85 stitches

I was going to start this off by saying that I've been working really closely with one girl from the streets for more than a month now, but I don't like the term "working."  To me, this isn't a job; it's life.  And she isn't a project; she's a friend.  And her life is incredibly important to me.  

Like all the kids on the street, she's hurting.  Her life has been a difficult one, full of poverty, abuse, and drugs.  It's enough to harden anyone's heart and fill it with bitterness.  But despite all that's happened to her in the 20 years of her life, she somehow still has a kind, caring spirit.  She is such a blessing to me!  

Nevertheless, last Sunday, she hit rock bottom again and cut up her thighs with a piece of glass.  Thankfully some police found her bleeding profusely and called an ambulance to rush her to the hospital.  She ended up getting about 85 stitches. 

She wants to get away from the bridge and has started actively seeking out rooms for rent.  It's a long, up hill battle, and the reality is that the streets are addictive and have kept her in bondage for years.  But I'm not going to lose hope that maybe this time we can really help her move forward in life.  

Please keep her in your prayers - even though you don't know her name. 

hope

The gospel frees us from being passive recipients of whatever fate somebody else decides for us.  

It's almost like their fate was chosen for them when they were born into poverty, abuse, and neglect.  It's not a big step to go from sleeping on a straw mattress in a one-room, adobe house with a dirt floor to sleeping under a bridge and sniffing glue to numb the hunger and cold, especially when it means escaping sexual abuse and beatings.   

I feel like I'm always just a few steps away from the thick cloud of hopelessness that surrounds the kids and shrouds from view any real possibility of change.  If it weren't for the gospel that allows us to step outside the restricting circumstances of our lives and live in freedom, these kids would have no hope and no future.  

What do you if you're 20 years old and have lived on the streets since you were 14?  What kind of vocation are you going have without any education or training?  

puppies, police, post office, & a park.

Busy week.  

I'll be leaving for church shortly, but I want to post an update before I head out for the beginning of another busy day.

I only went with Barbara to the bridge once this past week because I ended up doing a bunch of extra things at the girls' home.  

We went up to the bridge on Tuesday and were hoping to find some of the girls that live there, but they had all wandered off. Apparently, the pregnant girl we had talked to last week at the bridge had given birth to her second child and was staying with her mom temporarily. Her first child lives at an orphanage, and this one may end up there as well. Given the situation, it's the best thing for the baby.  

So we hung out with the boys that were busy "cleaning" their house under the bridge.  They were sweeping out piles of trash and straightening up but stopped everything to talk with us and sniff their glue.

They have 2 dogs that they take care of, and so went spent some time talking about the dogs and watching the tricks that the boys had taught them. Then, one of the boys mentioned something about puppies and crawled back into the canal under road. He emerged a couple of minutes later with 2 little, tiny puppies that were only about 3 weeks old. 

After a while, the guys had gotten pretty high, and we just couldn't understand anything they were saying, so we left.

That night, we tried to go hang out by the bus terminal with the girls that live on a hill called La Coronilla, but nobody showed up. There was a group of police standing in the exact location where the girls normally sit to sniff glue and sell themselves, which is where we normally hang out with them. The police presence was obviously keeping them away, so we walked around for a while, hoping to run into one of the girls or some of the street boys, but all we saw were cops. It was obvious that we weren't going to be able to see anybody, so we called it a night.

Wednesday afternoon, Barb and I went into town to meet up with one of the girls we know from the terminal to take her to an OB-GYN and then out for tea. We sat at our planned meeting spot outside the post office (which, by the way, is back in business after a long hunger strike) for an hour and a half, but she never showed up. She had given us a cell phone number, which we called repeatedly, but no one answered. So after sitting and waiting on the concrete step and listening to an hour and a half of funk music on Barb's MP3 player, we gave up.  

Not a successful week.  At least we're consistent.  

Thursday was a holiday, so I went with the girls from the home to a park for the day (See my photo gallery for pictures). They had such a good time playing on playground equipment, hiking around the grounds, and sliding down a big, concrete halfpipe. The tias (aunties) that work at the home had packed a lunch for the girls so that they could stay until about 5pm. I took off in the afternoon to get some things done and pack a bag for my overnighter at the girls' home that night.

Because it was a holiday, the tias had the night off, so I stayed overnight with another volunteer at the home to take care of the 22 girls that live there. With the exception of 2 bed-wetting incidences, it was a great night. We were up by 6am to make breakfast and get the girls who have school in the morning out the door by 8am. It was a good night, and the girls were really great, but I don't know how the tias do it everyday. I was exhausted all day Friday! 

I'm doing the majority of my Spanish classes on Mondays and Fridays now, and so that filled up the rest of the week.  

Friday night, we had a disco party (hence the funk music on Barb's MP3 player) in celebration of Kimber's birthday. Thanks to the amazingly huge used clothes section of La Cancha, the street market, I found an awesome, original 70s, polyester dress for 5 Bs. (about 75 cents)! I'll put up an album of photos on my web gallery soon, so check back later this week.

