimony:
Over the weekend, her only son (around 17 years old) fell. He fell and it was as if he was dead. He was cold to the touch, he eyes were opened, but just staring, and he wouldn’t respond when Luz shook him and called his name.
She ran outside and began calling for help. Over and over again she screamed, but no one heard. She didn’t want to go too far from him, so continued to cry out from her home, fearful that no one was ever going to come.Finally, she heard someone respond from far off. As he got closer, she saw who it was. Her enemy. Her enemy, the man she would never forgive, came and brought her son to the hospital.
Gracias a Dios, her son seems to be doing fine now. And through this terrifying time, Luz has had her heart softened toward the man she said she could never forgive. Hearing her tell her story, wiping tears away as she spoke, was powerful. Luz is a woman other women in the community go to for advice. When she speaks, they listen.
NANCI Nanci is one of our adolescents. She is rather loud and headstrong and never quite looks like she’s enjoying herself. But, she keeps coming, and we continue to try and show her the love of Jesus.
Last night she was in a motorcycle accident. She got scraped up, and was bleeding from a wound on her head. She went to a hospital in Santiago where they ran tests. One doctor said things looked good, but wanted her to wait until other doctors could review things. Nanci didn’t want to wait and so went to the bathroom, took out her IV, and left.
When Daisy found out, we headed over to try and talk with her and her mom. When we arrived in their tiny one-room home, Nanci was on the bed, and her mom, and some of the other women who live close by, were watching TV.
Daisy talked very sternly about the seriousness of head injuries. Neither seemed concerned. It was frustrating to see the shrugs of both mom and daughter.
Nanci’s head was hurting, but since she had left the hospital before being prescribed anything, she had no medicine to take. Did Daisy have something? her mom wanted to know. No. We don’t have anything for something as serious as this. (We have Advil, Tylenol and other OTC meds but nothing stronger.)
We left, with Nanci still on the bed, her mom still seemingly more interested in the TV than her daughter’s injuries.
KEILA Keila is one of our Little Girls. She and very pretty, but typically wears dirty clothes, and smells like she is not bathed often. Along with some of our other girls, Keila came by this afternoon for help with her homework.
One of her assignments was to compare two kids in a story they had been read in class. The story was called El Nino Rico y El Nino Pobre (The Rich Child and the Poor Child). We didn’t have a copy of the story, but Keila had written things like, A rich child drives in an expensive car.
Keila told us that rich kids will be poor and poor kids will become rich. We don’t know if that was the ‘moral’ of the story, but sitting in El Callejon helping this precious child listing out stuff a rich kid has was appalling.
Friends, Jesus loves El Callejon. He is in this place. We rejoice in small victories, like Luz’s story. It is a reminder that God is at work in the lives of the people of El Callejon. That He has a plan and purpose for each one of them. We are privileged to be a small part of His work in this community among His people.
So, we cry some, we pray a bunch, and we trust that God will give us the strength to pick back up our crosses each day, carrying our burden for His children here. We invite you to pray with us and for us, that we may be faithful to God’s call to serve Him in El Callejon.
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