This morning in Dallas it is pouring down rain. Every window in the house is open and every door too. The fresh cool breeze and scent of rain is everywhere and I absolutely LOVE IT. Inches of water are accumulating and water is rushing down the street live a fast moving river. As I soak in the morning, my head starts reeling and I am swiftly jerked back to Pulcallpa and Marie Luz – the woman who lived in a makeshift plastic house before Luz Divina church helped build a wood home complete with roof and concrete floor for her family.
And yes – you know me – the tears begin to form. Not wanting to add the the rising water of the storm I bite my tongue to ward off the flow of tears. I can’t. I go back to the posts of April and May 2011 and re-read the journey of building a house for a family. A woman I don’t know, for children I never met, with people in a local church that have a heart to serve those who have not – who have “not” themselves but still serve one another.
As I look at the picture of the inside of her house, the uneven the dirt floor with small ditches where previous rains have flowed, I KNOW that when the Amazon jungle rain came to her town, as they did in Dallas today, that EVERYTHING she owned was wet and soiled, soaked and muddy. I think for the first time I actually realize what that must have looked like. I can “see” the rain pouring in through the rips and tears and holes in the plastic sheeting. Water cascading through the plastic roof and spaces where the sheets were overlapped and tied to one of 4 stakes to hold everything together. Rain pooling on the dirt floor churning into mud, covering everything in it’s path. Drenching and soiling her bed, clothes and food – what little she owns. And … I wish I could say that I actually know what it feels like if for only a moment, to walk in her shoes for that instant crying out to God, HELP ME LORD.
Now all I can say is …
HELP ME LORD – HOW WOULD YOU HAVE ME HELP THOSE THOUSANDS, LIKE MARIE LUZ, THAT LIVE IN SIMILAR CONDITIONS ? ? ?
ONE AT A TIME…STEPHANIE. ONE AT A TIME. WITH THE HELP OF THOSE YOU KNOW AND MEET AND ARE TOUCHED BY THE STORIES OF THOSE IN NEED.
And again I listen to the sound of the rain – with different ears.
Forever in His Mighty Grip,
Stephanie
Trinity's Angels Ministries 