A couple weeks ago, we told you here about a woman who had been attacked, stabbed something like 37 times, and had a tracheotomy.  Her husband had found us (Beverly and me) on the street.  Since Bev has a trach, the husband Carlos struck up a conversation, and Bev and I asked to go see her to comfort her.

We had a lot of trouble getting back in touch with her, though.  He had told us the general area, but there are no addresses here.  The streets and alleys are pure honeycombs here - a tiny alley leads to another, doors (sheet metal on a rope or hinge) that look like nothing end up opening to 5 family homes made of sheet metal or stone or (the well-to-do) cement blocks.  Streets have several common names.

We had their phone number, but we could never reach him (to have him show us where he lives).

We finally found the home today and spoke with the husband and two children.  The wife was out.

We walked into their little home. The door was just some old wood slats. He rushed to grab a rock to prop it open to give some light. We ducked as we followed him thru a small passageway to a dark living room/bedroom, lit by a single bare bulb, and he offered us the best seat in the house, on an ancient bed. He pulled up a chair, a little toddler's plastic chair, as he talked with us.

He brought in his two shy children, a girl of 8 and a little boy, Billy, maybe 4. As we greeted them, he urged them to greet us back respectfully.  Behind him was a stack of boxes with home dialysis supplies for dialysis four times daily, and which requires high levels of sanitary conditions, probably lacking here. He said maybe his wife could get a kidney transplant, or maybe Jesus would fix her kidney. He said it with such sad hope.

He said usually the guys sleep in one room, and he pointed beyond a curtain or cardboard wall, but he said things have been so difficult lately that they all stay in the central room (where we were sitting) 'like little chicks' clustered together for comfort.

The husband was so overwhelmingly grateful.  He said over and over how much he appreciated it, and we said it was our honor to be there. We brought something for him talking about Good News for Mankind - he was deeply grateful - and something smaller about Comfort for the Depressed.  We gave the little 8 year old girl a book of Bible Stories, and she took it like it was gold.  She spent the rest of the time, quietly in the corner, paging through the pictures, as the adults talked.

He offers boat rides to tourists. He said other boat tour operators cheat the tourists, but he doesn't because it's not right.

It turns out that the man's cell phone had been lost for a time, and then he had no electricity for a while, so he couldn't charge his phone.  Other times people don't have 'saldo' - credit - to make calls.

We learn to be patient here, locating people.

There is SO MUCH NEED for people here to go talk to these humble and spiritually hungry people.  Can you come help?