Wednesday, May 21, 2008

MI AMIGO Y MAESTRO LUIS…..

Here is a newsletter that I received from Tita, a wonderful Guatemalan woman who has devoted her life to helping “the least of these” in her country. She tells the story of Luis, who I previously wrote about, who we built a house for while on our mission trip in Guatemala.


MI AMIGO Y MAESTRO LUIS…..

I have known Luis for a while now; a man that didn’t speak at all, and rarely lifted the view…I always thought that he was an interesting person because I always saw him working without speaking to anybody. The times that he said hi, he was very polite but it was limited to the greeting nothing else: just a quick look…as times went by I tried to approach more, trying to speak of different things with the intention of getting more confidence. We had small and superfluous conversations for him, but very valuable for me, just by allowing me to know him more; although he always kept his distance, we became a little more closer.

A good day of God, we find Luis at the end of one of those alleys of La Limonada, as always, working; I went with an big friend with a wonderful heart, he is from the States. He spoke to Luis about Jesus: for my surprise, knowing the distance that he kept towards all…I could see how Luis prayed and gave his life to Jesus. In that moment I realized that I was, like the Bible says, at “the least of the earth”, not for the distance, but for the difficult of having arrived to Luis, it seemed like a miracle how God managed to search and find him.

O the MANY and valuable things that I have learned from Luis, it is to be grateful with what God gives me, I don’t mean that we should be “conformists” in a negative sense, let us use the blessed balance, but I mean that I have learned how to savor and to enjoy what I have “today” and to cherish how blessed I am for SO MANY things.

WHY?

…He gets up every morning to work in the drainage to look for things of value, like copper, iron and aluminum, or, other things as balls. In one of our “deep and valuable” conversations, Luis told me that to the he doesn’t lack ANYTHING, because God has blessed him with house, food and work, also that he doesn’t have problems with anybody. Wow, a good friend told me once: “that day that I have to enter in a drainage to work…that day, I believe that would not give thanks to God”, by the way that I believe that he has a picture of Luis in his office to remember how blessed he is materially.

HOUSE?

Yes, Luis calls “house” to the place where he lives: roofless, no bed, no table or NOTHING. When you walk in, it is a beautiful place, there is staff the he has found that we will never have. Even do he has absolutely anything, He feel like living in a palace!

And well…god has lifted a group of people who had left ALL their comfort to come to La Limonada to share from the bottom of their hearts: this month of April, a team from a church CAME to “build” Luis’s house; they also bought a bed, pillows, dishes and a small roaster, so he can warm up his food. We can see a little bit of process in the pictures. 

WHAT DOES LUIS SAYS:

--Luis, how do you sleep? (by the way, that was our second toughest night in the rain).
“…Oh!, but if you are inside a house you don’t need blankets! It is not cold! And it is so strange to sleep on a bed”

In over 50 years, is the first time that Luis sleeps on a bed 

How great it is to see the Lord’s body ALIVE and ACTIVE!!!

With Love and Gratitude, Tita

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