Puerto Rico
In March of 2019 I went with a small team from my church to spend 3 weeks in Puerto Rico. Although it was 18 months after Hurricane Maria had hit, there was still plenty of clean-up to do as much of the rebuilding efforts had focussed on popular tourist and commercial areas. This is part of that story.
We had been invited through friends who lived on the island to partner with a local NGO called Marazul. They had taken on an important role since Maria hit distributing supplies to communities across the island. The government had been really good at getting supplies to the island which were donated to those in these communities, the only problem was that there was no labour to do the work. With the island’s labourers occupied with more lucrative jobs rebuilding the aforementioned tourist areas, Marazul had started inviting teams of volunteers from churches, colleges, and other institutions across the US to help out. It was hard work, but simple enough. Which is where we stepped in.
Across 3 weeks we focussed on 6 different projects from cutting back the overgrowth around usable buildings from 18 months of neglect, to rebuilding roofs torn off, to painting walls. Lots of painting. One project involved half the team cleaning and there other half painting a school for 5 days straight so that children could return to a proper building after all that time. Another involved building new tables for a local community centre. Another rebuilding the roof of a woman who had been helping others steadily for 18 months but hadn’t been able to fix her own roof.
On top of physical labour, we were also invited to tend to the spiritual needs of some of those we encountered. Spending time in prayer with many of the deeply religious residents of those communities was a healing moment as we were able to show compassion and tenderness to the weakness and trauma that still lingered.
Obviously what we did was just a drop in the bucket, but with other groups regularly giving up their vacation time to come and put the work in, change happens one small piece at a time.
