The Sweet Aroma at the Entrance to the Garbage Dump

I'd like to tell you a little bit about A., a troubled young man in La Carpio. He joined Seth's carpentry program last year, but had to be suspended because he couldn't get along with the other students, to the point that things culminated in a fist fight with another student. After that, he made himself scarce for a while, but then returned regularly to play soccer.

Several items were stolen from other kids who played with him, and he soon got the reputation of being particularly untrustworthy, which is saying something in a community where most people already trust no one. He has recently told Seth that his parents trained him at age 8 to pickpocket with them downtown, and regularly invite him to partake in drug use with them.

A. has begun to see that living a life of theft and aggression, isolated from others, doesn't taste good. Despite having had no positive parental or moral instruction, he wants to try to change his life. He's starting finding reasons not to hang out at home so that he doesn't smell like drugs, and to stop having such sticky fingers. Not surprisingly, the other kids are finding it difficult to believe and are slow in accepting that he's turning over a new leaf.

Recently, he told Seth what a hard time he's having in trying to change his life. Seth was able to share with him that it's too difficult when we try to do it on our own, but that God can change our lives FOR us if we will trust and allow him to remake us in the image of Christ. It seems that A. has made an earnest appeal to Christ in the past, but felt afterward that "it didn't take" and nothing changed. It reminds me of the seed from Matthew 13 that was immediately eaten by birds, scorched by the sun, or choked by thorns. Without anyone around to encourage and disciple him in his new faith, and with Satan whispering in his ear that none of that would do him any good, and with a hostile environment actively sucking him back down into the mire, is it any wonder?

So now I get around to the connection to the title of this blog. A. recently asked Seth, as they sat on the grass at New Horizons, "Have you ever noticed how it feels different here?"

Seth asked, not sure of his meaning, "Compared to where?"

A. responded, "Compared to the rest of La Carpio. It just feels really heavy and dark walking through the third and fourth bus stops to get here from my house, but once I come in, things feel different, lighter and better."

This is an amazing answer to prayer that brings tears to my eyes as I write it. We have been praying that our mission's property would be just that, a beacon on a hill, a safe and nurturing place among so much dysfunction and violence, an oasis of peace, and a place filled with and protected by the spirit of God. And A., a youth who needs all these things more than many, is noticing!

Interestingly, not long before this conversation, I received a special verse from a group of women who came to do a retreat for missionary women serving in Costa Rica. They spoiled us, ministered to us, and blessed us in so many ways! One way was in giving each participant (there were 50 of us) a special verse from the Lord that was meant for her. These women didn't know me at all, so this wasn't any sort of a compliment or anything that they would have observed about me, but this was the verse that I received:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place." 2 Corinthians 2:14

How beautiful is that? I prayed over the verse, asking God to make it true in La Carpio and everywhere else we have the ability to exhibit the "aroma." It makes me laugh, but God is powerful enough to put his sweet aroma right at the entrance to a foul garbage dump (in case you've forgotten, that's where our ministry property resides)! He is great, indeed!

Peace, Andrea

Missionary Kids Make an Impact, Too!

OK, we apologize for being so lame and not posting in so long. Many times I have had a profound thought about our ministry and thought, "Hey, I should write a blog about that," and then just not gotten around to it. This summer has been crazy busy with short-term teams visiting from the States and keeping them busy in La Carpio, so we've been mostly surviving instead of reflecting. ;-) Sadly, I've forgotten most of my profound thoughts, but I have hope that they'll come around again one day and I'll scribble them down before they escape again!

I did want to share some special comments that have been made in the past few months about how our family works, made by folks from La Carpio. So many times we think of the kids of missionaries as people that get toted along by mom and dad, but don't have a specific role in the ministry themselves. Annabel has helped me for a year every Saturday ministering to 8-11 year-old girls, and those girls look up to her and imitate her and want to know where she is if she can't make it one week. She's an obvious example of how missionary kids can serve alongside their parents.

But I think ALL missionary kids have a profound role in the ministry of their parents, regardless of their age or ability to engage in formal "ministry," and here is the proof: when you spend a lot of time with people as a couple or as a family and they come into your home, they notice how your relationships work and begin to comment on them. Several times in the past months, I have heard things like:

• "Your kids don't really fight with each other, do they?"


• "So, your husband helps you around the house?"


• "So, you don't think you'll ever get a divorce?"

Now, let me say that the first isn't entirely true. Of course, our kids have their moments of irritation with each other. But to people who come out of a community where siblings view each other as competition for VERY limited resources (of love, food, attention, toys, etc.) and they have to fight and scrap for every ounce of those things that they feel they are entitled to, our kids' relationship is nothing short of revolutionary.

