i'll call her mary

Mary is one of the many people I've met in this country that have blessed my life by their presence. 

I first got to know her a couple of months ago on the road while walking back to my house from visiting the kids.  She "works" in the area of town where I live, digging through dumpsters for plastic bottles or other recyclable goods.  She also collects all the bits of food that she can find and gives them to the stray dogs. She's like me - her heart breaks for all the starving pups.  

I see her often, and I always take time to sit and chat for a bit.  I ran into her today in a park by my house, where she was sitting under a tree with a pile of plastic recyclables.  We talked about her family, the kids that I work with, my dogs, etc...  She has a small room outside of town where she lives with one of her daughters. They're very poor and haven't had an easy life.  She shared with me some hardships that she's had to deal with, and we prayed together.  

She's coming by my house on Monday for a cup of tea.   :)

hymn 508, charles wesley

1 GOD of love, that hear'st the prayer, Kindly for thy people care, Who on thee alone depend: Love us, save us to the end.

2 Save us, in the prosperous hour, From the flattering tempter's power, From his unsuspected wiles, From the world's pernicious smiles.

3 Cut off our dependence vain On the help of feeble man, Every arm of flesh remove; Stay us on thy only love!

4 Men of worldly, low design, Let not these thy people join, Poison our simplicity, Drag us from our trust in thee.

5 Save us from the great and wise, Till they sink in their own eyes, Tamely to thy yoke submit, Lay their honours at thy feet.

6 Never let the world break in; Fix a mighty gulf between: Keep us little and unknown, Prized and loved by God alone.

7 Let us still to thee look up, Thee, thy Israel's Strength and Hope; Nothing know, or seek, beside Jesus, and him crucified.

8 Far above all earthly things, Look we down on earthly kings; Taste our glorious liberty, Find our happy all in thee!

who needs furniture?

I strive to live a simple life without many possessions or clutter, and my big desire is to someday move into something mobile - van, RV, or boat - and ditch houses altogether.  I've avoided buying any furniture so far, with the exception of a stove and a good mattress (gotta eat and sleep).  I was given a TV and microwave, and someday I'll pass them on to someone else.  As much as I don't want to own stuff, I know that empty rooms don't work well for ministry activities, and so I've been lucky to have dining room tables and other random bits of furniture come with both of the houses that I've lived in since October.  (And I've discovered that empty cardboard boxes with covers on top make for great end tables.)

At the moment, I have one of the street girls staying at my house because the night shelter has been closed for a few days.  I'm working really closely with her, and she's doing really well, so neither one of us want her to sleep up at the bridge.  I've been to her mom's "house," which is really just one room with a bed frame and straw mattress, teeny-tiny TV, a wooden shelf, and some boxes.  She tried to move in with her mom, but her mom wouldn't take her back, so we're working out Plan B.  

When she first got here, I showed her around the house (see photos here) - my bedroom with a mattress on the floor, the living room with a piece of 6" foam on the floor for a sofa, and the guestroom with another piece of 6" foam for a bed.  She looked a little puzzled and asked me, " Is this how people live in your country?"  I guess my standards are even weird for Bolivia.  

Anyway, I'm taking her to interview for a couple different jobs today. So say a prayer!!!

roundup

Recently, I've been helping take some of the guys from the bridge to work at Nate's carpentry shop in the afternoons.  And when I went to pick them up today, a little bit later than usual, I found about 10 cops rounding up all the kids that were working in the intersection washing car windows and watching cars outside the market.  The cops had about 15 kids (including a little 11 year old) lined up facing the wall with their arms above their heads and their legs spread.  So I ducked into a grocery store to watch the scene from inside.  The cops frisked the kids, pushed them around a bit, and then dragged them across the street and piled them into the back of a pick-up truck that was parked right outside the grocery store.   

It's always good for the kids to not be on the streets doing drugs, but these roundups don't really help.  The kids get roughed up and dumped in homes or kept locked up for a day or two, but they always make their way back to the streets. 

I thought there might have been some kids up at the bridge, but I didn't want to risk get caught in the middle of a police raid.  So I called one of the girls (yes, even street kids have cell phones), and was relieved to hear that they were away from the bridge washing clothes.  

It'll be interesting to see who's back in the next few days.  I'm just praying that they don't come back with bruises and broken noses.  

what's wrong with your face?

I let the street kids use my cell phone anytime they want to call their families.  Some of the kids want to call more often than others.  And since January, one of the boys has asked to call his mom in La Paz every time I've seen him.  Initially, he would call and ask her to come pick him up, but when it became clear that she wasn't going to do that, he started talking about going up there.  I kind of blew it off because so many of the kids make passing remarks about going back to live with their families.  But at the night shelter this past Friday, he pulled out a plastic envelope that was full of coins he had saved from washing car windows over the past 2 months. He counted 160 Bs. and said that he was going to buy new clothes this weekend and bus fare to La Paz, and he asked if I'd go with him to buy his ticket on Monday.  That night, he was so excited that he was almost giddy.  

