The past few weeks have been tragic and difficult, but despite everything that's happened, I feel at peace knowing I'm right where God's put me to love and care for the kids living on the streets. More so now than ever, I'm aware of how much I need His strength to sustain me every minute of every day, because there is no way I could survive this on my own, let alone minister to others in the middle of all this chaos.
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I had just said goodbye to my mom in the Santa Cruz airport on Wednesday morning when I got a call from one of the guys at the bridge asking me to come immediately. So as soon as I made it back to Cochabamba, I went out on the streets to see the kids. They told me right away that one of the boys, who I had known pretty well, had been stabbed in the heart early that morning. And thankfully, the police had the two boys who did it in custody.
At times, I naively think that nothing can shock me, but the news of this boy's death hit me like a ton of bricks. Just two and a half weeks after burying a baby, another life was gone. This boy was good kid, well-liked by most everybody, with a pleasant personality and so much potential for the future... I never thought this kind of thing would happen him.
One of the guys from Estrellas en la Calle, another project that works with street kids, helped the family and took care of all the running around. So I was free to spend a lot time with the kids up at the bridge and at the night shelter.
Despite the fact that the boy had lived on the streets, his family had the legal right to take care of the arrangements for his wake and funeral...even though they never seemed too concerned about their son while he was living... Generally, when someone dies, their body is taken to their home for the night before the burial. There, the family washes and dresses the deceased, lights candles, and drinks all through the night. The kids wanted to have his body brought to the bridge because that's where he had lived, but his family chose to take his coffin to their house.
On Friday morning, I got a phone call telling me that the family was going to allow us to bring the street kids to the wake. So we took the kids to the boy's sister's house around 11am. I took a few photos of the kids piled into Javier's car and the back of Estrellas en la Calle's pickup...
The wake was held in the yard of the boy's sister's house. When we arrived, they opened the coffin so the kids could and say their goodbyes, then we sang some songs and sat around somberly while the boy's mother passed out Coca-Cola to everyone.
There was a guy there videotaping the whole thing, so even though it seemed pretty irreverent to me, I snapped a couple photos...
Some of the kids stayed at the wake while the rest returned to street, where I met up with them again at 2pm to go to the cemetery. When I got there, the kids were waiting on the side of the road with some flowers they had bought to take to the funeral...
We all piled into the back of another pick up truck (Manchas, the dog, included) and went to cemetery....
At the cemetery we met up with the family and some street kids from another part of town. Altogether, there had to have been at least 50 or 60 people. A couple of the boys from the bridge helped the cemetery staff lift the coffin up into the niche. While they were plastering over the opening, an acoustic band played some songs and the kids wept. It was an incredibly sad moment... The kids were sobbing and holding onto each other... I could barely keep it together.
After the music stopped, Alejandro, one of the guys who helped put on the futbol games at the stadium, asked if he could say a few words and pray with everyone there. He spoke to the kids about how some of us had had opportunities to share Christ with the boy who had just passed away, and he shared a short gospel message with them and prayed. It was a good finish to the day.
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