koinonia, pt. 1

We need each other.  I could probably write pages in support of that statement, but I think it's something that most people agree on.  We are just simply not made to do life alone.  From the time that we're teeny-tiny babies, we long for love, relationship, and security.

Those tiny little baby minds and baby hearts learn early on whether or not they are safe and loved.  But what happens when that baby isn't safe and isn't loved?  What happens when that baby turns into a neglected little toddler who has already learned that crying doesn't do any good and nobody cares that he's hungry?  Within the first few years of his life, he's already learned to shut down his emotions and never sheds a tear.  He becomes withdrawn.  He grows up not trusting anyone or depending on anyone.  He lives day to day, not sure who would really care if he were to disappear tomorrow.  He doesn't know how to love or be loved. When his emotions break through to the surface, he can't control them, and he doesn't understand them.  He surrounds himself with people like himself until his group self-destructs.  And the worst thing is that he is doomed to repeat the cycle when he inevitably has a child of his own.

At the very core level, I want to teach the kids on the streets love.  And it can't be a love that comes from humans because we screw up.  We screw up big time.  This country is full of the evidence of how humanity has screwed up.  Just look around.  Crippled old grannies begging for coins on the streets...  Three year olds trained to sing and dance for handouts from the tourists...  Toxic rivers and garbage covered streets...  Starving dogs on every block...  Six year old girls selling candy and cigarettes to drunk men in the bars all night long...

Everything about this is wrong.  But don't think that Bolivia is some exception.  Things are different but equally bad everywhere else.

I think that we as humans have been robbed of love.  We're lost and hurting, and deep down inside we are looking for what we're missing: love... relationship and safety.  It's the first thing we long for when we're born...  We scream and cry for Mom's love and comfort.  It's ingrained in us, I think, because we're made in God's image.

And God is love.  

And God is community.  

And that's what we're created for: love and community with God and with one another.  It's simple.

So I have this wild idea to take those babies who have never known love and who've grown up into lost and hurting adults, and bring them into community... into love.  And Casa Koinonia will be just that: community and love.

Yeah, we're human, and we'll mess up for sure.  But we'll try really hard to stop trying... to stop doing it all ourselves and relying on our own understanding.  Instead, we'll try really hard to lean on the Holy Spirit and trust him to guide us and make us more loving everyday...

The more we know God and spend time with him, the more his love will wear off on us, and the more those babies (now adults) will understand love and understand God.  And their lives will change forever.