Meet Henry!

This blog will be a bit long, but I feel it is necessary to give some background.

Fourteen years ago, a GRACE team built a “double wide” house located on the dirt road leading to the mission house. The family of six had four precious small girls and many people from the team favored them. The family would eat dinner with the team and some of the ladies would paint fingernails, wash hair, provide new clothes, etc for the young girls. The family did not own the land, but worked in the fields and served as security for the landowner. We are assuming the part of the land where the house was built was sold and the family moved had to move to another location very close to the original house. (basically 50 yards away). The family moved to a two room block “house” with no roof. They used the laminate from the original house to place a roof on the block house. Fourteen years later the rusted laminate is still serving as the roof for the house.

Fast forward to today and one of the small girls. Lydia, is married with four children under the age of six. Lydia’s oldest child, Henry, began school this year and he is faithful in attending the feeding center. Last Saturday, I delivered food to Henry’s family and discovered they are living in a “room” with plastic, corn stalk, and rusted tin as walls. They are sleeping on a piece of plastic on the dirt floor. The roof and walls obviously have holes, and the rains have began in Guatemala. The small room had one bike and a few pieces of clothing.

Dirt floors + Roof with Holes + Rain = Muddy Floor.

Pastor Terry Rainey’s team was scheduled to build them a house in about four weeks. Knowing the urgency of the situation, they graciously allowed Soy along with two Guatemala men to build the house this week. People have provided the funds for a house, mattresses, and blankets for the family.

The concrete floor was poured on Thursday morning, and Thursday night the rains came. It is now Friday night and we are listening to the rains with a grateful heart that four precious children were sleeping in a protected area with a cement floor.

As a mother, I can’t imagine feeling helpless and hopeless in providing a better life for my children. I can’t imagine looking at my children sleeping on a dirt floor knowing that I do not have the education or skills to break the cycle of poverty.

However, God is using people to pour into the life of precious Henry so he will have the opportunities to end the cycle of poverty. We are praying and believing that God has unimaginable things in store for this amazing little boy.

(Due to the size of the land the custom built house is smaller than a typical house. There were a couple pieces of leftover laminate and the family is using it to repair some of the holes in the 14 year old tin!)

Thank you Bro. Jack and Mrs. June Bailey for sponsoring sweet, kind-hearted Henry!