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| where the couple we met was living (behind the wooden skids under the tree) when we arrived |
Last week we welcomed a team from New Norway Alberta to
Hermosillo. They were a team of 9 men
who came down in order to do some construction on a few different things. The main project was a perimeter security wall
around our church building. The other
was an additional room on a very humble house in a poor neighborhood next to
our church. The people who live there
are committed believers who attend a Free Methodist Church right down the road
from us. The mother of the family serves
faithfully at the soup kitchen we started a few years back.
Anyway during the 2nd or 3rd day of
the trip we were informed by the director of an Orphanage that we help out at
from time to time that there was a house that burned down close to the
Orphanage, only a week prior to the team arriving. So we went over to investigate. The elderly couple had been cooking on an
open fire (their normal means of cooking) outside their home when a wind blew
up and carried some sparks over to their house and it was destroyed in minutes. Now the word “house” is being used here very
loosely. In very poor situations, the
people use what we would call tar paper to cover the walls of their home,
instead of cement block which is normally used.
That was the case here. It is
stinky and being black (providing no insulation), well you can imagine the
temperature inside when it is 48C outside!
This couple was sleeping under a tree with some tarps and skids pushed
up around the tree to try to form some sort of privacy.
Well the team decided to purchase wooden support beams and
cross pieces from their own money and in a day and a half had a structure
up. We even had some extra steel from
another project last month left over and used that in order to support a good
roof. The roof hasn’t been done yet.
I talked to the couple and translated back and forth between
them and the team and the thing that they kept saying was “why in the world
would strangers from so far away come all the way down here to help us like
this”? It was the same sentiment echoed by
the mother of the house that they came down to extend. They were taken back by the kindness of
strangers. They looked at me and asked
me why they would do that, expecting an answer.
I thought for a second and replied, “Disciples of Jesus do things like
that”.
It is true isn’t it? It makes me think of Mark 12:31 – when Jesus
was asked what the greatest commandment was.
He answered “love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and
strength” but then he added another that they hadn’t asked for. “The second is like it, love your neighbor as
yourself”. I think He added the 2nd
because we should never separate the 2 of them.
If we truly do love God, we will truly love and reach out to our
neighbors. Who is our neighbor? I would ask a different question. In this global world who isn’t our
neighbor? These men from New Norway
proved that people who live 2 countries away who speak a different language can
be our neighbors.
We prayed with both families who received much work toward a
new improved house. We gave the couple
whose house burned down a bible; their other one had burned in the fire. I told the Orphanage directors who live close
by that they now had a bible and he said he would go by to guide them through
God’s word.
One last thing. I
know the men who came from Alberta gave a lot.
They really did. Not just money,
but time away from families etc as well.
However I know that they all received more than they gave. You can’t measure what they received however. How does one measure what happens in the
heart? But they saw this past week that
Jesus’s words are true, “it is more
blessed to give than to receive”. Acts
20:35
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| The team of guys with the couple who lost their home in the fire |
