Just after the previous article was written, God opened doors for us to go to Panajachal, so the answer we were hoping for in our day of fasting and prayer came much earlier! We are now staying in Panajachal in a three story house together with the Blue Team!
We are planning on helping a few families who suffered from the hurricane and mudslides. Sharon from an organisation called Poco a Poco, which does a lot of humanitarian work in Guatemala, showed us the families with the greatest needs at the moment.
The guys on the Yellow and Blue Teams started building a house and a longdrop toilet yesterday. It is for a family who lost their whole house in the hurricane. Meanwhile all the girls have been visiting the other families to experience their poverty and learn more about their situations.
There are 8 families and a school that we would love to help. Here is a short summary about each of their situations:
1. There are two old people living in a very small house. The lady is 75 years old. They don´t even have a mattress to sleep on. The pieces of wood they use as bed are very unstable and broke again the previous night. We would like to buy them a bed because of their age! The man also needs glasses and the family needs a pila (like a sink to do washing in). Here is the old lady together with her neighbours.
Cost: $200.
2. Two families with six children each live together in a house the size of a small room. Their house partially fell down because of the hurricane. At some places they use cardboard boxes as walls. The rest of the house is made of mud and even a small storm will cause it to collapse. They are in need of a whole new house as well as a stove. To build them a house would cost about $1600. A stove costs approximately
$56.
3. The mother of this family has tuberculosis and is unable to work. Their only income is from her 13 year old boy who works at a bakery from 5 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. – through the night. For that he only gets paid $1.40. They are in desperate need of mattresses, clothes, food, a stove and to have their electricity connected again. It was cut off because they owe
$48. These are the children in their house.
4. An old lady living in San Jorge needs a whole new house, because hers is falling into pieces because of the storms the hurricane brought. A new house might
cost $1500.
5. This house has no bathroom, no electricity and no kitchen. The family is embarrassed about being so poor, so they go to the toilet in plastic bags and throw it into the lake at night so no one would see. We would like to build them a toilet.
Cost: $500.
6. The lady living here collects rocks in the hope that someone would one day build her a bathroom with them. She also needs a stove, a pila and a new roof for her house.
Cost $1200.
7. The father of this family is an alcoholic. He takes all their possessions to buy alcohol, so the family wishes to build a little room for him when he is totally drunk, so that they could keep him away from their possessions. They also need their electricity reconnected. The room and electricity will
cost $362. This is their one daughter who make bracelets for money.
8. The school needs trash cans, paint, supplies and maintenance done. This is some of the kids in their classroom. Cost:
$120.
9. This girl is paraplegic and received a wheelchair from Poko Poko, but she can´t go anywhere because of the inaccessability of the home. We would like to build her a few ramps!
Cost: $400.
To help these people we need quite a lot of money, so please help! We believe that God sent us here to bless the people, so please bless us to bless them! Their living conditions are very bad, but they still stay positive and welcomed us warmly into their homes. If you would like to make a contribution, please add a Reader Comment with your e-mail address and we will supply you with the detail. We are all one body in Christ. We are the hands that serve, but we cannot serve if the rest of the body does not respond to God´s call!
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