Our Executive Director, Angel Aloma, traveled with a group of clergymen recently to Honduras to visit children and their families who benefit from our programs. The group also met with families living in desperate conditions. This is Angel’s account of one encounter.
On my trip in Honduras last week, we visited a garbage dump in an area called El Merendon. It was brutally hot in this dump, and in the areas not covered with garbage there was a fine dust that rose up with our every step. Unfortunately, there were approximately 100 people scavenging for food for their children, and also for recyclable materials to sell only to net $1 to $3 per day.
I saw this blue tarp held up by a couple of sticks and underneath was a beaten-up old sofa someone had thrown out. At first, I thought it was convenient that the people in the dump had a place to rest in the shade when the exhaustion of that brutal work set in. It was then that we discovered that this shelter was the home of a family of six who lived in the dump!
We met Maria, the mother of the household, and later her husband and four young children. Maria was 8 1/2 months pregnant with her fifth child. She had given birth at the dump before, and this appeared to be her fate.
We talked to her, prayed with her, comforted her, but that wasn’t enough. It was clear that she needed a home – and before the baby’s anticipated June 6th arrival.
Our partners in Honduras (CEPUDO) will be building her a home with funds from our generous donors here in the U.S. Now the race is against time… we can build a safe, sturdy home in six days in Honduras, but the mayor has to sign the papers giving Maria and her family ownership of a piece of land elsewhere.
In Spanish, when we express the birth of a child, we use the words “dar a luz,” which means that the infant is “given to the light” by its mother. Please pray for Maria and her family that all things fall into place quickly so that her baby is not born to the darkness of that horrible place!
