Help Finish Delia's Home

***UPDATE***

In the last month, we have been building Delia's home. We were able to complete the roof and the walls, but are in need of further resources in order to finish up the interior as well as some exterior details. 

Further resources that we receive will go towards supplying the following:
Fridge, stove, kitchen stink, table, chairs, bunk beds, bed for the dad, wood furnace, bathroom sink, bathtub, toilet, windows, doors, bedroom carpet, tiles, and paint. Additionally, if possible, we would really like to provide a laundry machine for the family.

If you would like to sponsor one of these items in its entirety, feel free to contact us directly.

We are estimating that we will need an additional $5000-$7000. Any leftover funds will go directly into the church ministry.
100% of the donations will go towards materials and labor.

Photos of our progress have been added below.
***

When I walked into Delia's yard, she was naked, sitting in a little green tub with a few, shallow inches of muddy water that didn't manage to cover her thin legs. From the moment I set eyes on her, I couldn't unsee her haunting face. Delia has beautiful eyes. But sadness and dullness spills from them like water pouring over the flat edge of a rock. A child's eyes should never look that way. They should never look like the eyes of the homeless man at the end of the street and the end of his life. And yet Delia's eyes are two pools of suffering in a drawn four-year-old face.

Here is a little of Delia's story. Besides living in the lowest kind of poverty, where dirt, heat, flies, and disease are members of the family, Delia suffers from a different, deeper wound in her heart. About a year and a half ago, her mother left the family to be with another man. The younger two are about one and two or three years old, probably a little too young to remember their mother, or what a mother is. But I imagine, by her eyes, that Delia remembers.

Their grandma, who took care of them until now, recently died in a sudden and tragic way. Now, the children have no one to take care of them. Their father is uneducated and unskilled at anything in particular; besides this, he has work-related back injuries that make many jobs impossible for him. They live by running up huge debts at grocery stores and by the food provided by our soup kitchen. They live by surviving, day by day passing them by with no trajectory except that of growth. The children grow and outgrow clothes. They need more food. There is no future to look to, because they have none.

In Medgidia, there simply is no work for someone like Delia's father, who is unskilled and uneducated, with health problems to top it off. This family's only hope is if the church can build them a house where they can at least be safe and healthy so that any money their father can earn goes to food and clothing for the children and to other living expenses. In a proper home, the children could be kept clean and healthy enough to be brought to school where they might have a chance at a better future. And even more importantly, they could be brought to church, where they might have a chance at eternal life.

We can't save the world. But God confronts us with good deeds, prepared for us to walk in them. For me. For you. Maybe He has a plan, with assignments, and if we are all faithful to our particular assignments, everyone that needs to be saved will be saved. Today, I have Delia before my eyes, and I am struggling with words that serve me so poorly, to set her before yours.

Some of the good deeds God prepared for us can be done individually. I do what I can and you do what you can, wherever we find ourselves. But maybe, some of the good deeds God prepared for us can only be accomplished together, by the body, not limited to the place we find ourselves but transcending it, crossing oceans and cultures and accomplishing miracles.

Today, I'm asking for help to raise money to build Delia a home. It's a start, it's not a finish. It won't heal her wounds; it won't bring her mother back. It won't be the answer to all her problems. But it's a start. It's the first step towards a plan of redemption and healing that I fully believe God has for this family, these three little children that are under His watchful care. His eye is on the sparrow, how much more does He have the very hairs on their heads numbered.

Please read her whole story here and consider donating to this fund set up in her name. The goal is $15k which will go in its entirety to the family and towards the goal of building them a house. Thank you and may God richly bless you.

Then the King will say to those on His right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was a naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me."

Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, "Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick and in prison and visit You?"

And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to Me."

M A T T H E W 25: 34 - 40

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

M A T T H E W 10 : 42