What I learned from the Philly Team

We just spent one incredible week with a team from Philadelphia City Church who came through Orphan Outreach. They were 10 people divided into a medical team and a teaching team. The medical team attended every student at AFE and their families. The teaching teams taught science and VBS to all of our classes. Pretty typical right? Well for some reason, I feel I learned so much from them. For example -

A Smile makes such a difference – One of their members, Ethan, had the biggest and brightest smile ever. Every time I saw him, I felt happier.

Science can be fun – The science team had our students plant gardens and seeds for their science class. I have seen many of our kids returning to see if their plants have grown. They seem to like science which is awesome by atypical.

Just Serve and Love – This team did whatever was needed no matter what. We fed in the garbage dump, worked until late evenings, skipped lunches, painted and varnished and you name it. They barely took any breaks.

Everyone Matters – They brought presents for all the staff but we have two new staff members. You should have seen how concerned and worried they were. They promised to send something down for them. I would have just said “sorry but you guys gave us the wrong number of teachers. “

Language is not an excuse - Although most of the team could not speak Spanish they were always interacting with the students. During meals they did not exclude themselves but sat among the children and somehow communicated.

We receive over 25 teams a year and all of them are special in their own way. But this team had something that I cant quite put my finger on. I just know that I thoroughly enjoyed their presence and feel blessed to have known them. I hope they return and become partners with AFE.

Indulgences

How do you indulgence yourself after a long day? My favorite thing to do is to take a shower. I love to shower. Especially after spending the day at AFE, playing with the kids outside, and the long, sweaty walk up the stairs to our house. I love the smell of my shampoo and the feeling of the clean water through my hair. In the shower I can’t be bothered; I stop serving others needs for a moment, and spend as long in there as I like. It becomes a spiritual experience for me and sometime I break into spontaneous worship. I love to shower.

Showering is something we may take for granted in the states. Unfortunately, not many of the families of AFE experience this luxury. They do not have running water at their house. They bathe with their clothes on in a stream near their house. Perhaps this is refreshing on a hot day, but miserable on a cold one. I suspect that many of our AFE kids and families do not make it to the stream to bathe that often.

Now, thanks to Washington Cathedral – and others – AFE will have 5 showers on their grounds by Christmas. Not only will the AFE kids and families be able to bathe whenever they like and experience the luxury of a shower, but a new, clean appearance will begin to change their identity and how others see them. If they leave their community they can do so with confidence, that strangers will no longer point behind their backs and call them one of the “dirty ones.”

Elise White Diaz

New Church Building

On Saturday October 25, Amor y Vida inaugurated our new church building. We have officially moved out of the community center and into our own building. We had a huge celebration with many special guests and the whole church. We have so many people to thank including Orphan Outreach, ACEMH, and Washington Cathedral who have been involved in various ways.

The construction team that funded most of the building is from Heritage Family Church located in Fort Worth, Texas. They do not have their own building yet but meet in a school. They were in the middle of a building campaign for their own church when the pastor visited our project in Honduras. On his return to the church, he announced that they would begin construction on a new building. The church began applauding thinking that the building was for them. Yet the pastor told them the new building was going to be about 2500 miles south. He explained our project and vision and the church was in agreement to build our church first. It was a tremendous sacrifice and one we do not take lightly.

Spiritual formation is at the center of the transformation process. We believe that unless God is in the center of the process, it will inevitable fail. Our church is fusing two different communities together. It has not been easy but God has worked miracles which are evident on the first visit to our church. We serve families connected to the garbage dump which most of society has ostracized. But God is doing a work in their lives that is impacting the whole garbage dump community. We have started ‘small´ groups in three different locations but they have all grown to over 50. The new building was a definite need as we were standing room only in our old location.

Please pray for our church, our pastors, leaders, and members.

Washington Cathedral Mission Team forms deep relationships

The second week of August brought important visitors to AFE. Some of these visitors had been eagerly awaited by the AFE kids; others would form lasting relationships with their new friends.

The Washington Cathedral Youth Mission Trip was an incredible success. We had some new participants – Lily Haynoski and Tiffanee Hunter, who experienced God in a deeper way than ever before. We had some participants with past mission trip experience, but had yet to visit the Tegucigalpa Dump. Their lives will never be the same. The team spent the morning connecting with the AFE students and the afternoons working construction. They made a special trip to the garbage dump to feed about 250 people. The team worked on AFE’s kithchen and some special skills installed electrical outlets, lights, and fans.

