Thursday, July 20, 2017

That smile!

Today we headed back to an island to finish up,working on the houses that we had continued working on yesterday. After taking a 20 minute boat ride and seeing a lot of black crabs, we made it to the island. Once we made it to the dock we had to unload all of the furniture for the two houses and all the other supplies we had brought with us for the day. 

We started our day at the school on the island. They had two classrooms for all the kids on the island. As an elementary school teacher, this was bizarre to me. I am used to having one classroom for my 20-25 students, who are all the same age, but these teachers had two classrooms that they had to split the kids up within. The younger kids, elementary school level, went to school in the morning, and the older kids, middle and high school level, went to school in the afternoon. 

After visiting with the kids and showing them a puppet show, we began handing out supplies for the kids. Each child got one bag of rice and one bag of black beans, a treat bag full of goodies, and some clothes.  Being able to be the hands and feet of God by proving these kids with food and clothes was such a blessing. Having something to eat and some clothes to wear is something I take for granted, but you could see the gratefulness in these children's' eyes as they received these items. 

Once we made sure all the kids received everything we had to offer, we began walking to the two concrete houses we had finished building so we could begin decorating and putting the furniture inside the homes. After this was done we got to give the keys to the new owners of the homes. Being able to be a small part in helping make these homes a possibility was a huge blessing to me. 

After returning back to the mission house and eating a delicious dinner of build-your-own tacos and tortilla soup, we made the meals to go out and feed the homeless. I had already done this two other times this week, but this time would be different because we would be doing so from the bed of a truck. In the two previous times we had gone we rode in a van and handed the food bags out of the window. This time we would be experiencing just a small taste of what these people go through every night. 

Once we loaded up the truck it began to rain extremely hard. Being in the pouring rain and literally shivering broke my heart when I saw a little boy, probably around 6-7 years old come run up to the truck so excited because he would be getting something to eat tonight. When I handed him his meal he squealed because he was so excited. It's hard to imagine having to go through that at all, let alone being a child and living on the streets not knowing where you would be getting your next meal. God truly blessed me by sending me on this trip and I know that my heart will be forever changed from everything I have experienced here so far.

Matthew 5:16 " Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven"

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