Every year we visit
our friends Felipe & Sonya in Tepito. This year is the church’s
10 year anniversary. They have renamed the church “Solo por
Gracias” which means For Grace Alone.
Tepito is very busy
with open air markets. And there are homeless people all over the
place – men sleeping on street corners, benches, where ever. And
it is dirty. There is one corner that, honestly, has had a mountain
of trash at it every time we go to Tepito.
Felipe & Sonya
minister to the people of Tepito despite all of the odds. And our
group has been helping them for a long time doing all sorts of
things. One year, when Felipe was told they no longer had the
building they were in, our group literally moved the rubble from an
empty lot next door so that a new church could be built there. That
is where their current building is. The first year I visited, there
were walls in the new church and some lights. But the walls were
just bare concrete block and the floor was bare concrete. Over the
years, they continue to improve the building – but it is nothing
like our building at Re3. They’ve painted the walls and put tile
on the floor. But the ceiling is corrugated tin. Their bathrooms
are literally stalls off the main room.
And their kitchen,
that they run a soup kitchen out of, is about one quarter the size
of the one at Re3. They have cabinets, but the upper cabinets were
sitting on the counter top, so there was no work space. They had no
running water. Their stove is run off of a propane tank – what we
would call a really nice camp stove.
This year, part of
our group put the cabinets on the wall and got the sink in working
order. Believe me when I say it would never meet building code in
Forsyth County. And I think it is safe to say that not one woman in
Project:Re3 would give her kitchen up for the kitchen that Sonya uses
– even with the improvements our folks made. But – if you could
have seen the gratefulness in Sonya’s face. To have a sink in her
kitchen that works – never mind it only has cold water. To have
kitchen cabinets on the wall so that she could use the counter top.
Her face just shone.
And maybe that is
why I love going to Tepito. It is not Tepito itself, but this bright
light that shines through Felipe & Sonya. The contrast between
the dark and the light is so apparent at Tepito is makes me crave
more. I want that for myself and those around me. I want to be
thankful like they are thankful.
We complain if our
cabinets are the wrong color.
Or we covet the kitchen with the
granite countertops.
We wonder how they did it in the old days with
out a microwave.
And yet this woman was thrilled with old used
cabinets and countertop from the 60’s maybe?!
I want to be
thankful.
For running water.
For the miracle of HOT running water.
For a refrigerator. For a stove and an oven.
For a church with
clean white walls.
And bathrooms.
And clean streets.
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