Newsletter - September, 2014
| September, 2014 Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." Matt. 25:40 Published by the Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210. (717) 349-7033 |
Nico and Rosita Get a New Home
Last February, we wrote a newsletter about some of the people near Siguatepeque who were in dire need houses to live in. Our readers donated generously to help these people, and the first house has now been built. Nico Zavala and his wife Rosita moved in the house about eight weeks ago. Since that time, I’ve learned more about Zico and Rosita. Their story is both sad and fascinating. Nico has just turned eighty, and his wife Rosita is handicapped. Neither has had much education. They earn their living by selling raw cane juice as a refreshing sweet drink at the local open market. Nico grows part of the sugar cane himself, and he buys the rest. On market days, he pushes their cart to the market place, and he and Rosita begin running the cane through a press to extract the juice.
Originally, Nico and Rosita used a heavy wooden cart, which Nico was barely able to push. Seeing him struggle through the streets trying to push his heavy cart one day, Luis Vega offered to help him push it. Through this initial contact, Luis got to know Nico and Rosita, and he saw that they were committed Christians. Eventually Luis and another Christian man built Nico a metal cart, which is not nearly as heavy to push. About three year ago, Oscar Perez, a businessman in Siguatepeque, saw Nico pushing his cart through the streets to the market place. He offered Nico a nearby place where he could park his cart for free on days when the market is closed. When Oscar learned that Nico and Rosita had no place to live, he told them they could live in a small crude shed located on land he owned. The small shed had no electricity, running water, or even an outhouse—but it was far better than living on the streets.
So Nico and Rosita moved into the shed, and Nico began planting sugar cane on the property. However, about a year ago, one of the neighbors decided she didn’t want these “street people” living nearby. So she started harassing Nico and Rosita in various ways to force them to move. At first, Nico and Rosita decided to just put up with it, as they had no place to go. Yet because Nico and Rosita had no water on their property, they had to walk about a quarter mile down the road each day to draw water from a cistern. The final straw came one morning when they went to draw some water and saw that someone had thrown a dead dog in the cistern. At that point, Nico and Rosita were ready to start living on the streets again. However, Luis had been building them a new house, using funds that our readers had donated for this purpose. Within a matter of days, Luis was able to finish the house and to help Nico and Rosita to move in. Their new house is situated a few miles outside of Siguatepeque on a beautiful mountainside. It has electricity, running water, an indoor bathroom, and a septic system. In addition, the property came with a lot of land on which Nico is now growing sugarcane, green beans, cassava, corn, and other crops.
A week or so after moving, Nico went back to harvest the sugarcane he had planted near the shed where he and Rosita had been living. To his dismay, he learned that someone had cut it all down and burned it. So he lost the entire crop. But he and Rosita are joyful in knowing that, Lord willing, they should not ever again have to face such a situation. They want to thank those who made their new home possible. David Bercot.
The Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210 • (717) 349-7033
Click on the following link if you would care to make a donation to the work in Honduras: Donations
|
|