On Monday the 29th, we visited the holding tank. But before that we went to another children's home. The path to get there took us down a narrow alley and up a dark, winding flight of stairs to the fourth floor of a rundown building. We stepped through the doorway and were greeted by what felt like a crowd in the small quarters. Before us were a bench and a small table under a window; to the right, a staircase leading to the roof, with clothes hanging in the sun; to the left, past a washing machine, was the darkened kitchen, with cupboards bare of all but onions. On the wall directly to our left was a mural covered with handprints and names, and a phrase that was something like "Clean Hands and Pure Hearts - We Are All Children of God" with a Bible verse. Past that was a closed, broken door leading to a bedroom.
You could see patches of hazy sky through holes in the roof. I'm not sure how truly it was a roof, at least over the living room area.
We said hello and then passed out bottles of fruit juice and packets of cookies and crackers. Bro. Mike had intended to come armed with bags of rice, but due to the holiday most of the stores were closed.
The matrons of the house, two older ladies with bent bodies and wide smiles revealing missing teeth, presided over a group of around 10 children, though "children" isn't strictly correct. Most of them looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. There were also a few with mental disabilities. The young people here were the ones no one wanted: rejected, unloved, abused.
One of the people in our group gave a gospel presentation. The one of the ladies who runs thehome stood up to tell their story. She and the other lady both had children of their own, all grown and some gone off to America. They both had been abandoned by their husbands and had to raise their children on their own. Now they raised more children here. They had to trust God for everything, living day to day and truly understanding the power of prayer. The wall with the mural had a story, too: that section of wall had collapsed, and another group from the states had built a new one.
Their story reminds me of George Mueller, the missionary who built a children's home and trusted God to provide for it. He never knew where their next meal would come from, but it always came.
The group sang a song before we left. Bro. Mike translated, but I don't remember all the words. The part I did catch was something like "you gave me a home and a name because I am a child of your heart". That visit is one example of how I went looking to bless and came away blessed instead.
However, there is one other part to that story. While the gospel was being given, Ms. Peggy noticed a girl sitting in the corner, her head hanging in shame. She didn't respond when Bro. Mike asked who wanted to be saved. She just sat there quietly.
Afterward Ms. Peggy approached to her and talked with her. I didn't hear the whole story, but the girl (maybe my age or a little younger) had just come from a different region of Peru and probably prostitution. She was ashamed of that old life and felt she didn't deserve God. Bro. Mike said he could tell she had trust issues from being hurt before.
I believe she ended up accepting Christ as her Savior. I pray God helps her get past her past and find hope and a new life in Him. Some people don't agree, but a sin like prostitution, voluntary or not, is no worse than lying, no better than murder, no greater than stealing. The person who lies to avoid punishment stands in as much shame as the prostitute, and God is the answer for both of them. This girl was helped to see that, and given hope to lift her above it.
After that children's home, we went to the holding tank. I've already told you a little about the girls there. What we learned after we'd met them and talked with them was that one of them had a 2-year-old child. I don't know which girl. It doesn't really matter. I mentioned that most of those girls had histories of human trafficking and abuse. The oldest there was 17. You could see how they were hurting; how they all longed to be loved and accepted and how some were too scared of being hurt again. We told them about a Friend who would never abandon, who would never reject, who would only love and forgive.
I mentioned the church drummer in a previous post. His story is along the same lines. I never heard all of it at one time, but he has a past involving drugs. He's a big, strong guy, and it's not hard to see how he might have been a tough, even dangerous person once. But spend any amount of time with him now, even if you can't speak the language, and you'll see how he's not that man any more. He's kind and friendly and happy and exactly the kind of person you'd want watching your back as you navigate the more dangerous parts of town.
One the bus that one day while he and the intern were talking, he asked her to help him learn to say something in English. He wanted to know how to give his testimony. All he asked to know where a few simple words, but they tell it all:
I once was a drug addict; now I am a child of God.
That's all there is. Nothing else matters; not the dark stories of the past, not the technicalities, not a religious process. That's hope, pure and simple: God taking the broken, the unloved, the rejected, the hurting, the bitter, and giving them hope through forgiveness. He paid for every sin, and they're all equal in His eyes; we're all equally broken. There's nothing we can do on our own, no works that can save us, no human we can look to for rescue. It's not that difficult.
Some think it's too good to be true, that there must be some exclusive clause, that they've done too much. That girl sitting quietly in the corner, her head bowed in shame, felt she had done too much to ask God for help. Ms. Peggy reached out to her, loved her, and handed her a lifeline. That, for me personally, was one of the biggest moments on the trip. It's what we went for, but it's also what we should be living for every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment