I don’t believe in Chance, I believe in God

The whole story:

Many times in life we can just think that things happen ‘just because’, and then God shows up and reminds me that it’s all a lot bigger than just chance.

Last fall we had a meeting with some community members asking them what needs in the community we could work on – they conducted a survey of all the houses in our little community of Lo De Reina (71 homes) to see which houses needed latrines, cement floors, and which families desperately needed houses. We narrowed down the houses to the top 5 to start with, and 11 latrines for the summer – but in there are around 45 latrines needed just in this small area – 63% of all the homes not having something as basic as a latrine! And the committee chose to wait on the floors and instead focus on the others. Ok – so back to the houses.  Top on the list was Mercedes and Reina and their 2 kids Bryan and Sophie.

Not thinking too much into it, we invited them over to talk and tell them that we wanted to build them a house. Immediately they both started to cry and Reina explained that in January of this year (we spoke to them in March), they fasted and prayed for 2 weeks specifically for a house of their own. EA was able to facilitate being an answer to that prayer – and we didn’t even know it! (see what I mean about things not happening by chance?)

More about this family: They are a hard-working, strong Christian, family that have had some very hard blows in life.  They used to live in the capital – Tegucigalpa – and they both worked, until Sophie (now 7) was diagnosed with a kidney disease that cost them well over $10,000 out of pocket! ($1,600 is the average annual income in Honduras). The surgery was a failure. Reina quit work to care for her sick toddler and Mercedes worked as many hours as he could. They also moved back to Lo De Reina to be near family. After a year of this and constant prayer, she was miraculously healed – now, years later you’d never known she was so sick and dying. They still have not been able to recover from this blow – the debt, the loss of jobs and careers, some bad farming crops, have left them scrambling at the end of each week to just make it.

Now they have a house to call their own, no more rent! And they have more hope. They see how God has provided twice in huge ways – a healthy daughter, and a home to call their own.

Brownsville Baptist was blessed to be a part of a huge miracle in building their house and giving them a fresh start.