HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER

About eleven years ago I met the threesome living in a small hillside shack in a barrio called Pedrigal. The shack didn't even have a solid door but an old blanket draped over the side served as the door. Inside was mama, little Diego, a severely retarded eight year old boy, and his older brother Jovany, who was about 9 years old.

The situation was bad. We brought them food and provided pampers for Diego. I remember buying them a small propane stove and tank, which mother sold two weeks later to buy more food.

Spectrum with the help of a Church purchased property and built them a small house in a better area. We moved them in. Other Churches became aware of the situation helped with food and pampers. The situation was looking better. Suddenly the three disappeared. The house was empty. We looked for them but couldn't find them.

That's where I lost contact.

A few days ago Hortensia saw Diego's mother staggering around she was really drunk. Hortensia questioned a lady there about where she lived. What about the two boys? Soon we had a phone contact with Jovany; now a young man twenty-two years old.

He happily greeted her. "Hortensia I remember you coming to our house. Where is Pastor Von? Is he still alive? He used to visit Diego and bring me chocolates and little cars. Is he around?”

He filled Hortensia in on the missing years. It seemed their mother walked out on the two boys when Jovany was about ten. Just left! After a few days neighbors called the police and the boys were given to a family for care. In about a year their mother returned and took the boys back, but the house we built them was occupied, so again, they moved into a hillside shack where they live now.

At sixteen Jovany got a job, went back to school and in addition supported and cared for his handicapped brother. Soon Jovany will have his High School diploma to get a better job. What about your mother, Hortensia asked? "My mother? She's always gone, she's the town drunk! She embarrasses me.”

I wanted to visit them, but at my age I couldn't manage the hike down the steep hillside to their little shack. Jovany brought Diego up so I could meet the two of them again. Jovany, now a young man, was happy to see Hortensia and myself ... Diego, well, he still doesn't know who anyone is.

Fortunately their old house is occupied but still in our hands. We want to hand it over to Jovany. First, we've got to pay $1500 for the unpaid water bill and move out the occupants. It will be worth it; a young man like Jovany deserves a break! He really loves and cares for his brother.

It's the kind of stuff you enable us to do ... find a true need and meet it! This is just one of many challenges that come our way each month.

MAMA! YOU MADE HIM A UNISEX WIMP

Talk about bully bait! I'm disgusted at what the influence of many, many mothers through the years has done to the balance of men.

Too much perverted loving on the part of mama. Estrogen is rubbed, hugged and kissed into their man-child the first ten or twelve years of their boy's life and when their man-child goes into puberty his testosterone somehow gets watered down with estrogen. . A balancing father figure is strangely missing. (Fathers day? What's that? Who's he?)

Can there be too much mama love?

Apparently so, even though MaMa's will deny it. Look at, and listen to, the average young American male today. He is  definitely a different species of boy and or man then decades ago. Balls full of estrogen, a sickening paradox. Unfortunately, if you are looking for balls of testosterone you will find them in a gang or the prison world where male hungry kids band together to become collective males.. a wrong and dangerous route to manhood. But indeed who's at fault here?

Fathers where are you?

Watch the media and it will tell you in short order how hungry men (and boys) are for a macho male. Look at the media's artificial male. Look at his image (and acts) He looks about as male as you can get!

Distilled manhood!

Men of muscle, iron and steel.  Alas, just an image! A wannabe image!

FERNANDO'S RECOVERY

Well, it's all a memory now, the blood tests, the trips to the doctor, the hospital and the surgery; now it's get well time for Fernando. I saw him a few days ago at the orphanage in his new pajamas. I had promised him a remote control car if he went through the surgeries like a man ... he did cry a bit as they stitched him up, but after all he is only ten. Yep! He got the car.

His little red remote control car went over big.

When he saw me he gave me a smile and a hug and a picture he drew for me. As any true artist, he put his name and date down on the bottom of the drawing. I was amazed by his drawings, this little boy is gifted!

Fernando doesn't know the many of you who pitched in and made his surgery possible, but he does know that a lot of Americanos got together and helped him.

Thank you from Fernando and I want to thank you too, by the way, he's going to draw a picture for his doctor friend too.

A THOUSAND WORDS

It's been said "a picture's worth a thousand words"; that was yesterday add the glut of text today and a good picture is worth thousands of words. A photo impacts you, I've had photos change my life.

How can I express compassion by text, I can't. Yet compassion for the poor is a root of our ministry. This photo shows a father passionately trying to communicate with his brain dead son! Indeed it's one thing to look at this and let it grip you; it's quite another to be there watching Bernardo begging for Tony's life. I stayed. I prayed, and after pressing some transportation money in his hand, I left.

Bernardo lives with the memory of his wife dying of cancer a month before, and now this unhealed wound. We helped Benardo with some food and medical expenses. Giving is one way we can show gratitude to God for His goodness to us.   

Thanks to the many of you who pitched I and helped us afford Fernando Angel's hernia operation. (His mother, a very poor lady thanks us in tears.)

In the next few weeks we have to raise the money to send both David and Abraham, and their mothers, to Mexico City for what we hope will be their last surgery. Several specialists will do the surgery free if they are done in the big hospital in Mexico City. These boys just want to be normal, they are both incontinent. David has to stick a catheter through his abdomen three times a day ... often causing major infection! Not good! Jesus had compassion! Sacrificial compassion (Thanks for our Salvation!) His compassion is what drives us to help the helpless. Your compassion is what makes this help possible. (I might add my own money is part of that help too.)

Both of these boys could use your prayers along with the surgeons. We appreciate the break they are giving these boys. (By now the boys are good friends.)

Now remember the kids in our neighborhoods don't get money like our kids who live across the fence. A dollar to an American kid is nothing; a dollar to a boor barrio kid is everything. I'll admit, sometimes I do get weak with the dollar bills. For instance I've found that paying a dollar for a kids good grades is a gigantic motivator in our world. (Wrong motive? I'll agree! ... but it work Oh yes and I give a dollar for a child who had a birthday. Birthday celebrations are rare among the poor. A dollar for a tooth? I've done that for years!

Thank you for these photos Lucas.

Thank you for trusting our good judgement in helping the really needy! Over fifty years experience in navigating the land mines of "helping" the truly poor. Compassion in action.

In The love of Jesus, Pastor Von