Does the sky look the same in your country?

Today begun at 5;30 hearing my beautiful daughter wake up, fortunately she quickly drifted back into her slumber after quickly guzzling a bottle of milk. I was then awoken by a face book message asking if I could pick up an oven which had been donated to the base, which I picked up in my pickup at 7am and delivered to the house where all the single female staff members live. Returning home I took on my regular duty of looking after Teresa which involves her coming to work with me. We popped into the prayer meeting for a while and then headed off to the construction site where I'm responsible to see that the builders have all the materials they need and that my boys are being more help than hindrance.

Having done all this I'm ready for my 9am meeting with Michael to look at the progress of Projecto Jose and to see what responsibilities I can take from him, as he is ever increasingly busy with Hope House, the street team and with his role on the leadership team of the base. After multiple interruptions it was evident that we weren’t making much progress. So we decided to have our meeting in the car as we had some tasks to complete in the city. As we drive we discuss various challenges we are facing in our work and think about possible solutions. We pass the court to see if the paper work has been filed which will free Carlinho whom was told that he had finished his  Prison sentence 4 months ago, but he is still waiting for someone, somewhere, to sign a piece of paper so he can leave the prison. When he gets out he will live here on the base and work with us n the factory.

Now off to see a boy who recently ran away from Hope House. He is spending his time on the streets and occasionally with his mother. He is becoming violent with his mum and she desperately wants him back in a shelter but he is not so keen. Whilst there I learn that a boy I know has been sent to prison, his girl friend and 2 month old son are living in the house we visited. Both the incarcerated father and tiny baby have severe cleft palates; it was always a huge challenge to understand the father, as his cleft palate really distorted his speech. Also in the house is the 16year old sister of our boy from Hope House, with her 6 month old baby girl who shares her name with my sister. To see a child only a month younger than my own daughter being raised by a child is unsettling to say the least. Just then a toddler, who had been wandering around oblivious to the depravation that he had been born into, vomited on my foot. His mum then gave him half a packet of chocolate biscuits to console him. The car journey home was spent discussing the runaway boy’s situation in the hope that we can help.

After a nice salad back at home which Laura had prepared for me, I took Teresa for a while as Laura had to finish the newsletter for the Hope House sponsors. Before she is finished, there is a bang at the door, problems on the work site. One of my boys has been calling the other his wife and listing the things they could do together, he’s only joking but he has no idea how angry he is making the other guy. Fortunately I could intervene before it escalated, so I sat with the protagonist and explained that in life, if you always upset people around you, you will end up with no friends and that when he is joking around he needs to see how people are responding in order not to upset everyone. He seemed to respond well, let’s see if he puts a little of what I said into practice.

A short detour getting a pressure washer from the factory and dropping it off at Hope house, and I'm off to a friend of mines in the local community who had been given a sofa, which I picked up from one end of the neighbourhood and took it to the other where they live. As we sat on the sofa which we had unloaded onto this patch of land, full of rubbish, stray dogs and a few children playing, we discussed how they had not had mains water for over a month and how it was hard to cope. They also asked if the sky looked the same in my country. I thought how little I could do to relieve their suffering. As I left I was given some piping hot tapioca full of freshly grated coconut and condensed milk.

I returned home to what looked like a war zone. Teresa is learning to feed herself, today’s dinner, scrambled egg on toast. She is quickly whisked of for a bath and I'm left with the aftermath to tidy up. I clear everything away and amongst the egg and toast and babywipes there is a toilet role which I clear away into the kitchen bin. Later I discover that this toilet role was destined to become a homemade Christmas cracker, I chuckled to myself as I imagined the lucky recipient of the cracker filled with cold scrambled egg and half chewed toast.

That was my day.