Today has been an easy and relaxing day for me. While a maid in the States is only for the rich, here in Honduras it is much different. For a while I fought having a maid as I was thinking like an American. Here if you have even a 2 bedroom house and can afford it, you have a maid. They are much cheaper here and can save you a lot of work. Honduras is a very dirty country. You have to clean your house top to bottom every day. Just cleaning the floors consists of sweeping, mopping with water and cleaner, mopping with water, and then dry dusting after that for a shine. Then there is the dusting, dishes that must be done several times a day or the one sink that you have for them will be to full to use. Needless to say, before we had a maid I spent all day cleaning the house and had not time for anything else.
Here in Honduras a maid costs about $125.00 a month. For that $125.00 a month you get someone who comes Monday through Friday and cleans your house, cooks lunch, helps you with your Spanish, and does whatever else you would like for her to do.
We do not only get a maid for the help around the house. We also make sure that they are saved and faithful to a good Baptist church. Rosa attends Iglesia Bautista Peniel (Face of God Baptist Church) and was recommended to us by the Pastor who is a great friend of ours. She has been without a job for a while. Her husband got a loan from his employers for about $250.00. Rosa was taking this money to the central market to buy things to sell in her neighborhood. While in the market she was assulted and robbed by four women. They took everything from her, even most her clothes. They even took her cellphone. She was left a long way from home with no money to buy anything and not even any money to get home. She had to beg for money to buy something to wear and for a taxi fare so she could get home.
Rosa now had no money and a debt to pay back. We hired her for 130 Lempira a day ($7.00 US) and she has done a wonderful job. She has done such a good job that we decided to raise her wage to 150 Lempira ($8.00 US), which is a very good rate for a maid. Before she started working for us she went to a job fair and filled out 30 applications. She told us if one of them call she would let us know and help us to find a replacement. Praise the Lord the only ones that called have been obligatory work on Sunday and she told them no.
She has been helping me to clean up and organize things. I have gotten rid of a lot of things. I told her that I feel funny giving things that are not perfect away and so I throw them in a seperate "trash" pile and she goes through them and takes what she wants. She has told me how she is going to give some of it to her niece's family who is poor and the rest she is going to sell to make money.
In these past few days she has helped me so much and we have talked a lot. I feel as if she is my sister instead of my employee. I am so thankful that God brought her into our lives.
Today I made her cry. She was getting ready to go and as we had a few people from the states donate cell phones for us, we gave her one of them. It wasn't as fancy as the one that was stolen, but she was so excited. It is such a blessing to give things to people.
It is a blessing when God uses you to be a blessing to others. One of the things that I was "throwing out" was old clothes pins as we got new ones when we got here. Most of the clothes pins were still in good condition, but because we needed them when we got back; and our only ones were still being used by the family that rented our house and furniture for the year we were gone, we had to buy more. Rosa was so excited to receive the old ones as she had just broken her last one the day before. Oh, the little things we take for granted.
Praise the Lord for how He has blessed America.
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