Memories

Every afternoon, friends from the surrounding villages come to the home at Puerto Alegria for an afternoon soccer game.  Here’s how it goes:  bathe in the river, put on some clean clothes, slap on some bug spray, get the camp chair and head out to the soccer fields to watch the game.  You’ll likely enjoy good conversation, a few kids hanging on your back and maybe a passerby with some Coca Cola.  Some of my favorite memories.  Enjoy.

PS–What you are about to watch is a conversation involving the English/Bible lesson for that day, which was the story of Abraham and Isaac.  The boys understand much more English than they let on.

Luis again

This is an old video, but in light of our upcoming trip, I thought it deserved reposting. Enjoy!

9:11 pm, Thursday night

I wasn’t there when this picture was taken.  But I imagine it to be at about 5:00 am, while all the other street boys are asleep.  On the floor, on benches, on each other.  That’s what usually happens on Friday nights when Gene goes into Iquitos (from the boys’ home in Puerto Alegria).  They play soccer, have a meal, play more soccer, watch movies, more soccer, and then fall asleep.  I imagine Angelo waking up for just a few more dribbles of his soccer ball, just a few more hours awake before he goes out onto the street, his home.

God has placed Angelo on my heart.  Just click on Angelo on my sidebar and you’ll see several posts where he shows up.  At first, I didn’t know his name, but his face was pressed into my heart. Then I learned his name, and now my heart is beginning to wrap itself around his little heart, even from this far away.  I wonder what he’s doing at this moment, 9:11 pm on a Thursday night.  Is he safe?  Is he sleeping, playing soccer on the street somewhere, begging for money, stealing money?  What is he doing now?  I can only pray that God will protect him and, most of all, bring him to an understanding of the sufficiency of Christ.

Angelo. 13 years old. Loves soccer.

Smelly Porch

Something really fun about having a wordpress blog: “Top Searches”.  This is where you get to see what people have been typing into your search box.  And one of the top searches was, you guessed it, “smelly porch”.  What?  Whoever you are, fess up.

Loneliness

Me and Rene

Rene is beautiful.  Big brown eyes with long eyelashes.  10 years old and can dance like you wouldn’t believe.  He and his brother, Marcelo, came to Puerto Alegria after a neighbor kept finding them unsupervised in their house for weeks at a time.

It was close to the time that we (the team) would be leaving Puerto Alegria.  I was giving my last Bible lesson and the boys were absolutely horrible.  Teaching former street children is hard enough in itself.  But this day was especially hard.  And Rene’s behavior was one of the worst.  By the end of the class, he was laying on the floor in defiance.

I pulled him up off of the floor.  He wouldn’t look at me, his body limp in defiance and defeat.  I sat him next to me on the bench and put my arms around him.  I told him that I loved him and that there was nothing that he could do that would make me not love him.  I told him that God loved him in the same way, but so much more.  Still not looking at me, he put his arms around me and laid in my lap.  He stayed there for a good while.

These boys experience loneliness that is beyond what I or most people can imagine.  As Willy (the in-house disciplinarian) shared with me, the nights are the worst.  They go to sleep with no one to tuck them in.  No one to remind them to brush their teeth.  No one to make sure they have clean pajamas and a teddy bear.  They go to sleep lonely and wake up lonely.  There are days that the loneliness turns into an anger that they carry with them throughout the day.  I think this day was one of those, perhaps exasperated by the knowledge that we were soon to be leaving.

When I try to imagine the loneliness they feel, I become thankful for my own times of loneliness.  Not only does it give me a bit of an understanding of what they feel, but it is also a vehicle for God to communicate his ever-present message: I am enough for you, Kate.  And the more I learn this, the more I am able to believe it for them.  I am not there to wrap my arms around them and to tell them that they are loved.  But God is.  And He is enough.

PS–He wears that thing on his head because he INSISTED that I give him a haircut instead of the worker there who usually cuts their hair.  He regretted it for the rest of the week.  

  

Crisis

I woke up at 6 am this morning.  Way too early for a Saturday.

So, I have found myself (instead of having my “quiet time”) perusing the internet, and of course, looking for more pictures and video of my precious boys.  A new picture or video that I haven’t seen feels like Christmas.

After watching some of Kate Bruder’s videos on vimeo, I decided to search “Iquitos”, just to see what would come up.  I found a well-made video about a missionary group who went down to deliver eyeglasses, vitamins and vaccines, and to preach the Gospel to the villages up and down the Amazon River.

As I watched, I found myself in a crisis of belief.  From the video, it looked like this group was simply delivering eyeglasses and medicines, preaching the Gospel, and then moving on to the next village.  It seems like a wonderful thing to do.  Meet a spiritual need through meeting a physical need.

