My First Experience in Loma Bonita

children at the church learning about the Lord's Prayer
and waiting for lunch to be served

 Every other Saturday, we load in the vans at 8:30am to head out to a colonia called Loma Bonita (Pretty Hill).  But the only thing pretty about it are all of the beautiful faces of the people that live there.  It has been many, many years since I encoutered poverty like this and it completely broke my heart.  We went there to love the children, to play with them and help serve them a meal....possibly the only thing they would eat that day. 
One of the leaders of my group, one of her jobs here on the base is to interview families in the community for one of the main ministries of YWAM Mazatlan called Homes of Hope.  Short term mission teams raise the money for the supplies and then come down and build a house...a house that goes up in just 3 days!  It is like the show Extreme Home Makeover, only so much better!
I had the privelage of going with Mayrel (my leader) to visit some of the families.  One of the families that we went to visit was a family that they are hoping to build a house for.  The mom was so happy to see Mayrel and invited us into her home.  As I sat down in the chair that she quickly went to get for me to sit on....I tried not to cry as I look around this meek little structure with it's dirt floor and meager posessions.  The whole family lived in this tiny little space.  From what I understood there were 5 in this family.  My heart broke as I entered into this house with my expensive running shoes on knowing that the cost of my shoes would probably feed this family for months!

An adorable little girl looking at a pink chicken
and yes it is real!

 The next family we went to visit, was a family that had recently received on of the homes from Homes of Hope and Mayrel wanted to check and see how the family was doing.
We entered the yard and walked through a really small space that looked like a garage.  It had a small dirt bike and a fridge in it....then we walked out of that and into the house.  The baby was asleep on the bed when we got there but he soon woke up and I just sat there and watched him and smiled at him while Mayrel talked to his mom.

After we left, Mayrel was telling me that the whole family used to live in the front part that we walked through.  That tiny little space I thought was their garage, used to be their home!  She was telling me that the mother explained that she used to be afraid to go to sleep at night because scorpians used to drop down from the ceiling and land on their bed.  Also, when they were interviewing them about building them a new house, she said that there were spiderwebs everywhere!  They had asked the mom why she didn"t clean them up and they were told that they left the spiderwebs because when the scorpians would drop from ceiling at night, the spiderwebs would help catch some of them and keep them from dropping down on their bed!
One thing that they loved about their new home was that they didn't have to be afraid of the scorpians at night and they could sleep in peace.  Oh the things we all take for granted!

We learned this week that poverty doesn"t still exist because God doesn't care but that the church is not doing its job of loving their neighbours.  God asked us to take care of the poor and the broken, of the orphans and the widows....it is our job!  In today's society there is no need for poverty like this to exist....my heart has been totally broken and my eyes open that we as a church really need to wake up and start doing what God has asked us to do.  So right now I am wrestling with what that might mean for my own life... and I challenge you to do the same.

Some children at the church working on a craft that illustrated their Bible lesson