Trinidad: Strangers build home for ailing single mother

(Trinidad Guardian) Com­plete strangers have built a new home for an ail­ing sin­gle moth­er of nine who had been liv­ing in a di­lap­i­dat­ed shack in Cara­pichaima.

 
Kathy Ann De­venish, 41, who has can­cer, had been strug­gling to sup­port her fam­i­ly as she un­der­went chemother­a­py treat­ments when mem­bers of a lo­cal church found out about her plight and pitched in to help. That was two months ago when a mem­ber of the Wya­by Bible Way Church vis­it­ed De­venish at her home on Li­on’s Dri­ve, Or­ange Field Road, to in­vite her to a cru­sade. Alarmed at the con­di­tions in which she and her chil­dren were liv­ing—a one-room shack that leaks when it rains—the church mem­ber brought the sit­u­a­tion to the at­ten­tion of the Pas­tor Har­ris Hen­ry, who in turned told Hay­ma Ali, an­oth­er church mem­ber.

“Our hearts went out to her and my hus­band and me, my un­cle and some oth­er mem­bers of the church de­cid­ed to build her a big­ger house right in the same yard where she lives,” Ali said.

Ad­mit­ted that she had not known De­venish be­fore, Ali said: “We told peo­ple about her sit­u­a­tion and got stuff do­nat­ed and when we would use our mon­ey at the hard­ware we ex­plained to them what we were do­ing and man­aged to se­cure dis­counts on ma­te­ri­als.”

To make ends meet, De­venish did sev­er­al jobs in­clud­ing work­ing as a se­cu­ri­ty guard, sell­ing pholourie and oth­er del­i­ca­cies and tak­ing care of an el­der­ly per­son in Palmyra. Her chil­dren range in age from 24 years to 30 months old.

In late 2017, De­venish was breast­feed­ing her youngest son, Je­lani, when she dis­cov­ered a lump to her right breast. She be­came con­cerned and vis­it­ed the Freeport Health Cen­tre but was told it was prob­a­bly be­cause her “breast­milk get lumpy.” She brought it to their at­ten­tion on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions and was al­leged­ly giv­en the same ex­cuse.

When the lump got big­ger, De­venish joined a clin­ic at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer. The can­cer is now at Stage 4 has spread to her kid­neys and lungs.

De­venish has com­plet­ed 15 chemother­a­py ses­sions and ra­di­a­tion and is now on chemo tablets at home. How­ev­er, her health con­tin­ues to de­te­ri­o­rate. She ex­pe­ri­ences pains through­out her body that is so in­tense some­times that she can­not move at times. In ad­di­tion, she needs to do a bone scan which costs ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2,000.

De­spite these health chal­lenges, De­venish ex­pressed her grat­i­tude for the kind­ness and gen­eros­i­ty of the church group.

Yes­ter­day, as she looked on at the work be­ing done on her new home, she de­clared: “Thank you, Je­sus, for help­ing me by bring­ing these peo­ple in my life. Most of all I would like you, God, to con­tin­ue to bless them so that they can help oth­er peo­ple who are worse off than me, who are more sick than me.

“My chil­dren are so ex­cit­ed and hap­py to move in­to their new home…it just come like Christ­mas to them. I am very, very hap­py and hum­bled at the same time to see God work.”

De­venish said her on­ly wish now is to have the health and strength to see her chil­dren grow in­to adults.

“Four of my chil­dren at­tend the Cara­pichaima RC School and one passed SEA for Cara­pichaima West Sec­ondary School but all of them were un­able to start to school be­cause I didn’t have mon­ey to buy food for them and…some of them their school sup­plies but God is good through it all and my faith in God will nev­er die,” she said.

“I came from a long way, from death to where I am now. My chil­dren are my main con­cern right now. The lit­tle mon­ey I get now I put it to­wards them.”

Al­though they will soon have a prop­er roof over their heads, the fam­i­ly is still in need of fur­ni­ture, food and school sup­plies. Any­one will­ing to help can con­tact De­venish at 390-5388.

“Thank you to every­one who has helped me so far and who will help me in the fu­ture…God Bless,” De­venish said.