NEWSLETTER: FEBRUARY, 2005

TWO LITTLE BLACK SHOES.

It was getting cold as the sun left the muddy valley of lower Trinchi and we were still giving out toys to a small line of cold kids, some clad in short sleeve shirts and others barefooted. Little five year old Antonio was so happy with his pair of black shoes. We gave them to him as his Christmas gift from our bus full of blankets, toys and goodies. Each child could choose one gift. He quickly ran up the tire steps to his home holding tight to his pair of black shoes.

Two days later Antonio was crushed to death in a mudslide.

His parents' neighborhood is located on the hillside of a muddy valley. Like many neighborhoods we serve, it consists of poor "invaders" or homesteaders.

The poorest of these families often dig out a shelf on a hillside and put up a shelter accessible by steps of old embedded tires. It doesn't take much to trigger an avalanche of mud after several days of rain. Mud is quiet. Mud is heavy. Mud is deadly.

There were only five at Anthony's funeral. The little boy laid in a small open casket. The family was poor so the mortuary did very little to clean up the boy where he laid swollen and bruised. With him in his casket were the two little black shoes he loved so dearly.

That same morning a few miles away ten year old Laura and her fifteen year old sister Erma were playing together in their small makeshift bedroom. Without warning, their lives were snuffed out by another mudslide.

Hortensia, two of their little girl friends and I walked a muddy road and through the trashy area to the site. I lifted the yellow caution ribbon and walked closer to the mudslide. The soldiers had scattered the families clothing and thrown the furniture away in hope that they would not return there to live.

Any thing of value was stolen and they had nothing but their two dead daughters. The governor was there with the media and he expressed his condolences, but unfortunately the government hasn't the resources to be of much help.

Thanks for enabling us to step in where people like these fall through the cracks of bureaucratic idealism. This family needed help not promises. Hortensia represented us to both families and we helped pay for their food and funerals. Do the poor respect us? What do you think? The word gets around.

While little Antonio's pair of black shoes will never be worn, they will never be forgotten either. "Thanks to whoever donated them to us."

Thanks for your part in helping us help them.

In His love, von
Director of Spectrum Ministries.