Anything is Possible
When you are up to your eyeballs in trouble and stress, perspective is sometimes hard to muster up. When you have been disappointed one too many times, hope seems more like a taunt than a promise. When you are struggling with your mistakes and wondering if you will ever get it right, it can be hard to believe that life can ever get even a little easier. When you are down at the bottom, even though there is nowhere to go but up, it can seem impossible to believe there is any way to get there.
Their life is almost impossible to imagine. As I type these words and as you are reading them, it is pretty much a sure thing that you and I are both safe, secure, and, within reason, are able to stay that way. We are not faced with the daily struggle of survival and we don’t know what it is to go without basic human needs. Due to the randomness of birth, we live in and belong to a country that ensures that we are given safety nets and provision. Not so for this family.
This family lives on the edge of a community called Aguas Negras. There are three of them in their home: the father, mother, and their 15 year old son. They are so deeply impoverished that even the other families in this small, poor community that they are a part of feel compassion for them, but are unable to help them. Their world is wrapped up in cardboard, driftwood, rusted tin, and re-used porous wood – all of it battered by the elements they are subjected to.
Their house is in a flood path, and there is LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute)ly nothing they can do to change it. They lack all the basic supplies that shouldn’t even be in question: no beds, dry blankets, or clothes. They have no safety, no privacy, and lack the ability to even try to properly cook anything. Their feet swell from being in the dirty water all the time, and rashes are starting to form because they are always wet. In this place, hope might be completely impossible to imagine.
But anything is possible, isn’t it?
Hero Holiday needed to find projects for the summer that would both benefit a family’s immediate needs and help to shape their future. This family is more than in need and we are more than willing to do what we can to help them. In one month from now, tones of Canadians will be working alongside of them and others in their community to reshape the future of Aguas Negras.
As Cole, our Construction Manager, stood at this family’s door and told them that we would like to build them a house this summer, the news began to sink in and their son began to cry and repeatedly murmur, “Mucho gracias, mucho mucho gracias.” What they may never understand though, is that we should be thanking them, because by allowing us to help them, they are helping us to remember why we hope. And when we remember that, anything is possible.
To find out more about our Hero Holiday program and how you can be a part of what we do, check out www.livedifferent.com.