We are being watched very closely to see how husband and wife respect or tease each other, how parents respond when their children do something they don't like, and how children react to each other in varied situations. These things are as important as anything else in our ministry, because they give testimony to the love of God that unites us as a family, and show what we preach to be real. Please don't interpret this as bragging about how we've got the perfect family and have it all together, because that's not at all my implication. It's just that we as a family have a unique ability to witness with our relationships and be an example to others of how God intended a family to function, and how it can be different from the dysfuntional situation that they may be in.

Missionary kids also heroically make sacrifices so that their parents can help others. Our kids give up some of the time they should get with their parents without complaint so that we can be in La Carpio helping other kids. They've made themselves meals when we've been delayed or both of us have had to be somewhere together. They've shown maturity and grace in having kids in their home that can be difficult to manage, destructive, or hard to get along with at times. I hope never to abuse this generous disposition and make them feel that "they lost their parents to the Lord," and pray that we will always carve out time for our own family and not let ministry take precedence over the well-being of our own kids (a struggle, I might add). But for now I think they understand that doing the work God has called us to is worth some hardships.

So you see, our kids have an integral role in our ministry, and I'm proud of the impact that they are having on families in the community through their behavior and their own pursuit of God and desire to serve others. When other kids see them and want to have what they have inside of them that makes their life so much more peaceful, they've done a great job for the Lord!

The Weak Prey on the Weaker

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

Unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power

On Monday, January 31st our family waited in line for about an hour and a half to pick up our "cedulas", or resident visa ID cards, from immigration. In some ways, this was a momentous occasion for our family and a significant milestone in our journey as missionaries--the culmination of more than two years work gathering documents, having them translated into Spanish, chasing down stamps from various government offices across San Jose, all at the cost of several thousand dollars (thank you to all who gave!).

We could've hired a lawyer to shepherd us through the process, but I guess we were itching for a fight and thought we'd be good stewards and save two or three thousand dollars by going it alone.

As we left immigration that day, I didn't feel as exuberant as I'd hoped. Something was bothering me. You see, we turned in all of our documents back in April of 2010 and were told that we could expect our visas within a month. We had completed all of the requirements to gain residency, but during the next seven months we were lied to, ignored and mistreated.

Twice I had to take the chairman of the board of directors for Christ for the City in San Jose with me to immigration to get past an imaginary hurdle. Eventually, a Costa Rican friend of ours intervened and talked to a friend of his at immigration. Within a week, we received formal notification of the approval of our request for residency. Three more mysterious, maddening months would go by before we received our visas.

Reviewing all that had happened in my mind, I realized that what was bothering me and had taken the joy out of us finally receiving the cedulas was the fact that I felt totally devalued by the entire process. I was treated as less than human because I am a foreigner, and they had the power and I did not (the title of this post is Webster's definition of oppression). For someone growing up in one of the richest counties in North America, this was not easy to swallow.

But gratefully, I realized what a gift it was. That fleeting bitter taste of injustice in my mouth didn't taste so bad when I compared it to the cruel exercise of power that the young people in La Carpio live under daily. I realized that it was a gift--that temporal taste of oppression, was a glimpse into what it must be like for people in poverty.

I believe the root cause of poverty is spiritual. The non-poor oppress the poor for monetary gain, taking advantage of their lack of power or resources to subjugate them, which is sinful and unjust. Likewise, the poor often manipulate, lie and cheat their peers in order to try and survive. There is very little romantic or holy about poverty in a slum like La Carpio.

An eight-year-old girl told Andrea and I this weekend how her mother locks her in a small room for hours so the mother can go out and drink. This young girl loves to go to school, to flee her mother. She wanted to spend the night with us, but without her mother's permission, we had to refuse her.

Through the prophet Amos, God told the people of Israel that they would be exiled for oppressing the righteous and depriving the poor of justice. He rejected their sacrifices and ceremonies, saying he preferred that "justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a swift-moving stream."

We know there's no hope for the people of La Carpio except the kingdom of God. Please pray with us that the kingdom of God, and justice and righteousness, would roll on like a river through this slum.

With hope in Him,
Seth

Girls Going Against the Grain

Did you know that approximately 25% of girls in developing countries are not in school, and that of the world's 130 million youth not in school who should be, 70% of them are girls?

I see this inequality in the education of girls in La Carpio. It seems to be more important for parents that their boys go to school and get their education, but that their girls stay home and help them around the house and raise younger siblings. One of my 11-year-old girls yesterday told me that she came here from Nicaragua 2 years ago, and she didn't get enrolled in school until this year. Most of the primary-school-aged girls I know have repeated multiple primary grades, and most of the secondary-school-aged girls I know have dropped out of the system. They're just too far behind, the broken system hasn't served them well, they can't afford to go anymore, and it's just too humbling to be a 7th grader when you're 19 years old.

