Saturday, October 31, 2009

what happened thursday...

I know some people think I'm crazy for bringing street kids back to my house, but I'm so glad they knew where to find me and that I'd come running to help early Thursday morning when Moises hanged himself at the bridge.

Around 4am, my doorbell rang, and the dogs started freaking out. I ran outside and found two of the girls from the bridge at my door frantically sobbing. Through the tears they told me that Moises had died and that I need to come quickly to the bridge. They had a taxi waiting outside, so I changed out of pajamas and ran out the door.

On the way to the bridge, the girls told me that Moises had had a fight with his girlfriend a few hours earlier. He was depressed, got high, and hung himself from a tree near the bridge.

I asked the taxi driver to call the police while I ran up to check on Moises. When the kids saw me, they came running, hollering that he was still breathing a little. And so without wanting to waste a precious minute, I had the kids carry Moises to the taxi and we sped to emergency at the main hospital here in town with three of the kids from the bridge.

When we go there, the doctors came out with a machine to check his vitals and told us that he was gone and there was nothing they could do. They looked at me and said, "So what do we do?" It was almost like they were washing their hands of the whole thing. I asked if they had someone who could help us with his body that was still laying in the back seat of the taxi, but they said that they couldn't accept it. The said to drive him over to the morgue.

The driver took us over to the morgue, which was closed because it was the middle of the night. There was no bell or number to call, so I called the police and told them the situation. They assured me somebody would be there shortly.

Twenty minutes later, I called dispatch back to see where the police were, and they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. So once again, I told them the situation and requested that someone come help us get into the morgue.

Another twenty minutes later, I called back because the police still hadn't shown up. This time they knew who I was and assured me that they were near by. So finally, after waiting almost an hour outside the morgue with Moises' body in the back seat of the taxi, the homicide police arrived and opened the doors.

They questioned the three kids and me about what happened, then they told us to go up to the bridge and wait for investigators to come by. So the same taxi driver drove us back.

I broke the news to the kids that Moises had really died, and they cried for a while until the glue took affect and numbed their pain. I was sitting in the canal with kids, waiting for the police to arrive when the oldest guy there, and the leader at the bridge, started speaking with demons.

For several months, he had been away from the bridge working at a garden center but was recently fired. He had gotten in a fight with a co-worker and cut the other kids' stomach up and down in an obvious attempt to kill him. Thank God, the boy survived and is recovering in the hospital right now.

So now he's back at the bridge using drugs, which turn him into a monster and open a door to hell.

So while we were waiting for the police to arrive, I sat three feet away from this boy and watched him speaking clearly to something he saw standing directly in front of him. He was undeniably having a conversation and saying things like, "You know they're going to blame you for this..." Then, he started manifesting, speaking in an inhuman language, and he appeared to be oblivious to the kids around him who were calling his name. I was praying silently in my mind without speaking words out loud, and at one point, the boy stopped talking and turned to look me in the eye as if he could every word I was praying.

Some police came by just minutes later and chatted with the kids and me. When the left, the kids went back to their glue bottles and passed out because none of them had slept during the night. So I went home and started making phone calls, trying to locate his family...

Thankfully, there are some very capable people here to help sort out these kinds of emergencies. Oscar and the folks from Casa Azul, a project that works with street kids, helped locate family so we could inform them about Moises. I had never had to do that before, and I was almost speechless. They also ran around doing all the necessary paperwork to get him buried.

Everything eventually got sorted out, and we gathered money together to pay for Moises' casket because the family didn't have the funds. After an all night vigil at the mother's house, we buried Moises yesterday around 4:30...

Please be praying for the kids. The spiritual battle going on for their souls is escalating, and they need protection. They do, and so do those of us who are trying to minster to them.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

r.i.p. moises



How many dying must there be?
So many untold memories
Who really cares, so many stares
People fade away everyday

Empty bottles tell sad stories
Filthy photos fumbled through
Grubby fingers buy a few
Sick finds for the creep

I can almost hear you breathing
Are you really out there crying?
I can almost feel you dying
Are you . . . Dead?

Parking lots of trash and treasures
Bags and piles of sinful pleasures
Discarded frightful secrets
Jaded eyes dig so deep

How many voices,
How many children,
How many choices,
How many lies,
How many deaths,
How many victims,
How many addictions,
How many loved ones,
How many lost ones,
How many searching,
How many barely holding on . . . .?

Did she find the answer?
Does anybody know her?
Does anybody hold her?
Does anybody love her?

We keep walking over corpses
Retiring our own feeble voices
Disillusioned in her volition
We can see the end


Headnoise, Haunting Enigma

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

trees.

One of my favorite things about Cochabamba is that they don't tear down big, old trees when they build roads.

This is one of the better ones...


Thursday, October 22, 2009

8:00am at the bridge


I brought the kids breakfast this morning and snapped a few shots of the kids and the pups...






Wednesday, October 21, 2009

r.i.p. vladi

The funeral is over. Another horrifically sad event. I can't begin to imagine how much God cries over these kids because my pathetically human heart is broken. We brought a truckload of kids from the street to the cemetery, and I watched them bury another friend for the second time in 3 months. The way I see it, the devil is trying to kill off the kids one-by-one. Marcos was stabbed in the heart and died in July. Vladimir's stomach was cut open 2 weeks ago, but he was recovering at the hospital when the demons convinced him to throw himself out of a 3rd story window. That's how he died, and it just makes me sick. He was one the kids that I knew really well, and I saw so much good in him. I know how tormented he was, but I always had hope. I can't believe his life ended this way.

