Never enough

Sometimes at the worksite it's easy to focus just on the construction site rather than focusing on the hungry/hopeless/struggling people around us. It's not at all a negative thing- it would be financially and physically difficult if not impossible to build a community center without our teams AND some of the people I'm the closest to are people I've met at worksites. The Grace Community Center has been unbelievable and I'd expect the same for Seville heights. It's just that for me personally, it doesn't have the "wow" aspect that you find when you're in the situations outside of the site. I love seeing the teams work together and can't wait to see how God's gonna use it in their community BUT it's days like today that I really walk away feeling changed. It was another food basket day and one that left me feeling as helpless as the people we were serving.

We started the morning with our grocery shopping and running a few errands before delivering the baskets. Mikey had a request for a food basket in Steer Town so we went back up by Grace. We pulled up and Workey was there! I hadn't seen him yet this year and after working side by side every day last year, it was an exciting reunion to say the least. I'm hoping I have time to catch up with him at some point this summer!

After our quick stop at Grace, we went up to the hills and found Jeff's house. Jeff's house was built by a team last summer so I didn't realize it until we got there but we'd met before. When I walked up he was laying on the floor of his 10x14 ft house. I told him we brought groceries for him and wanted to pray for him. Jeff just had 3 surgeries, lives by himself and has no work. He has no refrigerator and only a propane powered burner to cook with. His house was one of the cleanest I've seen and you could tell he's been taking goood care of it. After we prayed with him, he told us he was on the last of his propane and didn't know where the next of his anything would be coming from. Meaning food, propane... any necessities we need to live. He told us his situation and tears just filled his eyes. The whole team walked away silent, myself included. It was another moment where I realized that it's never going to be enough. No matter who we help, there's SO much need that it helps "just for now." I was thinking the same thing with Cynthia. We help with the students, the school and with what we have available to us (which still isn't much) but what does she eat when she goes home? Does she have a bed to sleep in? Most of the people we deliver food baskets to will feed multiple people... for now. What happens when the food runs out? How is it that these people (some of the happiest and grateful people I've ever met in my life) can go to bed starving and praying for their next bite of food when we throw away pounds of leftovers daily. I walked away from Jeffs house feeling like my heart was broken. We got on the bus and after spending the past few days with this team- I knew silence meant they were strongly affected by what we experienced. Finally I broke the silence and asked Mikey how much a propane tank costs. It's $25 and before anybody else could speak Fr. Robbie was to the front of the bus offering to pay for one. Fortunately, Jeff will be able to cook the food he has but it's unsettling feeling like these things are "just for now." I hate feeling like there's nothing more we can do when I want to give them the world and excess that we have. For many of them, it's a matter of having to figure out what's next for survival. A lot of praying and one blessing at a time, I suppose.

After Jeff's house, we went back to the worksite where the other half of our team and Northland were hard at work. I had a chance to talk with Dusty and the team in Haiti is doing great despite the enemy's effort to keep them away. The site for the recovery center wasn't ready so the team toured some of the destruction and visited an orphanage. My heart isn't ready for that...

When it was time to leave for lunch, we had our whole team back and went to Edna's house. Edna is a sweet old faithful lady living in Seville. She's a Sunday school teacher and has been extremely sick for the past 4 weeks leaving her stuck at home. We arrived shortly after her pastor, who was there to give her communion and prayer, was leaving. She requested that we pray for her health and wouldn't let anybody leave without a handshake and a thank you- she was more than grateful.

Lunch today was patties & world cup. I'm not sure when Jamaican's decided they were from Brasil but it sure made for an exciting match! Before the game was over we were headed to Seville's basic school to see some kids. We arrived after most of the kids had already gone home so we ended our day early. We've been back at the villas since 3:30 for some relaxation time to get ready for tomorrow's day of work/kids/infirmary. I got to video chat with my dad for a loong time, eat some fresh pineapple. :) I also noticed how some things that we have in abundance at home are like GOLD here. Miss Betty has the little crystal light packets and if there were words to explain how amazing they are here, I'd use them but there aren't. When we're going through so much water, flavor has never tasted so good. It's kind of like my kit kat binge last year... hah. The plan for tonight is to combine groups and have a BIG zumba class in the lot outside the villas! Perfect.

See ya later :]