A Work of Art

My family has a tradition that has taught me the importance of a meal. Elise asked that Elijah and I would always have dinner together as a family. I used to bring everything from books to my laptop to the dinner table trying to multitask. Although it was a struggle at first to simply eat and spend time with the family, I have loved the tradition. Now I look forward to dinner when Elise and I catch up after hectic days and watch Elijah play with his food and babble incoherently.

Most of the students at AFE do not have the dinner time ritual because of broken families. Many eat with their brothers and sister while parents work. Yet, we wanted to offer the students a sense of family at AFE. This was the rationale behind the dining center. We wanted a place where the children and staff could sit and eat together as a family. Around the table they could pray, joke, laugh, and eat. Now we can do this as our dining facility is finished and looks beautiful. We still have to buy some tables but everything is ready.

We have an indoor kitchen that is also an outdoor kitchen. Meaning that our cooks love cooking over fire, so Melanie Miller’s dad built an outdoor stove (inside) with a chute so that the smoke would go outside. Now the cooks use both the fire stove and the electric stove. We have a large storage area for our perishables along with the refrigerator and freezer. We have plates and bowls for all of our kids and continue to feed them at least one full meal a day. Thanks to everyone that made this dream a reality especially Dr.Opp, Street Kids Direct, and Washington Cathedral.

Dreaming of Homes...

Tuesday evening we participated in a meeting to brainstorm the development of a new community for those who actually live in the garbage dump[1]. Part of the mission of Project Transformation is to address the whole person with the whole Gospel. This involves helping people to create and own a healthier living environment. We are among a group of dreamers planning how to support the community's creation of new housing structures for these poorest of the poor.

Here is the Dream: Help the community to build 300 homes for people who currently live in the garbage dump. This effort would be similar to the creation of the Linda Miller community - people getting involved in building their own houses and taking ownership of the work.

Visits to their current homes are driving this effort. Jose Ramon and his sister, Ritzy (a student at AFE) invited our team to visit his two children. They were beautiful children even though they were covered in dirt and soot. Their smiles reminded me of my own son, yet saddened me as I saw where they lived. On dirt floors, surrounded by garbage and terrorized by vultures, six people eked out an existence in a six foot by eight foot make shift shack. They had no water, no electricity, and were under constant threat. The health risks apparent from no way to flush waste, no way to clean dishes, and a dirt floor are too numerous to mention.

With tears, Jose Ramon confessed his children suffer from constant sickness from the conditions in which they live. The father felt obvious shame that he could not take better care of his family. Jose is a hard worker. He is not lazy. He is the victim of circumstances and is paying for the sins his parents committed. Caught in a vicious cycle, only God can work a miracle in this family's life.

But God works through people like you and me to work those miracles. That is why we dream.

Imagine moving Jose, his wife and their two children, and his mother and sister who live with them, to a house with clean floors, running water and flushing toilets, light in the evening and a stove to cook healthy meals. His children would not fall ill but grow healthy and strong. No longer would Jose feel ashamed of who he is, but take pride in his family and his God who reaches down to help the least of these.

Pray that our dream will soon become reality.

[1] Determining how many people actually live in the garbage dump is a difficult venture because many people live in squatter settlements just outside of it; they might as well live in the trash. Others have shacks miles away in which they spend the weekends with their families. Monday through Friday they spend the night sleep in the trash.