December 2011 - Merry Christmas!

We recently received a large donation of children’s jackets which we distributed to all the kids who come to the Lord’s Food Bank in Juarez, Mexico. As our temperatures dip into the mid-30’s, these warm jackets were very needed and welcomed, as many of these children walk a long way with their parents, grandparents or siblings to attend classes on the mesa where the Food Bank is located.         

More and more needy families come each week seeking help in these tough economic times; and while we can’t help with every need, no one leaves without at least receiving a bag of potatoes, beans and rice. That way we at least know they won’t go hungry. Such simple basics, but received with such appreciation and gratitude.

Thank you so much for making it possible for us to help our brothers and sisters. We pray that you and your loved ones be blessed this Christmas time with the joy and peace Jesus came to bring.

November 2011 - multiplication of food

Despite all the bad news we hear going on in the world, the Lord is busy and active working out His plan and taking care of His children. Sometimes He lets us see that in a dramatic way. Last month we held a retreat for the Confirmation kids from a parish close to the Lord’s Food Bank in Juarez, Mexico. The youth arrived Friday evening looking sullen, bored, and not wanting to be there. But as the weekend progressed, their hearts were softened as they listened to talks and received prayer. By Sunday this was a transformed group, laughing, weeping, wanting to get closer to Jesus.

Several of the parents had come along to help with the cooking throughout the retreat, and they had planned a special meal for the final lunch on Sunday. This included móle, a favorite chicken dish served at festivities in Mexico. But the person responsible for buying all the groceries had failed to purchase enough chicken needed to make a sufficient amount of móle to feed the 25 youth plus the priest and the adults helping with the retreat. There were only 2 lbs of chicken legs to be cooked up, deboned, and then the meat shredded – hardly enough for a small family, much less 35 people. When the cooks realized this, they decided to make extra rice and beans to supplement the small amount of móle that each person would get.

Ramona, who was coordinating the weekend, said about the food, “When it was all cooked, there was the mostly rice (2 commercial-size pots full), double the amount of beans (1 stockpot full) and ½ a pot full of chicken móle. I was disappointed but said a prayer and asked the Lord to bless the meal.” When the ladies started serving, out of habit they dished up equal amounts of rice, beans and chicken móle on each plate. “I was busy doing other things and didn’t notice. Later one of them came to me with a plate piled high with food. ‘No,’ I told her. ‘Give that to one of the kids.’ ‘All the kids have eaten,’ she told me, ’and some even had seconds. The staff are eating now – this plate is for you.’ I looked around, and sure enough, everyone was eating or had finished eating.”

When the meal was over, all of the rice was gone, the beans were gone, but there was still half a pot of móle left! “There was half a pot when we started,” Ramona marveled, “and a half of pot when we finished feeding everyone.” One of the moms exclaimed, “Look, there’s still móle left! I had always heard that the Lord multiplied food here at the Food Bank but now I’ve actually seen it with my own eyes!” The ladies divided it up and took the leftover móle home, praising God for the wonders He had done.

October 2011 - Jose

Each week people come to the Lord’s Food Bank in Juarez, Mexico, looking for help – big needs, small needs, and everything in between. A difficult job the volunteers have is trying to sort out and prioritize these requests so that we can help those in the gravest need first. One of the ways we do that is to visit the homes of those seeking our help.  

Last week, two of our volunteers went to visit one of these new families. What they found was heartbreaking. Ramona Diaz and her son, Jose, live in a one room shack. Jose is 29 years old and bedridden. He hasn’t always been that way, but several years ago a wound on his leg got infected and turned into a nasty ulcer. Unable to get adequate medical care, the ulcerated wound got worse and the infection eventually penetrated into the bone. Finally they took Jose to the hospital, but by then it was too late. In order to save his life, the doctors had to amputate Jose’s whole leg, up to his hip. They also had to do a colostomy on him.

Now Jose is confined to bed. “But he doesn’t let it get him down,” his mother shared. “He reads his bible every day and keeps a good attitude.” Jose chimed in, “Yeah, I’m almost finished reading it all the way through!” He was quite happy about that.

Struggling to even pay their rent, the family cannot afford to buy enough colostomy bags, so they wash them out and reuse them. Being in bed, Jose has developed a painful sore on his back. We were immediately concerned about the risk of it getting infected, so we called the doctor at our medical clinic, explaining Jose’s condition. She told us to bring him to the clinic so that she can examine him, which we made arrangements to do.

We have added them to our list of folks who receive groceries each week from the Lord’s Food Bank, and we are looking into where we can get them a supply of colostomy bags. We were so glad we learned about their plight so we could lend them a helping hand.

September 2011 - revised website

This summer we have been hard at work revising a website we have designed to be able to share some of the wonderful teachings of Father Rick Thomas. The website is: www.fatherrickthomas.com and we encourage you to have a look at it. Father Thomas was a very gifted preacher and had a marvelous ability to teach deep truths in a clear and simple way so that many could understand. We wanted to be able to share those teachings with a much wider audience, so we have been working at getting more material uploaded to the site. That way people all over the world, who have access to the internet, can listen to an audio teaching or see one of the video clips there.

As of this writing, we have had people from Canada, Mexico, China, Australia, the U.K., New Zealand, South Africa, and from all over the U.S. access this website and download the teachings.   We are thrilled to be able to be able to share Fr. Rick’s wisdom with so many people throughout the world.

