My body flew, but my soul took the bus

We are all still trying to adjust. Get back to the groove of being here back in a country that is blessed by prosperity and freedoms you just do not see around the world. I think it is common for some to make the comment that they are getting used to the real world again when in fact we are in a sheltered society. That was the real world we were in. Life for most there is real. It is harsh, It is raw. There are no safety nets that catch you as you fall. These people live on the tight rope 30 floors high with no safety net.`

This example was played out over and over again. The woman with the foot soars. We were attempting to deal with the infecting. The comment was made is that her situation was a matter of the chicken or the egg. The attention that was given to her feet was to deal with the infections and ulcers to see if that would help her comfort level. The real view was that we were there and we cared and we gave from the heart and she could see Jesus moving around her as we became his hands and feet.

Another example was the 80 something woman who had breast cancer and it had gone unchecked for so long it was growing outside her body(if I understood the med jargon correctly). There was nothing that we could do for her. The truth was that Jesus was there and he was doing for her what she needed. To know that someone cared. That some one loved her. Jesus.

The real world is in turmoil. It is not a sheltered society where we constantly ask what is in it for me. We have been given a blessing from God. And if we are real Christians, Followers of Jesus Christ, If we truly love our Lord. We will use those blessing to bless others. Did you ever stop to think why God would give you more than you needed.

This week my kitchen, dining room and downstairs family room were destroyed by water damage from a mechanical failure in the ice tray of the freezer. This seems like a horrible thing to go through. In the real world like Cerro de Oro. Your house(hut, shanty) is made of a tin roof, corn stalk walls corn stalk door and a dirt floor. your oven consists of a fire pit in the middle with the stone above it for cooking tortia. No chimney, so the smoke rolls across the ceiling and lingers in the room for the whole family to breath. If you call that a house. We are going through a "recession" in this country, but are we really giving from our poverty. I don't think most in this country understand what poverty really is. We have it here, right here in our own country. It is just hidden. That is because it bothers people to look at it. And they shelter there eyes so they can go on living the way that they do, with out the guilty conscience. Building these house was a major gift. It gives real security, real shelter, and a real understanding of how God provides. Not one of us did this on our own. We all had help.

We all had help from people like yourselves that were move to support us in this mission. Please do not think for one minute that this was a vacation to a beautiful tropical country that we relaxed and got tans. We worked, we loved, we sweat, we cried.

Yet you look at this society of people. People you can honestly say are "dirt floor poor". They stick together. They think about each other. When we were handing out the unders and dental hyg. stuff they were not greedy, they were considerate. They did not want to take too much and deny someone else. We practically had to twist there arms to take what they needed.

This is also a society that does not " sit on its a-- waiting for a hand out. Like a lot of this one. These are people that are creative with there resources. They make life work with what they have. For example, Our mission auction provided funds to build two houses. The material was bought and delivered. It was not sitting there waiting for us to get started and build these house for them. We showed up and the house were half done. We just provided the means, they already had the initiative.

We are still trying to adjust to this privileged life style . I for one am not here yet. It is like my body flew on the plain, but my soul decided to take the bus.