Getting Our Hands Dirty

God is funny. My plea upon returning to Ecuador was that I was desperate to do more, I wanted to make a real difference: I wanted to really get my hands dirty.

I don´t know how many doses of hand sanitizer I have applied today, but I have to laugh in the midst of it all. This isn´t exactly what I meant, God. But yes, my hands are dirty.

I don´t know if you have reached a moment of desperation, but I did, yesterday. We finally got to visit one of the families I most wanted to see. The mother just two months ago passed away from uterine cancer (while we were in the US on furlough), leaving behind six children, the oldest of whom (16) just had a baby and the second-oldest (15) is pregnant. The father struggles with alcohol addiction and cannot provide for his children with his job of working at the garbage dump.

Wrapped up in this family, tucked up high in one of Quito´s worst neighborhoods, is the very core of why I am here, in Ecuador. Poverty, pain, suffering, injustice, hunger, addiction, heartbreak, hopelessness...meet: Jesus. And in the midst of it all, we sing praise songs to the sound of my husband´s tattered old guitar and we thank Him, because even when we feel there is nothing to be thankful for, we are thankful for Jesus.

I looked into the eyes of these children and I saw that they were not the same children that I knew a year ago. They are bigger, taller, and more articulate, but that isn´t what really changed. What really changed in these children is their eyes. Where there was hope, now there is pain. Where there was innocence, now there is loss. Where there was laughter and joy, now there are tears.

In Spanish, when a child loses a parent, in this case the mother, they say of the children that they were ¨orphaned by their mother¨. Even though their father is still with them, these children were orphaned, and they will never be the same.

We cried with them, we sang with them, we ate birthday cake with them (It was the oldest daughter´s birthday just a few days before, so we brought cake), we gave them gifts from the US (USA bracelets, candy and photo albums I made for each child with all the pictures I could find of them with their mother), and one by one they took turns formally thanking us for our love and support, as they (and we) struggled and failed to hold back the tears.

My oldest daughter joined the children as they went to play and we sat down for a serious talk with their father about how we can help him get his life back together. As we talked, I saw his heart laid bare right in front of us. He was orphaned, too. He feels totally alone, and while he knows he can´t raise his children or provide for them, he also knows that he can´t live without them. They are all he has left.

 

We decided to think and pray and meet again next week to decide what can be done to help the children, and help the father, too. But that is not enough. In this moment, I feel useless. I want to help, but what can we do to make these lives better?

Hence my dirty hands. I asked a question, and the answer gave me a way to help, a way to get my hands dirty.

¨Do you have a washing machine?¨

He works 7am to 8pm. He has 6 children, 1 grandchild, and another on the way. He has no washing machine.

I can´t fix this family´s problems today. I can´t even buy them groceries; it´s too late at night. But I can fix this. I can wash these clothes.

We agree to pick up the clothes in the morning. On our way, we stop to buy them groceries, too. We go to their house, drop off the groceries, and pick up the laundry. I wish I had taken a picture. The clothes were in a huge bag, which took both my husband and our worker, Victor, to carry. We had to walk quite a way before we found a taxi.

 

We got home and started separating the clothes. If I wasn´t yet totally heartbroken for this family (I was), now I had even more motivation. Each piece of clothing seemed to be worse than the last. Torn, tattered, stained, dirty, and oh so foul smelling. Anyone who is reading this would probably have thrown these clothes away long ago. Actually, someone probably did. Most of this family´s belongings are things the father has found at the dump. (Just yesterday he was content to show us the beat up old sneakers he found while working, patched up and clinging to their last few miles of life.)

It ended up being six loads of laundry. And half a bottle of stain remover. And a lot of hand sanitizer. I only gagged a few times.

I was amazed that some of the clothes actually came out smelling clean. (Some I washed twice.) A few even looked in decent shape.

When Jairo went back to drop off the clothes, he found the father had been drinking, but was still mostly sober. They talked for a long time, and the father once again opened his heart to Jairo. And in the midst of the conversation, and the apologizing for having had yet another drink, and the thanking us for our help and care, the father said,

¨I have been to a lot of churches, but you guys are the only people who have ever really showed me God´s love, and made me feel like I´m worth something.¨

Ok, God. You win. When I said I wanted to get my hands dirty, this is exactly what I meant.

-Ashley Rodrick
Director, Revolución Infantil