By Adam Swenson
When I was in Yo Creek this past March, Pastor Angel Mendez said he wanted to show me something. Three of us from Thirst Missions hopped in the back of his truck and we took off over the rutted dirt roads to the outskirts of the village, and then we kept going. Angel drove half a mile through a sugar cane field and we got out and walked another hundred yards and crossed a dry streambed (with no bridge) to Reyna’s house.
The “house” was a collection of found materials from bush sticks to cardboard to leftover pieces of rusted zinc roofing that Reyna had salvaged over the years. I had seen my share of poverty but this was breathtaking. A sixty-year-old widow, Reyna lived on her own in the middle of a sugar cane field with no running/clean water and no electricity. She had no form of lighting, her house flooded a few times a year when the rains were heavy and the stream outgrew its banks. Rain whipped right through the walls. The only furnishings were a bare, once-discarded double mattress propped up on sticks (for when it floods) and a small table.
Reyna wasn’t a member of the church, but Angel wanted to reach out to her and meet her needs nonetheless. We had a team coming in June and Angel hoped they could build her a new house. The group was already going to be tiling an entire school and putting a new roof on the church, but we decided to try.
Much planning happened in the months before the team from First United Methodist Vero Beach arrived in Belize. Early on they proved to be a great team, super motivated, and hard workers. Each day from 7:00 until 5:30 they worked in the blazing sun, putting a new roof on Alfa Y Omega church, tiling five classrooms in Compassion School, and out at Reyna’s. The pastor Jeremy Rebman, his wife Ashley, and their two daughters worked diligently to build a bridge over the streambed. Many people worked on the house alongside some of the members of Alfa Y Omega who gave of their time to help on the project.
Throughout the week in 90 degree heat, the “house team” from FUMC installed flooring, built walls, put together windows, and built up the siding one plank after the next. (They required frequent trips to town for tools and supplies. I always went with Adolfo who helped me find the right “Chinese store” that would have the part in question. One trip was to Rainbow Hardware for half-inch drill bits. The cashier only spoke Chinese, and another man in the shop spoke both Chinese and Spanish. I told Adolfo what we needed in English, he translated to Spanish to the man behind the counter, who translated to Chinese for the cashier. We walked out with our drill bits in under five minutes.)
Midweek a couple of the ladies asked the very apparent next question: What are we going to put in the house? We knew we’d be adding a small cooking table and a propane stove, but had no plans beyond that.
We cracked open the window in her old house to see what might be able to make the move, but there was really nothing. We were discussing what she might need when Gabriel, one of the Belizeans helping build the house, suggested we take her with us. Pastor Angel found her (Reyna has no phone) and she agreed to the plan. Pat and Kelly, two proper Southern ladies, organized a love gift from the team—and they gave generously.
And so it was that the next morning Pat and Kelly hopped in the back of a battered old Toyota pickup in the brightsun, Reyna sitting between them, and we set out on the 15-minute drive to town. Reyna selected some very utilitarian kitchen implements (a huge cast iron pot for rice and beans!) and the ladies worked together to come up with all the things a good Belizean tiny house kitchen would need.
The whole time I thought of James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” There are many complex ethical situations in life, but this was not one of them. Helping Reyna was the best, most meaningful, most rewarding thing we could have been doing at that time. There’s a transcendent and lasting beauty in being used by God to meet a concrete need, and I think we all felt the weight of it.
Two days later the house was done and it was just beautiful. The team had chosen to fully furnish and stock the house and there was a ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled for 4:00 when we would pray with Reyna and hand her the keys.
I went out early, taking the truck down the nearly impassable road to her house. The team was walking from the church, so I had a 10-minute head start. When I got there Reyna was nowhere to be found! I couldn’t believe it. You can’t exactly have a ribbon cutting without the guest of honor.
Aaron, one of the Belizean men working on the house, said “I think I know where she is” and took off running through the cane field with no explanation. Seeing no better option, I took off after him. We ran half a mile through waist deep sugar cane and came to Reyna’s daughter’s house. Reyna had spent every last cent she had in the world to cook rice and beans and chicken for the entire team. She had bought two liters of coke and ice. The widow, the one with nothing, had chosen to give all she had to bless us.
She wouldn’t go until we could carry everything with us, so Aaron snatched up one massivepot of rice and beans and I grabbed another one right off the fire. We ran back through the cane field, trying to hold the massive, scalding hot pots away from our bodies. Reyna trailed after us with the cokes, the ice, and the chicken. (For a calorie-deprived sixty-year-old, she’s surprisingly hardy—and fast!)
The team was there waiting when we crossed over the bridge, Reyna first, Aaron and I bringing up the rear with the rice and beans. I told the team that Reyna was intent on serving us, and a roar went up from the crowd. She hugged just about everyone there. We prayed, cried, cut the ribbons, and gave her the keys. She stepped inside her beautiful new house, and we served rice and beans—at Reyna’s house.
****
We’d love to see this happen all over Belize. There are so many families in need and local pastors who can connect us with them. If you would like your team to be a part of this mention this story and sign up by August 31 and we’ll give you $500 toward construction! For $500 you could build a new kitchen and install a cooking stove (for a family still cooking over a fire). Or you could put that money toward building a new house. If you’d like more information on this please email us at info@thirstmissions.org.
Adam Swenson is the Director of Alaska Operations at Thirst Missions.
