The Helpless Aren't Very Helpless

     This weekend I went down with my church, Christ's Church of the Valley (CCV), to Rocky Point, Mexico. This isn't the beautiful Rocky Point where one would go on vacation and hang out, this was a different Rocky Point. Specifically, we went to the Barrios, or, the more poverty stricken area of Rocky Point. The uglier part that no one really talks about.

     We went on a missions trip down there to build five homes for five families. I've gone once before and really wanted to go this year for the same reason: seeing the smiles and tears of the grateful family. This year was a lot different, though. The family wasn't your average "poor and homeless family who does nothing but sits in the sand and waits for people to help them." This family was different. 

     The father of the family was Arceleos, and his wife was Victoria. They have four children and one shack for an abode. Victoria stays at home all day and takes care of her four children while Arceleos does masonry work for $10 a day. That is their lifestyle and their background. 

     As my team began working on the construction of their house, we noticed that Arceleos, after returning home from a long day's work, began to help us with the house. And by help, I don't mean he gave us nails. We was on his hands and knees smoothing the concrete, on the roof nailing nails into the boards, and getting is entire body filthy from the stucco we were pasting on the house. He was more involved than one third of the people there.

     That wasn't the only shocker here. On Monday (the final working day), Victoria and her four children presented my entire team of 35 people a meal of two fish tacos per person. WHAT?! After already having their husband/father working all day on the house, they have enough gratefulness and appreciation to make a meal for the entire team?! That absolutely blows my mind, as well as educates it.

     As you have read, this family was in no place to help us at all. they could have watched the whole time and that would have been perfect. But they didn't. No matter what place they were in, they wanted to help and show gratefulness. How much more, then, should we be grateful to people, even when we are in no place to do so. Love is everywhere, it's in America, it's in Africa, it's even in the Barrios of Rocky Point, Mexico; we just need to search and serve.