acquire no more here than what is absolutely necessary.

You who are God's servants are living in a foreign country, for your own city-state is far away from this city-state. Knowing which is yours, why do you acquire fields, costly furnishings, buildings, and frail dwellings here? Anyone who acquires things for himself in this city cannot expect to find the way home to his own City. Do you not realize that all these things here do not belong to you, that they are under a power alien to your nature? The ruler will say you do not obey my laws, either observe my laws or get out of my country. Take care lest it prove fatal to you to repudiate your own laws. Acquire no more here than what is absolutely necessary. Instead, of fields, buy for yourself people in distress in accordance with your means.

- Hermas, 140 AD

hope.

This lovely, little lady is coming to my house for a few hours every other morning for breakfast and devotions.

Of everything I've done with the kids in past year, this is my favorite. I've known this girl since February, and the things I've loved about her from the beginning are her caring spirit and her sincere desire to know God more. She's 2 and a half months pregnant, so we're talking a lot about the future. And little by little, she's starting to dream again.

I'm not pushing her into a home because, at best, she'll finish high school and learn baking or craft-making. It's a future, but not the future she wants. The other day, she smiled and told me she'd like to go to university to study computer technology. What a beautiful dream for a girl who was born on the streets and has lived a life full of poverty and abuse. As of right now, she's only finished 6th grade and is sleeping at the night shelter, but she has hope for the future!

This morning, in the context of a totally different conversation about India, she said to me how she would love to be the one to bring the good news of Jesus to people who had never heard about Him before... Beautiful! God has such incredible plans for her life, and I'm not going to let her get lost in some big program or fancy-shmancy center... My prayer is to find some people in the Body of Christ who are willing to look beyond the class divides and love this girl enough to reach out a hand and help pull her out of the dark world of the streets.

chi rho & sun

"But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings..."

Malachi 4:2

my folks.

My parents were just down for a visit in June, and it turns out that pretty much all of our photos together were taken in restaurants. We really didn't just eat...

another passing.

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.

...

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.

...

death.

Before I could even finish writing up the events of the sweet little baby's passing, another life was tragically cut short. One of the teenage boys from the bridge was stabbed in the heart last night and died in the grass by the canal.

It's heartbreaking, and I'm so incredibly sad...

I don't really know how write about this at the moment... but I thought I should at least post the entry I had been working on about the little baby's passing.

sunday, june 21

On the morning after the baby's passing, I went back to the park with my parents while Jenn ran around getting the baby's official death certificate and making arrangements at the cemetery.

(I don't know whether it's appropriate or not to post this, but I really want you to see what it was like and understand how almost valueless life can be here... Street child or not, no wake should have to be held in a public bathroom.) Here is a photo that we secretly snapped:

It was a intensely sad scene, and one that I will never forget.

The night before, I contacted Javier, a pastor who works with Nate in the carpentry ministry, and asked if he'd be willing to do a service at the cemetery. He has a heart for street kids and was more than pleased to help out. He brought along his pastor and met us at the baby's wake on Sunday morning.

The parents were very worried about the fact that they had never baptized their little girl. They believed that her soul wouldn't make it up to heaven unless someone performed a baptism. So while Javier was on his way over, I called to see if he'd be willing to baptize the baby and share with the parents. He and his pastor agreed to do a baptism/baby dedication with the holy water that the baby's mom had gotten the night before, and so we gathered in the bathroom with some street kids and missionaries for a simple, makeshift service.

At 12:30, we loaded up 4 cars with a handful of missionaries and some street kids and went to the cemetery. While the cemetery workers placed the little girl's casket in her niche and plastered over the opening, Javier and his pastor shared a wonderful message of hope and good news with the kids from the street. It was an indescribably sad moment, but one that sparked some sincere conversations about Christ among the pastors and the kids.

Two weeks later... and the parents and I went back to leave flowers on their little girls' grave. We also visited another daughter of theirs that's in the same cemetery, and this week we are supposed to visit their third daughter's grave. Three babies from just one couple.

saturday, june 20

This weekend I had to deal with something that I had been hoping to avoid for as long as possible. And honestly, I'm still kind of running on autopilot and really haven't processed the events of this weekend, but here's what happened:

I received a phone call on Saturday afternoon around 3:00 from a street dwelling couple that I've known for about 8 months now. They had been living at a home for couples with their little girl up until about 2 months ago when they returned to the street. I ran into them on Wednesday for the first time since they'd left the home. I bought them diapers for their little girl and dinner, and we took this photo:

Three days later, Saturday afternoon, I was in the middle of the crowded street market with my parents when I got a call from the guy. He was crying, and I could barely make out what he was saying until I heard, "Senorita, please come the morgue, my little girl is dead."

