FIGHTING OVER AN EGG

I was on the phone tonight with Hortensia, she was giving me a rundown on the day, when our phone call was interrupted by a family in barrio Pedrigal. "Hortensia, we have no food." Yes, it's been a bad day for this family of six. No food; and in the afternoon they were actually fighting over one egg. One egg. The neighbors told us of the quarreling. Well, they somehow got hold of some rice and a little salt, put it together with the one scrambled egg. A meal for six?

Tonight the call came again, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing ... hence the second call for food from the same family. Dad's out of work, Mom is angry with a hot temper.

All this trouble comes as a consequence of inept parents and their poor decisions. But what about the kids? What do we do about the hungry kids?

It's 8:30pm. Hortensia will grab a cab and take food over to this family, which includes a little two year old girl and her fourteen year old mother ... along with two teen boys.

The poverty right across the border is embarrassing. Like America, Mexico has plenty of potential, and money but it's in the pockets of the corrupt politicians.

Tomorrow I'll take some prized "Luxury" food items across the border to barrio Gardenia ... Foods that are far too expensive for them. Peanut-butter, wienies, turkey-ham, mayonnaise, catchup. Tomorrow we will have a drawing for about forty mothers with these items for prizes. Oh yes, and prizes for many of their eighty kids.

It will be a joyful day because we can help over forty very poor families. They look forward to this HAPPY DAY once a month. Each week we're at one of our four barrios with this Happy Occasion. Thanks for making it possible.

Thanks for your prayers and help.

FOUR KNIVES

These aren't just four knives, they're not knives at all ... you don't peel apples with these. A switch-blade is a small quick and quiet weapon. At different times different kids have given me these stickers because they weren't going to use them anymore. PTL! Each with a story.


One afternoon I was in the city and on a little rather isolated hill there were three partially burned out houses. A handful of street kids using drugs adopted the area and lived in the empty parts of these old houses. I called this area "Campamento Cemento. (Camp Cement) These street kids would be huffing glue in a plastic sack and it sustained a 24/7 mellow high. A high on cheap rubber cement.

I was up there one evening when a kid about sixteen came up to me "Hey, Von, would you check my back, I got hit last night." And he pulled his shirt up. I didn't really know what he meant or what to look for. The boy was pretty well stoned. "What do I look for?" I asked him. "Last night a guy hit me with a blade." I looked around his back and found where he had been stabbed by a switch blade. A little slit in his skin, less than an inch wide. Fortunately the wound didn't go deep enough to tap into his lung. I told him this was serious and that I would take him to the hospital. "No way, he said!" "Well then, I'll bring our doctor up to check it out." "NO! NO DOCTOR!!! You do it!!!" All the kids were standing around watching the show.

I always carry a small tube of antibiotics with me, along with a topical fungicide. So I moved the slit in his skin around until I found the puncture in his muscle, then I squirted the antibiotic cream deep into the hole. I put some cream on the skin slit and that was it. He was stoned but managed to thank me for "fixing him."

Yeah, I hate these switch-blades ... at least these four blades aren't being used any more.

PRAY!!!

Look! Look!!! There's the harvest! Don't you see it? It's there for the taking ... But, where are the harvesters? They're nowhere to be found. "Pray to the Lord of the harvest, that He might send harvesters." (Matthew 9:38) Indeed, it's 2015 and still the nagging question, where are the harvesters?

Last Sunday, a lady about my age was frustrated, "I can't do anything anymore. I'm getting old" ... My sister you can do plenty by praying for harvesters.

A thin handsome boy about 14 was buzzing around me like a fly ... He looked at me smiling. In my conversation I asked him where his father was, he looked down and shrugged his shoulders ... "I have no father." I asked him about his mom ... same shrug; "I don't know where she is." I hugged him and said "I'll make you my son, OK?" He looked up and smiled again.

Several years ago I was spending Christmas Eve at an orphanage in the mountains outside of Tijuana. Watching the kids dig into their presents ... I asked a black teenage boy sitting silently thinking, "Roberto, if I could give you any gift in the world ... what would you want?" He replied rather quickly ... "I want to meet my father." I found myself in a rather awkward position. I knew what he didn't know, Roberto was found one night as a newborn infant on some beach near Tijuana.

Things like that hurt me and to tell the truth, at times I feel rather lonely ... who else gives a damn and why should I? This painful question nags me ... Excuse the old age pity-party! "Who else gives a damn and why should I?" I could be in Calcutta India, or Haiti or Manila in the Philippines ... and I would echo the same question. Where in the world are these harvesters? ... and where are the prayer warriors praying for harvesters?

I shouldn't feel lonely, many of you do care, you do pray for me and support me. You do care and I'll try my best at being a father or grandpa to these hundreds of kids.