Today, after lunch, I'm heading over to the girls' home to help out because the tias have a special tea in honor of Mother's Day, which is this coming Tuesday. It should be a fun afternoon.

on the streets.

A large part of my new work down here takes place on the city streets in some pretty unpleasant locations with the groups of kids and teenagers that I used to be fearful of and avoid at all costs. I've not been going out alone but have been tagging along with one of the other volunteers with NCV, who has been working with these kids and teens on the streets for over a year. I'm still just beginning to get to know them, and it will take some time to build friendships and trust.

Here's what I'm learning...

Glue sniffing is a large part of life on the streets, and all of the street kids that I've met are cleferos (glue-sniffers). They spend most of the day only semi-conscious with a bottle of glue held up to their noses.

It's their escape.

In order to survive, the guys wash car windows and juggle at traffic lights and pick-pocket. Many of the girls have prostituted themselves, aborting unwanted pregnancies in back alley clinics or by drinking "witch's brew." And many have had babies that the government has taken away and put in orphanages.

There are some horribly corrupt police officers who mistreat and beat the street kids (we heard of one little boy who was beaten to death by a cop less than 2 weeks ago) and who have been known to rape the girls.

If this is the life that they have escaped to, how bad must their "home" life have been?

In the afternoons, I've been going with my friend Barb up to a bridge on the north side of town where a group of teenagers live. The bridge is over a mostly dry canal, about 6' wide and 5' deep, that runs under a very busy road and is home to a group of a dozen or so teenagers. I went up there a couple of weeks ago for the first time, and I want to describe that experience.

As we were walking up the hill toward the bridge, we saw a few heads pop up from the concrete canal to see who was heading their direction. They recognized Barb right away and called us over. So we walked to the edge of the canal and saw that there were about 10 teenagers hanging out and washing their clothes in a dirty puddle surrounded by slimy, green moss. And we were really excited to see three girls (one of whom is pregnant) that Barb has known for a while but hadn't seen in weeks.

So we jumped down into the canal, and within just a few seconds, everybody had come over to talk with us. They all held plastic bottles of glue up to their noses, and in such a tight space with so many people, even Barb and I were breathing in heavy fumes. And so we hung out in the dirty and incredibly smelly canal, breathing secondhand glue fumes and straddling garbage and piles of feces (probably both animal and human but equally unpleasant).

I'm still an outsider, but the kids were really friendly and open to talking to me. Likewise, I'm not intimidated to talk to them or bothered by the fact that they're high.

This work is amazing and heartbreaking and fulfilling and overwhelming all at the same time, and I'm still so new to everything....

a new direction.

Where to start?

With sincere sadness, I have officially left El Centro de Amistad.  In 2006 the leadership of El Centro changed, subsequently changing the vision and focus.  The holistic ministry that I described while fundraising last year just doesn't exist anymore.  Unfortunately, no one explained this to me as I was preparing to come back down here, and I assumed I would jump back into the ministry that I knew from 2004 and 2005.  So after 6 months of searching for a way to use my God-given gifts, all that I've learned from my experiences over the years, and the passions that God has put in my heart, I've had to accept the fact that I cannot serve God and serve the people of Bolivia to the best of my ability at El Centro.  The current leadership is taking the center in a completely different direction, which I do not entirely support, and are not open to any suggestion or outside opinion.  

And so El Centro de Amistad might have been what brought me back to Bolivia, but it's evident that God has other plans for me in Cochabamba, and He has provided some wide open doors.

As I've mentioned in my newsletters, I've been volunteering with another foundation here in Coch called Ninos con Valor (NCV) since the end of March and am excited to transition into working with them full-time.  At the moment, I'm just helping out where I can, building some friendships with street kids and teenagers, and observing/learning from the other missionaries.  It's a blessing to be working alongside like-minded people in projects that are actually helping to transform lives.

I've been spending several afternoons and evenings each week on the streets of Cochabamba getting to know the different groups of street kids and where they live.  I've been tagging along with one of two other staff members of NCV who have already become friends with quite a few of the street girls and kids.  It's kind of giving me automatic acceptance into their circle, but it'll definitely take some time to really get to know them and build trust.  

I'm also helping out at the girls home that NCV runs.  I've started a small group for the older girls in the home, which I'm really excited about.  Once a week, the girls pile into the upstairs rec room in pajamas for devotions and a good chat.  We've only been doing the small group for two weeks, but I'm so encouraged by how open and honest the girls...and how patient they are with my sometimes lousy (but always improving) Spanish.

This is a brand new direction, but it's all very exciting.  The confusion, stress, and sorrow that I felt for six months has just disappeared, and I feel so good about this new project.  Keep checking back, as I'll be posting weekly updates on this blog.