We left immediately, and I dropped my parents off at home and went straight to the morgue. I ran into the young mom first on the sidewalk. She had obviously been crying, and when she saw me, she burst into tears and completely collapsed in my arms. The three of us walked back to the morgue, which was in the back corner of an old, empty, decaying hospital building. It looked like something out of a horror movie... I needed to find the doctor who was waiting to talk to me, so I had to walk right into the morgue, into the middle of a room full of dead bodies, young and old, all mostly uncovered and almost carelessly placed on random tables. The doctor explained to me and to the baby's dad that we needed to go buy all the supplies for a forensic autopsy as well as supplies for the two police officers that were involved with the case.

They showed us to a little, old indigenous woman who had a small, portable metal kiosk on the corner full of sodas, juice, and snacks. We told her that we needed materials for a forensic autopsy and for two police officers, and she pulled out some black, plastic shopping bags and started filling them up with gloves and masks and bottles of this and that for the autopsy.

I paid the woman and brought the supplies to the doctor, who then gave me a police report about the baby's death and sent me off to get it photocopied. Because it was a Saturday afternoon, all the photocopy shops around the morgue were closed, so I had to walk about 6 blocks away to get the document copied.

When I got back, the police officers were there, and explained to me that I needed to take the photocopy to an office on the other side of downtown to pay for/pick up two documents that needed to be filled out during the autopsy. They said that once the autopsy was finished they would release the body to me, at which point I felt a wave of panic because I had no idea what to do with a body or even where to get a casket. I was able to speak with Jenn, a friend who has homes for babies and children who have been abandoned, orphaned, or taken away from their street-dwelling parents and has dealt with the death of babies in the past. She wasn't far away and offered to meet me and help me take care of everything.

We went together to the office to pick up the forms I needed, and Jenn drove us back to the morgue, where a tiny, white casket was waiting for the little baby's body. The mortician had called a friend who owns a store, and the friend sent his 10 year old daughter over to the morgue with the casket. She walked us over the to store to pay, and thankfully, the store owner offered to help us get the baby's official death certificate on Sunday morning through a connection he has with a civil registry.

During all that, the baby's mom had gone off to buy some clothes to bury the baby in. She returned with a onesie and some socks, and we walked into the morgue to dress the baby.

I will never in my entire life be able to forget the sight of the little girl laying on the table with her eyes open and a carelessly stitched-up incision going down and across her chest from the autopsy. I felt faint but had to support and comfort the mom who just crumbled at the sight of her little girl. The mortician took the clothes and started dressing the baby, so I walked outside with the mom so that she wouldn't have to watch.

A few minutes later, the mortician came out with the casket with the little girl inside looking peaceful. He wanted 100Bs. for bathing and dressing the body, and then he handed over the casket. We put it in the back of Jenn's car and drove over to the park where the parents live because we couldn't find any place to take the body for the night.

As soon as we got back, the other kids that live on the street around there, who all seem to be related to the baby's dad, started beating on the baby's mom, accusing her of beating her baby to death. It's no secret that she was abusive as most street moms are, and there is absolutely no excuse for it...it's despicable...but the little girl didn't die from a beating. She had a cough for 3 days and died from some sort of asphyxiation that the mortician didn't seem to think was from murder.

Jenn stayed at the park while I ran into the market with another one of the street girls to buy some flower arrangements and candles. When I got back to the park, the casket had been moved into the entry way of a public bathroom and set up on a table with a few candles. We set a cross of white flowers on the casket and watched as the room filled up with glue-sniffing street kids wanting to pay their respects and pray for the baby. One of the older guys who lives under a nearby bridge led the kids in a series of Hail Marys and prayed for the baby before all the kids settled down to sniff glue and drink chicha.

The baby's mom had gone to find some holy water with which to baptize the baby because the general belief is that the soul won't make it to heaven unless the body has been baptized. When she came back the fighting started up all over again... Kids were attacking the mom, kicking and punching her. She and the dad were fighting with each other and with the other kids. I had to get in between some of the kids a few times and take wrestle away big rocks that they were intending to throw at each other. After about an hour of on-and-off, drug-induced fighting, the mom settled down in the bathroom to sleep, and I went home for the night.