Sensing more then what is there

This week has been full. Full of prayer. Full of building the beginnings of friendships. Full of learning more about where we are. It breaks my heart to say goodbye to the kids at night and wonder where they will sleep. To hear the rain at night and pray that they are somewhere warm and dry. To love them when they are completely lucid, and when they are high on glue.
A side note on the glue. I want to research it more, but essentially the brain stops growing the minute they start using. So these kids start as young as six or eight. The glue helps them forget their hunger for a moment, it helps them not feel, but it also cripples them for life. When they see us coming, they hide it in their pockets or sleeves. I hate the glue, but more than that, I hate that they learn it so young and that it seems to promise easy answers to such difficult questions.
This week, we relearned our focus. We were distracted by the notion of needing to DO something. But more and more, I feel like we are learning what it means to be Jesus on the streets. He always seemed to have time for random people. He spoke with the woman at the well. He spent three years living with the disciples. Jesus was all about time with people. I keep running into kids on the street. It feels really great to not be rushed, to really just have time to talk to them.
Javier is the one I've spoken with most often these past few days. Sometimes he is high and sometimes he is not. But I think that being consistent is a really important part of all of this. Loving him in the midst of it all. Another favorite of mine is Domingo. I think I have mentioned him before. He is ten years old and smiles a lot. He is incredible at soccer. The only goals that get by him are the ones higher than he can reach.
It is really only the beginning here. German and Carla have all kinds of dreams for the kids. Dreams of creating a home for them. of getting scholarships so they can go to university, of seeing them get free from their addictions. But it all begins with relationships, with trust, with consistency and presence.
Thank you for your prayers and support. I hope you see that although the steps are small and not always visible, that God is so worth following into the worlds of the poor.

Caì en un hoyo grande

Translated, I fell into a giant hole today. No joke. We were walking in a different park than the one closest to our house. We were praying. There were gaps where the pavement was supposed to be. Exactly the size of my foot. I stepped straight into it and it came up to my thigh. I screamed. I scraped my other foot and it was gross. And I think I strained my toe, but I am ok. It really could have been a lot worse. Why, you ask, are there holes the size of a leg in a park? I have no answer. Although it is funny now, I really do feel that God saved me from further injury and yet another broken leg.
Today we prayed a lot, and found that our focus had shifted a bit from where God wants us. We were trying to fill our time. Trying to fill in a schedule so that we would feel like we were accomplishing something. But God keeps drawing us back to the street children. They are the ones that are forgotten by this world. They are the ones that sniff glue so they don´t feel hunger. They are the ones we played soccer with last night in the park - which is apparently illegal because they all ran the minute they saw the cops - yeah, oops. They have names, my new friend, Domingo, is probably about nine years old. We talked for a few seconds about names and then straight back to soccer.
The work of relationships is difficult because it is the hard way. If I had come here to build a house, I could say, look, I built a house, I accomplished something. But God wants us to be about his business of knowing the unknown. He wants someone to know their names. So maybe at the end of this summer, I won´t have pictures of a house, but I will have memories of the smile Domingo gave me yesterday. I will hold onto that.

Time...

I like that we sit down for an hour to eat lunch. I like that we all gather around four or five for coffee and pan dulce (sweet bread). I like that there is time to know people. I like that an entire family and friends can go out for desert, and if someone can`t pay, then they are still invited and someone else covers it. Family is very important here, and it´s beautiful.
But...
This is part of what makes abandonment even more pronounced. If someone is sick or hurting, it is the families job to step in. If the family doesn´t for whatever reason, then that someone is truly abandoned with very few resources to offer care.
I have spent this past week visiting the few places here that try to cover that separation. There are so many. Women who wait in prison for a sentence for years because the justice system is so slow. The house of immigrants where children, yes children ages 5 to 18 wait for their family to come get them. This house is for children who were caught in the States, or in Mexico trying to get there. Some children are sent, by their parents, to Mexico to sell Chicle because they are so poor. This morning we visited a home for twenty orphans. Four just got there this week. They are there because they were in another home for children where they were abused. Last night we played soccer with some of the shoeshine boys, some looked as young as ten.
Are you overwhelmed yet? I am too. There are so many people here desperate for love. Desperate to know they are not alone. As a team we are having to pick and choose where we will focus, and it´s difficult. I know I need to trust God that he will carry what I cannot.
Please pray for us in the coming weeks that our presence here really would make a difference, and that God´s love would shine through us.

And so it begins

I am bending the pressure around me, and beginning a blog. There are so many thoughts and experiences everyday to explain. Perhaps they will be explained better in this almost diary format. I´m not sure about it yet.
I have been in Guatemala for three days. Already my heart is breaking for the way children live. It seems like there is so much to do, but nothing to do quickly. What I mean is that, there is a lot of painful poverty, but it is difficult to know where to start or what to do. I just visited a shelter of sorts for the shoeshine boys. It is good that there even is one. Aside from this shelter, the only other place for the boys to sleep is on the streets.
My team and I met one of the boys today. On a good day, he makes about 80 quetzales which is about 11 dollars. On a bad day, he makes half that. I don`t know my place here yet. But I do know that before I came here I was able to think about poverty in the abstract. It`s difficult to read about it, but I am quickly learning that there is nothing abstract about it here.
In the midst of all these thoughts, I wonder about the girls. Where are they? I am afraid that the answer will be another reality I am afraid to enter. But I know that God loves them and calls them his daughters. Please pray with me that God will show me where they are. As of right now, we have no connections. Most of the girls are hidden during the day. I don´t know what to do with this desire as of yet. I am praying that God will show me.
On the flipside of things, I don´t want to leave you depressed. It is good to be in Guatemala. The family that is part of InnerChange here is wonderful. They love each other so much, and I already feel part of it. It is an incredible feeling to feel taken care of and loved in a foreign country. I am very thankful for it.