God Found a Way

How can you really describe a day like today in El Salvador.  So many emotions come into play throughout the day.  The people here are so warm, loving and welcoming, so generous with the little they have.  They have big smiles and even bigger hearts.  They worship with passion at the church service singing at the top of their lungs and with all of their hearts.  But then you see the conditions that they live in and the hardship that they face every day just to exist, just to get food on the table.  Houses made of sticks and plastic and scraps of steel pieced together to try and put a roof over their heads.

You can imagine the joy for a family with two girls when they heard the news that they would receive a new home.  They lived in a home with plastic walls and pieces of steel for a roof. No longer would the Mom have to pile all their blankets and sheets and even clothes on their girls in the middle of the night in a storm to try and keep them dry.  With the Dad’s work being three hours away, he was away at work 5 and sometimes 6 days a week, leaving the Mom and the girls at home. No longer would the Mom have to worry about leaving her girls home alone while she went to try and sell goods at the market, as they would have a home where the girls could stay home and lock the doors for safety.

But then the bad news came that they couldn’t use their land to build a house.  They had planned to tear down their house and build the new home directly where their house sat.  However, they were within 8 metres of a water system owned by a company that decided to enforce a new rule that didn’t allow building within that limit of the water system.  It didn’t matter that hundreds of homes already existed within that limit, brick homes and other homes that Shelter had build for people in need.  Their home was right within the limit and on the other side of their house was the steep slope dropping off to a valley that didn’t allow them to move their home any further away from the waterway. Now this family faced hopelessness again.

This family was not ready to give up though.  They came up with a plan of building a retaining wall and filling in an area large enough to have a plateau behind their existing house where they could build.  With over 1,000 tires filled with mud and rocks, they built up a wall over 4 metres high, filled in the area with rocks and dirt and managed to have enough new land to build their house.  With the Dad being away all week for work, the Mom did the majority of the work, getting old tires wherever she could for free or paying up to $0.60 per tire to get the materials and get the job done.

We were all shocked to hear this story and the determination to be able to have a home! When someone said to them “You needed this house and you found a way” and they response was “God found a way!”

Four houses were built today, four families have a roof over their heads to keep them dry, and doors that lock to keep them safe. What an incredible day!