What a wonderful and busy week! Sunday started out with a celebration of a baby dedication for Maria Verniz, our activista. The rest of the week we worked hard on remodeling two buildings to make them ready for the basket-weaving business for the patients in Project Life. Our first team arrived yesterday just in time for our first Green Door house dedication ceremony this morning!!! Pictures speak louder than words, so I am going to post quite a few here. But first I am going to blog about what this Green Door means to the donor, the recipient, and to me.
I had a few minutes to speak with Francisca as we drove to the hospital. In just a few short days, she and her orphaned grandson, Domingos would be receiving the dream of a lifetime.....a house. I observed her old and tattered clothes as she spoke softly in her Sena. "I never even had a dream that one day, my grandson and I would live in a cement block house with a zinc roof. It just wasn't possible. Yet now, God has provided this for us." It had never occurred to me that owning anything but a precarious mud and stick house was all that she could imagine. To own something better wasn't even on her radar screen. Many in deep poverty succumb to their circumstances allowing it to even imprison their dreams. I mused over her comments today at the celebration. Her donors are a young family in the States. They had given their savings out of love for God and love for these "neighbors" that live 10,000 miles away. They had sent some precious words to share with Domingos and his grandma and it was no coincidence they closed their thoughts with a very apropos scripture out of Ephesians. "Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think."
I fought back the tears as Domingos was given the keys and opened the door to his house. Our dream for building safe and secure houses for those with AIDS had come to fruition today. God's gift to all of us...the donors, the recipients, the builders, the dreamers. A perfect gift from above.
It is amazing that only $1400 can change a life here so dramatically. Is God speaking to your heart to help? We have so many on the list needing a safe home. One young AIDS widow can't live with her children because there is no room for all of them in a relative's mud house. Another man in Project Life has been asked to leave the home he is in because it belonged to someone else......and the list goes on. If you would consider helping someone, please go to the CRI website. It will change their lives for the better. www.childrensrelief.org
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| Domingos and his grandma, Francisca - a new house!! |
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| It is funny, but in a formal photo, Mozambicans refuse to smile. :-) |
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| Opening the door to his new house. |
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| A friend of Domingos. So many are handicapped in Mozambique |
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| The American team poses - Americans know how to smile in a formal photo! |
THE BABY DEDICATION!
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Many showed up to celebrate our activista's baby!
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| Val had the privilege of bringing NOÉ PASCOAL out of the house!! |
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| Kathy comforts a sleepy one! |
2 comments:
Awesome! God is good all the time! : )
It is great to see what a difference you and Phil are making in the lives of those less forunate. Thanks for sharing with the rest of us on your blog site.
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