a thin line..

Today we worked in san Miguel, a community that has been pounded by rain and flooding for the past few weeks. I’m posting pictures, but unfortunately they do the scene no justice. We went there with plans of donating food and clothing, and to work on some sites that had been damaged and affected by the flooding and mudslides. First of all, san Miguel didn’t look like the san Miguel I knew last year. I saw it a few weeks ago after the last flood and it had changed the whole landscape then, but only a week later, after only a couple days of rain, the landscape had been totally changed again. I cannot begin to describe to you the level of need in this community. Just this community. I won’t even mention the other communities around the city that are in just as poor of conditions. 6 people died in Tegucigalpa on Friday due to flooding and landslides. 2 of which came from los pinos, where TORCH has worked heavily the past 3 years. The problem is that there is no time for recovery. The rains have been coming so frequently that the struggle is just to get up from the knock down, just to get rid of the mud that has slid onto the plot of land before the next big rain comes. They don’t have time to think ahead for a plan that might save them in the future, all they have time for is to recover from the last hit. If they had time, money, ability, then maybe they could build retaining walls, gutters, etc. to help the problem. They have none of those. Today we got to san Miguel before the group to scout projects. The mi esperanza interns walked around most of the village and found that the need was extensive. We took a small crew to dig mud from behind a woman’s house that had piled up half the back wall and began to push it in. an extreme task for a group of 5, but they did well and made pretty good progress. After I dropped them off I went with lana to check out a few other places to see where we could be of help. This is where my dilemma began today. The first site, where we dropped off the first crew was bad off to begin with, a single mother, living in a shack( it is not like I have not ever seen this situation before). But her house was ready to go, there were ruts through the inside of her house where water was flowing. Her back wall was ready to give way to the mud pushing against it. I saw another house, let me put that differently and listen to the way it sounds, and think about this when you see the picture- I saw another home. A house that was home to a blind woman. Part of me wishes that you could see this circumstance, but part of me doesn’t wish that, because it is disconcerting to think about a woman who can not see trying to live in this position. Her house, like the other had been severely damaged by the flooding, to the point that we couldn’t find a safe way to access the house. How is a blind woman going to get there. She is currently living at the church building, which has become a refuge for those whose homes are not in livable conditions. One woman living at the church lost her home, she has twin babies and no husband. Many stories to tell, but I don’t want this to be overbearing. What I began to wonder was, at what point is the need more abundant than the resources to fulfill the need. Where do we say “we can help you, but we can’t help you”? if we dig out the back of this house today, and it rains tonight, will their predicament be better, worse tomorrow? I don’t know what I think right now, I just know that I saw a community stricken today, and it seems like hope is a stretch. Granted, I know that my cynical stance is due to the fact that I was in it first hand today.
Pray for safety, pray that God will put his hand on this city, pray that God will use TORCH, use us to minister to the people who need Him, to see that need and to do all that is within our power to fulfill that need. Pray that in a time of despair, that the people of this country will look to God for help.

NCR