He's been on the streets for 4 years.  He left his home when he was only 13 because his mom beat him.  The rough life he's lived on the streets can be seen in the scars on his face.

He called me at 7am on Sunday morning to ask if I'd meet him to go to the bus terminal, but by the time I got to the corner where the kids hang out he had already left.  He called me later that day around 3pm from La Paz to let me know he had made it there and was going to see his mom.  I told him that I was so proud of him and so happy for him.  I can't think of a much better ending than kids being reunited with their families.  

When I went up to the bridge yesterday morning and climbed into the tunnel, I was shocked to find that this boy had already come back from La Paz and was under the bridge with a glue bottle held to his nose.  We walked out into the sunshine to talk, and I could see a look of total hopelessness, pain, and rejection in his eyes.  He was very somber when he explained to me how his mother had rejected him when he showed up in La Paz.  After 4 years of not seeing her son, she had looked at him and said, "What's wrong with your face?"   

So on Monday he took a bus back to Cochabamba because there's no other place for him go.

connections

Connecting with Mosoj Yan has been a real blessing, and I'm so glad to have a place to bring the girls where they can get encouraged and cared for spiritually and emotionally.  The girls spend the day at their Motivation Center, and I do follow-up discussions/activities with them at the night shelter and on weekends.  The night shelter has been incredibly supportive of all this, and Mosoj Yan is even sending over a new girl to sleep there who is only 12 years old.  And even though none of the girls from the bridge made it to the Center everyday this week simply because their addictions to the street are so strong, I'm still encouraged by the improvement that I see and the relationships that we're building.

I've also connected with a church in the center of town that has a real heart to reach out to the kids on the street.  I've gone there for 2 Sundays with several kids from the bridge, and I've been really blessed to see people at the church warmly welcome kids from the street.  I met with the youth pastor on Monday, and he asked if I'd go over there tonight to talk with the youth group about the possibility of the some of them getting involved in outreach to the kids.  They've done a couple of projects for kids from the Coronilla but aren't sure how to keep up a continued relationship with them.  So I'm hoping to help connect them with the group from the bridge in some long-term ministries.  

something positive.

This morning I took the girl I wrote about in my last post to Mosoj Yan to start the process of entering into their girls' home.  She's recovered from her sickness but is still far from healthy due to malnutrition and drugs.  She and I have been talking for over a week now about getting her into a home and off the streets, and as of last Thursday, she had decided that enough was enough and wanted out.

She's a really sweet, beautiful girl, who's only been on the streets for a couple of years.  Her mom was put in prison and her step-dad forced her out of the house at gun point when she was 12.  We found out on Saturday that her mom has been released from prison and is back in Bolivia, in the southern town of Tarija.  

She immediately wanted to get to Tarija and said she was going to steal cell phones to pay for her trip down there. I was able to talk her out of that and encourage her to stick to our plan of talking to Mosoj Yan today.  I said we should coordinate with them, help her get off drugs and get healthy, locate her mom, and then I could take her down to Tarija.

She came to church with me yesterday but left halfway through, and I was concerned that she had gone off to steal and ditch town.  But thank God, this morning she was curled up in the tunnel and still wanted to go to Mosoj Yan.  

On the way, she told me about a situation that happened last night, which may have helped reinforce her urge to get off the street.  She and another boy were hanging around some food kiosks near the bridge when a couple of guys offered them a hamburger.  They took it and walked off to the corner while the two guys stood and watched. She told me that she and the boy she was with felt really uncomfortable by the way the guys were watching them and encouraging her to eat the burger.  She said that something seemed odd about the hamburger, so they broke it open and found that the meat was a weird color and right in the middle of the burger were pills.  PILLS!  Those guys were trying to drug her, to do God only knows what to her.  I can't even begin to express how much that infuriates me...  But it did give me a good opportunity to talk with her about the dangers of living on the streets.

Thankfully, she's totally, 100% into getting help from Mosoj Yan.  So for the first month, she's going to go to their Motivation Center everyday from 8 to 6, and she'll continue to sleep at the night shelter.  I'll help facilitate all that and follow up with her at the shelter- encourage her, make sure she's not sniffing glue at night, etc.  Once they think she's ready, she can enter into their girls' home.  And from there, we can locate her mom and help them reconnect.

There is a very real battle going on for these kids' souls, and she needs a lot of prayer right now. So please be praying that this isn't just a fleeting desire and that she won't get sucked back into life on the streets.