This past month has been a good illustration of the roller coaster highs and lows of our ministry. We've seen depravity and sin, but in the midst of it, glimmers of hope and joy as well.
This past month brought sad and discouraging news to the community of La Carpio:
- A new student at the Institute of Life, where Andrea teaches Monday and Friday afternoons, made a serious attempt at suicide when she jumped from a 300 ft tall railroad bridge that spans a nearly dry river full of huge rocks and boulders. Angie had made at least one previous attempt in November before coming to us. The socialized health care system gave her a psychiatric appointment in April. After spending three weeks talking in my class about the tongue and how we use our language to reflect the beauty or ugliness we have inside of us, some of my students threatened her after school one day and told her never to come back because she was different and they didn't like her. She obviously has other problems going on as well, but cited this as one reason she made the attempt that day. Miraculously, she survived, though her lower right leg was injured so badly that they had to amputate it at mid-shin.
- Two days ago, a woman was shot and died in the street in front of at least one of her daughters. A neighbor woman had been jailed as a result of this woman's complaints to the authorities. As revenge, the jailed woman's son made a homemade gun, waited for the neighbor woman to come home, and shot her in the head in cold blood. This woman leaves behind three daughters, now motherless and even more vulnerable. The daughter who witnessed the shooting and death had just heard a message earlier that day from another of our missionaries about how to have the peace of God rule in your heart.
It's so hard at times to see up close and personal that the normal human reaction of people (without the intervention of Jesus in their lives) is to hurt, steal, be selfish, kill, and when one feels poor and oppressed, find ways to impoverish and oppress others. It's stark and ugly, but it's the truth. In a community this hardened, it's much harder to put on the rose-colored glasses and imagine that we can be "good people" without God. You see 2 types of people: those who want to drag everyone down with them into destruction, and those who have found God and the strength to fight what's happening around them. There isn't a lot of in-between.
It's also evident that Satan oppresses these people by trying to invalidate the very truths of God that are coming to them from the mouths of missionaries, to steal them away like the birds who steal away seed from the fertile soil so that nothing can grow in the parable. "Say what you want to hurt others, it really doesn't matter...," "There can be no peace in your life in these circumstances..." It's a very real form of spiritual warfare intended to keep this community in darkness and chaos, and it can be discouraging at times to those of us who are trying to keep throwing out the seeds.
Thank God that He gives us glimmers of hope that enable the people in the community, and those of us serving them, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, like these highlights:
- A team of friends from KC came on a short-term missions trip with Perception Funding. They spent a week loving on kids by distributing 200 pairs of shoes, toothpaste, toothbrushes and Beany Babies; painting; building a skateboarding 1/4 pipe for our skateboarding ministry; making lunch for 30-40 boys each day; repairing rundown nets and fencing that was damaged in a landslide earlier this year; and beading and playing soccer and other games with the kids that participate in our ministries. They blessed us as a family, and our ministry "kids", tremendously with their energy, hard work, and commitment to serve in the name of Christ.
- Kids "earned" a pair of shoes by collecting a bag of trash from the property (trash blows in off the garbage trucks and from the landfill next to our property, and the kids throw trash down too). I got misty seeing some of the kids first pick out shoes for their parents or siblings before they found some for themselves.
- A very hard-hearted young man in Seth's discipleship time admitted after participating in a devotional that he didn't want to be there before, but that God had touched his heart about his motivations for serving and where his heart is right now.
Please pray with us that these glimmers would grow into strong midday rays, mighty works of God that transform this community from the inside out. Because when He gets inside people, there's always change on the outside for the better. Only He can make things like mercy, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and kindness rule in La Carpio, or anywhere else in the world.
Peace, Andrea
