Orphanage Renovation!

As many of you know this past month we have been doing a renovation at the orphanage (Ministerios de Amor).  It has taken a lot of work, but we are finally done!  Before the orphanage was a wreck.  Horribly dirty, cockroaches and rats, urine stained mattresses, horrible bunkbeds that were breaking, leaking sinks.  And 30 boys were living in this.  We couldn't keep volunteering there without doing something.  So....we renovated the kitchen, living room, bathrooms, bedrooms, backyard.  Check out the photos!

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Basketball Court Before

Basketball Court After

Bathroom Before

Bathroom Before

  

Bathroom After

Bathroom After

Showers After

Bunkbeds + Lockers

New Bunkbeds

New Living Room

Thank you all for your support to make this renovation possible!

Jose

Last Friday our team was at Ministerios de Amor finishing up all of our renovation projects.  We were working on the last bedroom.  We took down all of the furniture and bunkbeds and transferred all of the kids' posessions to the new bedrooms in their brand new lockers.  So we were painting the new bedroom, taking apart bunkbeds, making the beds in the new bedroom, moving clothes, etc.  It was a definitely a crazy and long day.  A good 10+ hours working.

Jose

All of the kids went to school and we kept working.  I had 2 brothers who are fairly new to the orphanage and don't go to school helping me out.  These boys are so cute.  They are 2 brothers who have mental disabilities and are some of the funniest and most creative kids I know.  They were helping me move all of the clothes and helping me paint the wall with toothbrushes.  Yes toothbrushes.  The wall was a popcorn type material wall where a regular roller brush won't cover the wall entirely, so we had to go back in and cover all of the holes with toothbrushes.  What a sight!  The three of us with toothbrushes painting an entire bedroom.  :)

So after a good 4 hours of working one of the boys (Jose) turned to me and said "You're really pretty."  I started laughing.  We had been working for hours and hours. No air conditioning nor fans.  I was sweating.  Smelly.  Covered in paint.  Hair up in a pony tail.  In old dirty clothes.  I was a mess.  I laughed off the comment and we went back to working.

I started thinking about his comment a couple days later.  I was definitely not pretty in that moment, and yet Jose saw something I didn't.  

I was dirty. A mess.  And yet, Jose saw something else.

It made me think about our standing before God.  I am a mess.  I am a wreck.  I'm dirty.  I'm far from perfect.  I'm selfish. I'm sinful.  And yet God sees me in light of the cross.  Jesus dying for me has given me a right standing before God.  God sees me and He sees something I don't.  He loves me.  He says I am beautiful.  He calls me His daughter.

It is funny how such a small comment from a 8 year old boy can really rock you and take you back and analyze something so basic to our faith and yet so deep.