On another note, we wanted to update you on our priest, Fr. Jack Vessels, and his situation. Earlier this year at his annual checkup, the doctors discovered some problems with his heart, so he underwent open heart surgery in April. He has been in New Orleans since early this year, first having the surgery, and then recovering from it. He was all set to return to us in early August, but was re-hospitalized due to swelling in his leg and pain in his heel. He is out of the hospital and recovering well, and hopes to be back here soon. As he recently wrote in an article for the Jesuits, “Two years ago the Provincial assigned me to assist this community. It has been an extremely rewarding experience, being immersed in the goodness and faith of simple, poor people who draw their strength from their love of God and His for them. It is good to think that, God willing, I'll spend the rest of my priestly ministry among them.”

Join us in praying for Fr. Jack. God bless you!

August 2011 - little girl burned

Aurora Alvarado, the nurse who runs The Lord’s Clinic at our Food Bank in Juarez, Mexico, shared this wonderful story with me:


On May 17^th, a mother in great distress came to the clinic with her baby daughter wrapped in a bedsheet. This mom had been cooking fried rice on her little electric skillet when the pan got knocked over and fell on 2 year old Alondra, who was playing on the floor. [These types of accidents are not uncommon due to the cramped spaces the poor have to live in. Often cooking is done on an electric griddle in the main, or only, room in the house.] Immediately Alondra’s uncle grabbed the child out of the way, but the damage had already been done. The toddler was severely burned with the hot oil and rice.

When I examined her, she had second and third degree burns with large blisters and pustules. She also had three large lesions from burns on her lower abdomen. When the doctor came in and saw the condition of the child, she didn’t know what to do. Not having the necessary equipment or resources needed in our simple rural clinic, all we could do was give the mom a cream to apply to the burns and some vitamins to boost the child’s immune system. The main concern we had was that the wounds would get infected. Due to their terrible living conditions, the people we treat are very prone to infections. One of our prayer teams prayed for healing for little Alondra, then her mom took her home.

Back they came exactly one week later on May 24^th. When I went to examine the baby’s back, it was completely healed! It appeared as if she had a smooth, pink sheet on her back – no wrinkles, not a sign of a blister. It was beautiful! When the doctor came in, she could not believe her eyes. Totally amazed, she queried, “How could she have healed so quickly? It’s only been a week!” The area on Alondra’s stomach that had been burned had scabbed over and was drying up. She was not in any pain and had no sign of infection anywhere. So, joyfully, we sent them home, giving the mother precautions against exposing the child to any sunlight.

I feel that it was a miracle. Some time ago I fell and got a tiny wound on my leg; and even though I am a nurse and took care of it, it still got infected! Here this little girl, living in extreme poverty and covered with very serious burns, contracted no infection whatsoever.

Aurora concluded, "They are the forgotten people of the world, but God does not forget them."

July 2011 - Tanya

Pictured here is Tanya Ortiz Guzman. A lively and intelligent little girl, she was born deaf and cannot speak. About two years ago, her mother, who was pregnant at the time, suffered a ruptured gallbladder, and tragically she and her unborn baby died as a result. Tanya’s father, faced with raising Tanya and her two older brothers, left the house and has never returned. So the children moved in with their grandmother, Abigail.

Abigail came to us asking if Tanya could attend our Montessori school at the Food Bank. There was no way Abigail could afford sending her little granddaughter to a special school, but Tanya is very smart and interested in everything. Her grandmother wanted her to have a chance at an education. “I know she can learn if someone taught her,” Abigail insisted. “She just needs to be given a chance.”

Not being set up to teach children with special needs, our teachers discussed it amongst themselves and decided that they wanted to try and help Tanya. Veronica, one of the teachers, offered to get training. So she started attending classes to learn sign language and then started to teach Tanya how to sign. Veronica is also being trained in how to integrate children with special needs into the classroom with the other children.

She’s doing a great job. The other day I went to visit the classrooms to see how things were going. Tanya was signing to Veronica the sign for “play.” She had finished her work and wanted to join the other kids on the playground outside. After checking her paper, Veronica signed, “Okay. You can go play now.” With a huge smile, and a little excited jump, Tanya skipped outside to join in the fun. It was heartwarming to see how the other children welcomed and included her. She fits right in, and many of the kids are picking up sign language and are able to communicate that way with Tanya.

We have recently been asked to accept a little blind girl into the school, and Veronica agreed to go to another class to learn how best to teach her. “It’s very difficult, and there’s a lot to learn,” Veronica shared, “but it’s wonderful to have the tools needed to teach these girls.”

June 2011 The Fr. Richard Thomas library

Kids were jumping up and down with excitement, some hopping on one leg, all with huge smiles. What was the occasion? They were about to see inside our new little library for the first time. Many of these children had never even been to a library before, and now they had their own right here at the Lord’s Food Bank in Juarez, Mexico. They couldn’t wait to go inside – and even though it is only one room, and the shelves are not completely full, they were delighted.
 
Thanks to a large donation of children’s books in Spanish, our teachers were able to realize their dream of starting a children’s library on site near our Montessori school at the Food Bank. The workmen built a special room to house the bookshelves and the child-size tables and chairs, and painted the walls a bright, cheery yellow. The teachers decorated the room then organized and catalogued the books. One of the teachers painted a large sign with the rules. Since most of these kids have never been taught how to behave in a library, she kept it simple and basic: 1) speak in a soft voice, 2) sign-up, 3) put everything in its place, and 4) take care of the books.

The library will be open four days a week, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and our hope is that the children will learn how to use and take care of books and develop a love of reading. Just last week a retired teacher from the U.S., who had taught ESL (English as a Second Language) classes for many years, donated boxes and boxes of her materials that she would no longer be using. She even donated a projector so that we can give audio/visual presentations teaching children their vowels, sounds and numbers in a lively and fun way.

In deciding on a name, the teachers unanimously chose The Father Richard Thomas Library, in honor of this great priest who worked so hard in ensuring that the children of the poor get a better start in life.