An image continues to run through my head: a gringo (American) man standing in front of a large crowd of people.  He has his hands outstretched over the people.  They are all watching intently.  Then the scene changes to the team praying over individuals, laying their hands on heads, limbs, and eyes.  Then onto the next village.

It has me wondering about mission trips such as this one.  Does this produce lasting change in the lives of the people?  Team comes in, does their thing, then leaves.  Where’s the relationship?  Where’s discipling and mentoring them?  And suppose they genuinely do receive salvation?  What do they do with it?  Where do they go?  Who mentors and disciples them?  And then there’s the whole “gringo” thing.  Sometimes I worry that people in countries such as this one believe that any physical or spiritual help they may receive will always come in a gringo package.

This is why I love Scripture Union (the organization that runs our precious Puerto Alegria).  It is run and operated only by Peruvians.  I think that this has given the boys countless examples of Godly Peruvian men and women that they can follow.  They know that they, too, can be men of God.

Please understand I know NOTHING about this particular video I saw.  I have no idea what preceded or followed the work that they were doing.  It just got me thinking, that’s all.  I thought you might want to be a part of it.

Any comments?  Thoughts?

Christianity

“How is it then that we’ve come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God?  How has this come to be the good news of Jesus?  Is the kingdom that he proclaimed to be nothing more than a community of men and women who go to church on Sunday, take an annual spiritual retreat, read their Bibles every now and then, vigorously oppose abortion, don’t watch x-rated movies, never use vulgar language, smile a lot, hold doors open for people, root for the favorite team, and get along with everybody?  Is that why Jesus went through the bleak and bloody horror of Calvary?  Is that why He emerged in shattering glory from the tomb?  Is that why He poured out His Holy spirit on the church?  To make nicer men and women with better morals?”

–Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

…but I wanted shoes.

So I’ve been thinking about the lessons I learned from this trip.  It seems that every trip has a spiritual theme (or themes) that resonates in my heart.  Let me first tell you about Angelo.  

Do you remember him?  He’s a 13 year old boy who lives on the streets of Iquitos.  He’s not part of Puerto Alegria because he doesn’t want to be.  He prefers the “freedom” of the streets rather than the “confines” of Puerto Alegria.  Gene is building a relationship with him in hopes that he’ll eventually agree to come.  

I brought Angelo a gift.  A sketch pad and colored pencils.  I wanted to give him something that might perhaps be an outlet for him to express himself.  

So we arrive for our Friday night event (Gene plays soccer with them and feeds them every Friday night, from 12:00 am–5:00 am).  I am so excited to hear him shout my name as soon as he walks in.  After our greetings and hugs, I pull him into the room where my backpack is.  I pull out the gift that I had so thoughtfully bought for him.  I wait anxiously to see his reaction.  He looks at the gift and says, “Pero yo queria zapatillas.”  He wanted shoes.  He doesn’t even read (or let me read) the note I had written for him on the inside of the notebook.  He eventually leaves for the night without even taking the gift with him.

Rejection was a bit of a more constant companion on this trip.  Bring a gift and they don’t want it.  Reach out for a hug and they jerk their shoulder away.  Teach them English and they misbehave.  

The theme?  LOVE THEM.  Bring them more gifts.  Reach out for more hugs.  Teach more English.  LOVE THEM.  Even at the expense of your own heart.

..HoMe..

I am home now from my fourth trip to my precious Puerto Alegria, Peru.  As usual, I am having so many different emotions as I reflect on my time there.  I don’t think I can begin to express them.  I have a feeling that following this entry will be a string of thoughts and reflections on my precious boys.  For now, here’s some pictures.    

 

Oriel is new to PA. He loved his new little book and carried it around with him everywhere!

 

Dexter. Need I say more? This kid rocks.

 

Jeferson, a newbie, with Eriobaldo, an oldie.

 

Leoncio. The t-shirt is a perfect fit.

 

Beto. Go on, try to resist that smile.

 

Ronald in my sunglasses. I love this guy.

 

Mansur. Craziness in a tiny package.

Identity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflecting today on my sin that permeates even my “good works”.  I am so quick to find my identity in the gift and not the Giver.  In the service and not the One I am serving.  In righteousness and not the One who has made me righteous.  

You can imagine how this permeates my time in Peru with the boys.  I want so badly for my time there to be an overflow of devotion to God, a vehicle for serving and loving Him.  But, frankly, it just isn’t.  I know this because I rely so much on how the boys love ME and see ME.  I want to go down there and love on them so they’ll love ME, not simply so that God will be glorified.  It’s about ME, not Him.  

Oswald Chambers says, “Service is the overflow of superabounding devotion..” and,  ”The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him.”  (My Utmost for His Highest)  

Lord, purify my heart.