R.I.P. Vladi.

someone to devour.


Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 5:6-11 (ESV)




Like a roaring lion, he's seeking someone to devour.
And he did devour...this time.
But God has dominion, and He will restore us.



Tuesday, October 20, 2009

john 10:10

ὁ κλέπτης οὐκ ἔρχεται εἰ μὴ ἵνα κλέψῃ καὶ θύσῃ καὶ ἀπολέσῃ ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσιν καὶ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν

Sunday, October 11, 2009

psalm 146.

Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
I will praise the LORD while I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.

His spirit departs, he returns to the earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.

How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the LORD his God,

Who made heaven and earth,
The sea and all that is in them;
Who keeps faith forever;

Who executes justice for the oppressed;
Who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free.

The LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
The LORD raises up those who are bowed down;
The LORD loves the righteous;

The LORD protects the strangers;
He supports the fatherless and the widow,
But He thwarts the way of the wicked.

The LORD will reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the LORD!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

this week.

This week started off on Sunday afternoon with a phone call from one of the boys telling me that another boy had been stabbed. I spent Monday morning searching for him at the hospital. When I couldn't locate him through the information desk or via the emergency room records or with the police connected to the emergency room, I did what seemed like the obvious thing to do based on the past few months: I went to the morgue. Thankfully, he hadn't been through there and is actually in recovery under a different name. So that was good news...

I wish I lived in a world that didn't include morgue visits. I could probably stomach the morgue in the US, but the one here is just unbearable. It's not temperature-controlled, and the bodies aren't kept refrigerated. When I was in there helping sort out the situation with the baby girl in June, I remember looking around and seeing bodies laying around on gurneys and tables, wrapped in the bedding that their families had brought them in. One guy was laying there uncovered and bloody, and it was obvious that he had been stabbed in the stomach. It's a very unpleasant place, and I'll never be able to forget the smell.

With all that in mind, I was so thankful that one of my girlfriends offered to go running around with me that afternoon so I wouldn't have to go alone.

That same day, I rescued a little Boxer puppy that showed up right outside my door...literally. She was nothing but bones, just 3 or 4 months old, and really, really sick. We took her to my vet's office where they did some tests and found out that she had Distemper (terribly contagious and deadly) and that it was already in her brain and nervous system. It was really sad and obviously really painful, so we ended up just being merciful and putting her to sleep.

The rest of the week was less eventful, thankfully. I did the regular visits to the bridge and to the night shelter, chatted with the boys washing windows on the street a few times, and hung out with the girls. I also hunted around the market for a daycare for the woman I wrote about last week. That was a huge, useless waste of time, although, thanks to Kimber, I have a good lead to follow up with next week.

One of the girls, who's boyfriend has been working at Nate's shop, is pregnant and about to burst. On Thursday, we went into a hospital to get her all set up for the baby's birth but were told we need to go to the local health center closer to where she's going to be living. The shop is in the process of moving to a new location up the hill a ways, and this couple is looking for a room in the same area. Hopefully, we'll get the hospital and the room all sorted out on Monday.

Since the hospital trip on Thursday was a bust, the girl and her little boy spent most of the day at my house...


Snacks


Sharing the snacks with Lily


Playing with the magnets on my new mini-fridge (cheaper than a regular-sized used fridge but less colorful)


Romping around in the grass

Saturday, October 3, 2009

from tacalomas.

I have some friends who live up and out of the city a bit, above Cocha's electricity and water. It's a simple life that I'd be happy to live...to leave behind all the chaos of the city. And really, who needs running water?




But there's a fine line between simplicity and poverty, and for the folks up there, the simple life isn't an option. It's the only thing they can afford.

They're good people, and I love spending time with them. I try to stop in every week or so, and I've built good friendships with 4 of the families. They give me potatoes from their farms, and I give them figs from my tree. I normally sit and chat with the ladies while they cook, or I play with kids with the kids. Occasionally, I hike up the hill with Dona Maria to graze her sheep.

One of the families that I'm friends with is a single mom with two boys and a newborn baby. She's young and struggling to make a living selling carrot juice for 1 Boliviano a glass in the market for about 10 hours a day.

Her oldest boy has become the man of the house and takes care of his younger brother. He gets up early and goes to a school up the hill on the other side of the valley. It's a daily journey that requires taking 2 buses and hiking a bit. After school, he either makes his way home, or he goes into the market to hangout with his mom. The 3 year old boy will go with his mom into the market somedays, but other days, he'll stay at home by himself until his older brother makes it home from school.

And now there's a one month old baby in the picture. And to make matters even more complicated, the mom doesn't really speak Spanish, just Quechua. So her kids are our little translators.

This coming week, we're going to enroll the 3 year old in a daycare near where his mom works. It'll only be for part of the day, but it's better than him sitting around in the market or being left home alone for 5 or 6 hours. I'm trying to help with one situation at a time.

Friday, October 2, 2009

a random photo post.


Lily's normal face (all bundled up for winter in July)...

Lily's swollen face after being stung by a scorpion...

Swelling going down...

A few of the guys from the bridge playing futbol on Sunday...

Lunch after church...

Afternoon snack at a food court on Wednesday...

Toys!

My thorn bush is growing fuzzy, yellow pom-poms...