Day 22 – Chicken Coop #3

The men built the third chicken coop on site at Bryon’s house this morning while the woman went with Rosa (another recipient of a Deep Stream house) to learn how to make torillas… Bryon is a 10 year old boy whose mother and two sisters live in some pretty poor conditions. Essentially, there home was a small lot between two legitamite cinder block homes that they partially covered with sheets of metal roofing… Dirt floors plus a leaky roof during the rainy season makes for a cold mess. And though it breaks my heart to see these people in these conditions, I’m starting to get rather numb / overwhelmed by it all as it is everywhere. So, we finished the chicken coop, said a prayer, and continued on with the day.

This afternoon, the team made sandwiches / bagged lunches to hand out to the homeless folks downtown late tonight. Before dinner, we made a visit to a Hogar de Ninos orphanage… This was no stereotypical orphanage though, this was a “family-style” orphanage. Essentially, the McDaniel family has built a home that is capable of housing ten orphans along with them and their two boys. And though the children are still up for adoption, the family plans to raise them as a family through the age of 18. At present, they have four one-year old boys and are hoping to adopt two more children as soon as funding comes in. It is a very cool concept and the need here is tremendous (approx 370,000 orphans in Guatemala). Here is the website: http://www.hogardeninos.net/ The last video gives a good overview of the operation.

This evening, I had the opportunity to give the devotional to the team during our worship time which was really cool. I spoke about what International Missions are really all about and how Jesus calls us to be “in the world but not of the world”. (John 17:6-19) I think it went well. :)

After dinner, we went and passed out sandwiches. Though it was still early (8:30pm), there were plenty of folks already sleeping on the sidewalks. As we were handing out the last bags, we ran acrossed a man who had passed out drunk. As he was sitting down and leaning against a wall with a couple of police officers only 20 feet away, we simply left a sandwich in his lap. (People passed out drunk on the sidewalk is a very regular site here). As I started to pray for him while we were standing there, he wet himself…

Bonnie was in tears as this guy was in really bad shape… Not just physically drunk with snot and drool all over his face, but spiritually broken just the same. I’m still not sure how we are supposed to deal with these situations. As the cops had their eyes on him, we simply said a prayer and moved on.