What's That Hiding in the Banana Leaves?

Since we don't have a garage we hide our lawn mower in the banana leaves during the day and bring it inside (in our living room) at night. In fact, our living room is our storage place for all our gardening tools, mower, and motorcycle! It is not a big living room, either.

When our lawn mower was stolen we had no idea who knew where it was hidden. We were crushed to learn that it was a young man (Luis) that Hubby had been mentoring weekly. He had taken it while we were out and sold it to his neighbor! His mom, who is a Christian, found out and went to the neighbor and threatened to report him to the police (since he knew the lawnmower did not belong to Luis).

The man turned over the lawn mower to Luis' mom and she gave it back to us. We've had to pray about how to deal with the situation because we were very hurt by Luis' actions and yet we want to show grace and love. We are thankful that we were able to recover our lawn mower and for the honesty of Luis' mom in this situation.

Poverty brings out the desperation in people. Many Paraguayans are petty thieves and think it's much easier to steal than to find work. We resonate with Ephesians 4:28. It says, "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." This situation continues to burn in our hearts the importance of training Paraguayans in trades so that they can begin to leave the cycle of poverty and the mentality of unhealthy dependence (or stealing).

In the next year, we are going to be focusing more of our time and energy in micro enterprise and development. We'll be updating soon about the farm projects and we ask you to pray for us for wisdom and God's leading for us, and for those we'll we walking alongside, like Luis.

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