Despite this good work, the highlight of the trip was our day at the beach. It has become a tradition with WAC’s youth teams to take the students out on a day of fun. Most of the children at AFE have missed important parts of childhood as they have been forced to work in the garbage dump as an early age. We do these trips to give them all a chance to be ‘kids’ for a day with no responsibility. This time we planned a whole day trip to the beach. A trip to the beach seems simple enough, but it was actually a daunting task to take 130 kids ranging from kindergarten to 8th grade…most of whom had no experience with the water and did not know how to swim. How would we keep 130 kids from being swept away from the strong ocean currents? Fortunately, everyone stayed in the shallow areas and we came back with the same number of kids we left with! JK

There is a Spanish song that says, “Yo se que el vive! Pues lo veo en la risa de un niño cuando voy pasando, y al oír el bramido del mar que me dice cantando, que hay un Dios verdadero que hizo toda la creación.” Translated to English – I know He lives because I see him in the smiles of the passing children and I hear the ocean sing that there is a true God who made all of creation. Now I know what the author was talking about.

Now that we are receiving teams to AFE, rather than bringing them, we have noticed something new. We would never have guessed the depth and sincerity of the relationships formed between the children and teams. Yet for the past couple of months the kids have asked for some team members by name waiting anxiously for their return. Another thing I noticed from this side of the experience is the sacrifice and work the Hondurans put into receiving teams. It is flat out exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally to host teams from the states. Without minimizing what our teams bring to AFE, I have no doubt that the Hondurans give as much if not more back to the teams. I feel we have formed a beautiful relationship where both sides mutually benefit.

Medical Team from Ohio State

Who would have though that 1000 miles away I would have to put up with slurs about the Florida Gators from an Ohio State Buckeye? Well it is true because a medical team from the Ohio State University just came for a one day clinic at the garbage dump. The day before they arrived, we went into the garbage dump to invite as many people as we could to the free clinic the following day. On the next day, we had a line out the door before we could even set up. By the end of the day, we had seen over 150 families and had to turn many away because of time. I worked as a translator for two separate rooms. I was shocked by how these families were suffering from common ailments because of lack of clean water or sanitation. Many of the children had suffered from colds or flus for months because they did not know how to treat them and did not have the proper medicine. Even worse, I saw minor sickness progress into major ones because there was no one to warn the people. I saw a six-month-old baby, the same age as my son Elijah, who looked sick and malnourished because of the conditions in which he lived. It was the first time in his life that he had seen a doctor in his life as he had been delivered by a grandmother figure. It broke my heart to know there were many more babies going through the same experience yet it also reaffirmed our goals here.
After seeing the need, I am further convinced that we are on the right track in wanting to build a clinic/pharmacy for the families living and working in the garbage dump. Following a model proposed by Project Global Village, we would construct a clinic in an area near the garbage dump. Then we would train a nurse practitioner from the garbage dump to manage the clinic. Through our various connections we could stock the clinic with all the supplies needed for proper treatment. This is one of our goals for 2008. The need is great but we serve a great God and HE will use us to accomplish great things. Please keep this idea in prayer as we look for the proper place to build it and the right time and connections.

Adult Work Team Blesses AFE

We just finished a week with our Adult Work Team from Washington Cathedral. It was an incredible week as these individuals poured out their hearts to the children at AFE. AFE is short for Amor, Fe, y Esperanza which is a school servicing the children who live and work at the garbage dump. The work team also poured out some sweat constructing a much-needed third school building. For the second year in a row, we worked alongside a work team from the Bethel Church in Georgia led by Ray and Jane Singleton. The school is growing and growing in the number of children. In fact, lack of facilities and teachers have forced AFE to turn some neighborhood children away. In addition, there are now eight kids at AFE who have moved up to the eighth grade but have nowhere to go. If there is no place for them to go to school, they will just go back to work in the garbage dump. We have decided to offer a junior high/high school for these children which will be in the third building.
The third building will actually be three floors and our team helped with the construction of the first two stories. It was such a beautiful scene to have out adults hanging out with the children and connecting with them in deep ways. The last day was a tear jerker as the children put on a special program for us to show their appreciation. They were especially thankful for Washington Cathedral providing two snacks and a full meal this last year. Many of the kids told us that was the extent of the diet. Then the children bid us farewell. Everyone on our team was moved by God in a special way.
The last day, the adults on the team came up with a great way to bless the school. They went to a hardware store and bought tools for the school that would help them with all future construction. All the workers were extremely grateful for the new tools and couldn’t believe the team’s generosity.
If you are interested in coming for a work trip or an exposure trip please contact Elise White Diaz at elisewhitediaz@gmail.com for more information. We believe a short term trip can be used by God in incredible ways. The team will be sharing at Washington Cathedral on Mission Week in April.