The Women of Juarez

 

These Women represent Strength, Faith, Love, and Hope. The smile upon these ladies faces truly tells their story, as they live filled with joy and hope for their future and the future of their families.

 

When the pandemic arrived, these ladies went into action. Food was scarce, supplies were next to nothing, so these ladies began to pray. Hope arrived in the form of two separate food drives consisting of over 5,000 pounds of food, formula, and diapers. These food drives took place in Highland Ranch, CO and several weeks later in Littleton, CO. Among the 5,000 pounds of food and supplies were hundreds of pounds of bags of Ardent Mills Flour. Ardent Mills, you were among their supply of HOPE.

 

The commercial kitchen that you see these ladies joyfully making their homemade tortillas in, is representation of a small portion of a team center build some 26 plus years ago by a Colorado home based nonprofit organization called Missions Ministries.

 

Prior to Covid, these ladies joyfully cooked for American teams that would arrive at the team center, providing Hope which they as women had prayed for, in the form of a house built, food, school supplies, donated clothing and other such supplies. Since the border between the U.S. and Mexico remains closed these ladies now feed their nearby neighbors rather than American team members.

 

If we might highlight just one of these women, her name is Olga. She is truly a woman on a mission. A mission to care for and serve others, as well as her husband and her 5 children. Olga sees a need and she puts herself and her daughters into action.

 

Olga and her family live in what is called the Colonias, just a few miles outside the city of Juarez Mexico. These people live in extreme poverty. Many of the homes are constructed from shipping pallets, bits and pieces of plywood and plastic sheeting. Most are without electricity, running water, the ability to get clean water or proper protection from the elements. Juarez is in the high desert, yet it gets cold there as they will get snow in the winter months. It is a challenging place to raise your family.

 

In one of the four corners of the Colonias, several miles from the team center was a soup kitchen that closed due to lack of funding. This was a popular stop for many of the children on the way home from school, three times per week. Olga decided to re-open the soup kitchen in her neighborhood from her own kitchen. Olga lives in a house built by Missions Ministries where she enjoys electricity yet no running water, no heat or air conditioning in the very warm summer heat of Mexico. Due to the fact that Olga and her husband are hard-working, and Olga is bilingual, she feels very blessed. She tells her children they are blessed and rich as they have an abundance of donated clothes and have food enough to share.

 

This soup kitchen is operated out of an old outbuilding on Olga’s property. The “ OPEN” sign so to speak is posted three times a week at “ Manna from Heaven”. Covid hit, making things especially hard in Juarez. The soup kitchen was closed for a time to follow the guidelines of Covid for safety. During the shutdown time Olga created what she calls” PANTRIES”. Pantries were bags of take away supplies for her surrounding neighborhood. Pantries included such things as flour, sugar, rice, beans, peanut butter, and other essentials. Olga, her husband Mario and their five children delivered the supplies to the sick, the elderly and the shut in during the Covid crisis. Olga funds her soup kitchen with donations from a few American friends. When she gets additional funding, she uses this money to purchase meat that she can add to her beans. She feeds approximately 35 to 45 people per day, some three times a week. The need is even greater now that we are in the pandemic crisis.

 

Most of the men work in the factories located at the border, which are subject to shut down during the current health crisis, a crisis that has truly affected each and every one of us in various degrees. Although, as Americans, we for the most part during the Covid crisis can still say we are a blessed people.

 

As for Olga and her fellow neighbors in the colonies, their poverty-stricken situation has become extreme.

 

To you Ardent Mills, from an American team member who has traveled to the Colonia‘s many times, and from Olga and her surrounding neighbors, we say, “THANK YOU” for your ”BAGS OF HOPE”, purchased and traveled across the border to a people with LOVE for their neighbors and a true HOPE for their future.

 

With Gods help and a HOPE for the future of my friends just over the border, may our paths cross again soon. Thank you and may Ardent Mills be ever so blessed.

 

WON’T YOU BE AN ARDENT MILLS… BRINGING HOPE TO A COMMUNITY IN EXTREME NEED. Every dollar given will provide a brighter future, will be a prayer asked for and answered. To fill the child’s tummy, to see the joy upon their face, is truly a continued flow of his Abundant Grace.

 

God multiplied the fishes and loaves of bread back in biblical times, I’m excited to see how God multiplies and provides the rice, beans and tortious. To God be the Glory great things he will do with you gift of “ Love for thy Neighbor”