Danilo and Dulce

Last night as I was eating dinner with my family, we started talking about the news and about all the violence in Guatemala. This is a regular topic of conversation because everyday the newspaper is filled with stories of murders and attacks. Last weekend alone--Saturday and Sunday--sixty people were murdered in Guatemala.

We were talking about where the problems with gangs originate, and how important it is for kids to have a stable home and family to keep them out of the gangs. Marta has a heart for kids and the goal of her ministry is to help provide the stability to keep them away from gangs. But she feels very discouraged that despite all her work and love for the kids she takes care of, so many of them still return to that life and forget what she worked so hard to teach them.

There are two people who she has taken in, though, who have completely changed their lives and are now Christians--Danilo and Dulce. They both came from very hard backgrounds and were only young kids when they started to get involved with gangs. They both had very unsupportive families. Danilo still is not documented because his mother never registered his birth. They would both definitely fit in to the category of the "least, last, and lost". But Marta took in Danilo about six years ago, and Dulce about two years ago. Now Dulce is the care-taker for the other kids and Danilo is always around the house helping. They went to church with us last week, and just seeing them there worshiping God is an amazing testimony of God's grace.

I think that people like Danilo and Dulce probably understand God's grace and the gospel in a way that I never will. They have experienced first hand that "God's grace is like water, pooling up in all the lowest places."

I pray that there will be more and more cases like Dulce's and Danilo's that come from this ministry. But as Marta said last night, even if they are the only two people, after all her work, who end up changed, it is still all completely worth it.