Life Support

The living conditions in parts of Venezuela are simply unimaginable for most of us. The country is governed by a despotic ex bus driver who sends his assassins into the neighborhood to kill ordinary people who have been identified as being in street protests opposing his regime. If you make a critical Facebook post you end up in prison. He doesn’t trust fellow countrymen to protect him as security because all honest countrymen consider him vile, so he hires communist Cubans and foreigners to provide his security and act as his ‘sicarios’ (hitmen).

Our man Alexander has been a teacher in local schools. He had to quit because his monthly salary wasn’t enough to pay for two meals for his family. Hyperinflation has made the Venezuelan Bolivar worthless. People throw money in the street and nobody bothers to pick it up. Those who still use paper money to buy things have it ‘weighed’ at the store to determine value because it takes too long to count the bags full needed to buy anything.

Alex and his family only have electricity for less than half a day. The rest of the day they go without. Without electricity water pumps don’t work. Alex is left to try and collect rainwater which doesn’t always come. When they can, they have a water truck come to full some small cisterns they have. But the water truck doesn’t always come when needed because gasoline is rationed and people often need to wait in line for up to three days to get a small ration of gas. It has happened that while waiting for gas people have been robbed and the robbers make off with the car tires, battery and whatever else they can transport. Imagine the feeling of desperation and hopelessness that would instill.

This is only a small glimpse of life in Venezuela. We are trying to raise enough funds to provide:

• Food
• Medicine
• Hospital Supplies
• Veterinary Supplies
• Electrical Generation
• Water filters
• Some motorized carts for transport
• Water storage
• Solar powered lights

The video below was our first one and it’s 48 minutes but it tells the whole story and you’ll gain a lot by watching it. Thank you for your love and patience.