Housing the Homeless

Last August strong rains tore apart the city. They caused tremendous damage…craters twenty-feet deep, businesses destroyed by avalanches, houses flooded. Some people were rendered homeless. Yet, when you lose your
home and you are a garbage-dump worker, you are in a particularly precarious situation. Not only do you lose everything you have, but you have to pay high rent prices (at the expense of food) or live in the garbage dump.

This was the case of one our hard-working families at AFE. Even when they lost their home to a landslide, the hard-working mother and father kept their children out of the dump. The two girls continued in school and sold candy door-to-door in the afternoons to support the family income. But life was hard with high rent prices…and the loss of everything they owned.

In Steps Community

One church in the United States with a long-term relationship with AFE got wind of the situation. It just so happened that the woman sponsoring one of these girls was planning a mission trip with the church in March.…and she had a friend coming on the trip who wanted to support a larger project. A month later a new home was completed for the Navas-Paz family. The father and four-year old boy joyfully helped the North Americans build it. The team etched “Christo Te Ama,” above the doorway to the home and I can guarantee that the Navas-Paz knows this to be true.

***** There are many more families in equally desperate situations. If you would like to help AFE house the homeless of the garbage dump, contact reyangeldiaz@gmail.com