It has been a cold winter here, and many of our brothers and sisters in Juarez, Mexico, rely solely on wood-burning stoves for heating and cooking. At the Lord’s Ranch, we have piles of scrap wood, tree branches, and donated old wood pallets sitting around. So several times this winter we have gotten together to have a “firewood work bee.”
Everyone is given a task, even the children. Some of us sort through the scrap piles for useable wood. Some of us pull nails out of the wood. Others use electric saws to cut through pallets and the larger pieces of wood that need to be cut down to the size that will fit most stoves.
One or two people collect the cut pieces and fill buckets and crates full so we can take them across the border to our center in Juarez for easy distribution.
The final step in the process is when those in need come to our Food Bank on these chilly winter days to take a couple of containers of wood home. It fills us with joy knowing that they will be warm and able to cook, at least for a little while. Thankfully, our winter season doesn’t last too long in the southwest. Warmer spring weather is on its way.
