Tony and Laura Lewry

Monica isn’t going to know that it’s not nutmeg flavoured butter. I don’t want to be rude but she piles her plate high with everything all mixed in. Rice with gravy, turkey with beans.. Christmas dinner/ Brazilian barbecue carnage.  She has lived in a slum or on the street for most of her life so, understandably, food is more about quantity than quality. So when Tony rings me from the hospital at 11pm (another story) to ask if I would mind making the nutmeg and orange infused butter for the Hope House Christmas party tomorrow ( for which Monica would be in attendance) .. it wasn't just the nutmeg that I started to grind.  In my defense it had been a long day, Tess is ill, I'm a hormonal wreck with an earache and it’s so flippin hot. I’d spent my evening tidying up and trying to cram cupboards with mess to give myself a feeling of more tranquility and less clutter over the festive period. But in trying to cram everything in with tetris style agility I had lef...

OK its not a flower bit its pretty!!

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 b...

Last night was the first night I have looked up from my beautiful daughters face in Seven months. She has brought joy and pain, laughter and tears. My world has been mainly focused on her, how fast she is growing and the new things she can do, what she needs now and what she may need later.  But last night I went out on the street for the first time in a year.  It was the same as ever, cardboard, soup, glue, the stench of faeces and unwashed bodies, cool wind on sticky skin, grubby faces with bright eyes in the street lighting, children finding joy in other people’s rubbish, bodies lying under a sheet, sleeping, dead to the world unless a soup van comes past.  But I feel so different. I've changed so much in the past year that my visit last night felt like a punch in the stomach. My instincts told me to run home to my precious girl and hold her and protect her from all the horrific things that are happening. To take her as far away from this place as I c...