Hardpressed.

(This is part Five on our recent Mexican Mission experience)

There is only so much that a person can stand. Push me so far and I would break at some point or another. I cannot fathom some of the graphic tragedy that many people all over the world face everyday. I know that I have led a sheltered life, protected from much of the pain and misery that this world can throw at its inhabitants. I am sheltered to a great degree by where I was born and who my parents were and the condition of my country and the time in which God created me to live. My mother and father are still married and my dad was blessed with a good job for the whole of his adult life with General Motors. My mom worked when the kids were in school. They were good with their money and didn’t get addicted to anything along the way.

In 2001 I met a family in colonial Juarez. The woman’s name was Patie (26) she had four children at the time, a husband and a “new” home. The reason that it was new was because her mother had just died three weeks before I met her and had willed her a home that she had started building several years before. The new home was four walls about 18’ x 32’, which is spacious for this area, but only the block walls stood. A group the week before us had built a roof and we were able to pour all her cement floors. The group took up an offering and bought her windows, doors and a set of bunk beds for the kids so that she could move in to her new place.

Almost seven years have past and two more children have been born, Patie and her family have really been engraved on my heart over these years and I try to visit her and her family when we are in Mexico. This past trip we were able to visit, spending some time catching up (trough my personal translator, Lorena) sharing a soccer game in the street. Patie told us that her husband has left again which is about the tenth time since I’ve known them. Benjamin is his name and he has spent his life drinking, beating his wife and working on cars, but not necessarily in that particular order. So every once in a while he takes off and leaves the family without any income or a father or much hope for a better life. I just don’t get it. I get angry, I feel helpless and i want to rescue them all from it. I mean sure, we have done a few projects to help around the house over the years, like: installed a beam to support a sagging roof, and then a wall for the same reason. Rewired her house, insulated and built a whole new roofing system a few years ago along with all of the countless food and money donations to the family. This has helped and feed them for a time but this woman’s faith in Christ makes mine pale in comparison. The immense pressure she must feel makes me wonder why she isn’t in a little padded cell somewhere or dead. So during our last visit I blurted out the their oldest daughter Cynthia should come back to Michigan, live with us and go to school. Anyone know how to bring a 13 year old Mexican to the U.S.A. legally? Please let me know!