"He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30: A New House with a Tear Soaked Floor

Tears and sweat covered the floor. A woman stood next to me crying out to Jesus. Heads were bowed and hands were either holding each other or lifted high. We had just finished building a house. This is normally a time when the only tears shown are ones of joy. Today was much different.
Today Jen, Jess, the boys and I headed out to help the Mi Esperanza board build a house. The site we built on had a large extended family who all live in the same compound. It was quite the hike to get there from where we were able to park! The Mi Esperanza women were great to work with and we had the house mostly finished in just under 4 hours. We all were slightly patting ourselves on the back for how quickly and nicely we had done it.
It was one of the hottest days I've built in. As the last few pieces of the house were being nailed up, Jess and I sat inside the house to get away from the sun. I was visiting with a few Honduran boys when we heard yelling all in Spanish outside. Jess asked me what was going on and I, not paying too much attention, thought the women must just be excited that the house is done. As I listened in more I quickly realized it was angry yelling and men were yelling too. I looked outside to see 4 men dressed pretty nice accompanied by 2 police men.
The men said that their boss owned all of that land and they should not have built there. The family had papers of their ownership of the land but sadly, in Honduras, sometimes those papers mean nothing. Especially when the men seemed to be from money where they could afford a lawyer. The yelling went on for quite some time and we decided it best to hurry and get out of the way.
I stayed inside and the mother of the family came in sobbing. Jess and I hugged her and tried to console her as best we could. I looked over to see one of her sons who was probably about 13 years old hiding his head in his shirt crying. I went over and held him as he wept. He had worked so hard with us all day on the house. He was soaked with sweat from how hard he worked and now he was soaked with tears.
As yelling still went on outside, we gathered the family to pray inside as we always do after a build. Luvin prayed and did so quickly so that we could leave the family to figure out the property issue. I was humbled at what came after his quick prayer. One of the Honduran women was praying at the same time as Luvin. After Luvin was done she went on. It was the most heart felt prayer I have ever heard in my life. It was completely in Spanish so I couldn't understand much but I could sense God with us. With almost every word she spoke a tear fell to the floor. She gave thanks to God and praised him over and over again. When most would be asking for more of God, she praised Him for what they had and we all felt Him near.
It was humbling to realize as we wanted to leave them to figure things out, they put their trust in God to figure it out. God is in control, siempre (always).
Spoken in the woman's prayer today over and over.. "Gracias a Dios! Jesus es Senor!"
('Thank you God! Jesus is Lord!')