Talent Show Success!

6/07/2008

GAP hosted the last showing of our talent show tonight, and it was AMAZING :) we raised almost $500 to help a community here called Los Guidos.
Los Guidos is one of the poorest areas here in San Jose that is made up mainly of Nicaraguan illegals. The poorest area in this community is a section called "el hueco" or the hole, which is literally a small canyon on the side of the main road that goes down deep to where there is a small, filthy creek. Most of the houses are made of tin, have only dirt floors, and are in extreme poverty conditions. The people that live in this area live off of very minimum wages ($5 a week or less) so that they barely have enough to feed their families.
A few months ago I worked with a group of doctors from Alabama that held a medical clinic there, and I was so shocked to meet a lady that was diabetic and her blood sugar was over 400 (can you say coma!!?)! The doctor asked her if she was taking any medicine and when was the last time she had gotten her blood sugar checked, she said to our surprise that the last time she had medicine was over a year ago when the last medical team came through! Her babies were malnourished, had parasites, the flu, and probably hadn't had a bath in a month; it absolutely broke my heart.
What got me even more was seeing an extremely skinny 16 year old girl
(she was anorexic and bulimic) come in crying because she thought she was pregnant and asked for a pregnancy test. She was so scared to think of the consequences, to think that most likely the baby's daddy wasn't going to be there to help support it. While her physical conditions were bad, her spiritual condition was even worse. This whole place is filled with desperation, addictions, abuse on precious children that know nothing else, alcoholism, poverty, conformity, all these terrible things are only able to be cured by Christ.
So I am very thankful, that maybe we will be able to make somewhat of an impact here, we are not looking for recognition in all this, we simply recognize that there is need and we are desperate to meet it. Praise God and Shame on the Devil!! We got so much more than what we expected.
However, that wasn't the only blessing :)
we got to spend some amazing, quality family time together. I can say that while practicing and organizing this thing we made some pretty darn good memories (pre-show dance parties anyone??). It's amazing to see how after nine months of getting to know each other, we can all make jokes that will make us have a roll-on-the-floor-crying laughter, that no one else would really find funny. God has blessed us so much with unity :)
It's been a good night, Praise God!!