That is why I am so impressed with the girls that come to the Institute of Life at the Christ For the City facility in La Carpio where I've been teaching. Their male counterparts are spending the day sleeping, doing drugs, hanging with their gang buddies, stealing, or playing soccer. But while the government system doesn't serve these girls, they are willing to try our alternate system and continue their education. They WANT to learn, in a community where girls are not encouraged to do so. They are persistent in their studies, taking tests 2 and 3 times before passing a grade, in a community where others give up and figure "what's the point?" They will not accept that they are dumb, in a community where those around them literally tell them so and treat them as objects. I have realized how much courage it takes them to live a life that is so out of sync with their surroundings, and it makes me love them fiercely and feel more proud of them than probably most of their own mothers do.

It is with this pride that I share with you that all 5 of the girls that took the government tests from my math class last semester passed their exams!!!!!!!!! Why is this such a big deal? What does helping some girls pass one more year of math have to do with sharing the gospel as a missionary?

First of all, math is what holds all of them back. They have holes in their past education that bars the path forward in this subject and it's the big, scary monster for most of them. Most of them have tried and failed in the past. They are learning some important character lessons about perseverance, diligence, honesty, and prayer, and I get to be there to encourage them in it. By helping them with this very practical need that they have, I earn the right to be a part of their lives and share spiritual truths with them as well. And THAT'S what I'm really in it for!

Secondly, Jesus taught about meeting practical needs in Matthew 25 when he said that when we feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit those in prison, and show mercy to the needy, we do it to HIM. He commands us to help the poor, and warns that he takes it personally if we don't.

Finally, according to studies of the developing world, here are some of the amazing consequences for impoverished girls when we minister to them:

• An extra year of secondary school raises a girl's eventual wages by 15 to 25 percent.
• When a girl in the developing world receives 7 or more years of education, she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
• Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide.
• Girls who marry before age 18 are twice as likely to report being physically abused by their spouse as girls married later.

So you see, this victory for these truly extraordinary girls has a ripple effect through their whole lives: their physical health, their ability to make good choices about who they marry, when and how many children they should have, and their ability to provide for their families one day. But it's not just the girls themselves who are affected:

• Research in developing countries shows that there is a consistent relationship between higher levels of education among mothers, and better infant and child health.
• When women earn income, they reinvest 90% of it into their families, compared to 30-40% for men.

Are you getting the idea? These girls' decisions to push forward affect the future generations of their children, making it more likely that they can stop the cycles of poverty and abuse that are so rampant in their community. Don't we think this is what Jesus wants for them?

I share this not out of a desire to show how "important" the work we are doing is, but to connect the dots for people far away from our work on why we bother doing it and how we think it impacts the kingdom of God. To show how truly great the victory is for these girls when they do something seemingly insignificant like pass a math exam and move on to the next grade level. And to tell you how admirable each of my students is for going against the grain in La Carpio.

For each girl who sticks with it, though, there will be 3-5 others who drop out and give up. Please join us in praying that God would strengthen the resolve, educationally and spiritually, of the girls of La Carpio, give them success and confidence, and the encouragement and power to go forth and change their world!

Peace, Andrea

Why don't I feel you, God?

This was one of the responses last Saturday when some of my girls, aged 8-11, were challenged to write down their questions for God. Each week, the girls at The Refuge journal a response to a question of my choosing. It helps me to get to know them better individually (because I read each entry and give stickers and comments of encouragement each week), and it is good for them to practice writing and spelling, which can be a challenge for many of them. They wanted to know why they couldn't see or feel him, why their parents or bad people act in certain ways, and why Jesus died on the cross for them, among other things. Man, this is my sweet spot -- I saw a great opportunity to share the gospel with them in a way that answered their questions at the same time!

This was not in my lesson plan, but reading their questions touched me and led me to create a series of studies called "Questions for God." Many of the girls don't even realize that the answers to their questions are in the Bible if they just search for them. Many of them are from nominal Catholic families who see the Bible as something the priest reads, not them. Some of them see it as a boring book of commands and rules, not as a source of life and wisdom. I wanted to show them that the Bible is accessible and full of truly useful information to begin to grow a love for God's word in them.

Today, we studied verses that tackled the nature of God. We answered the questions "What does God look like?", "Where does God's power come from?", "When/where was God born?" and "How did He create the world?" I think their attention was as rapt as I've ever seen it during the lesson today, because these were answers to questions that they themselves had posed, so of course they were interested!

Next week, we'll tackle how to know God, why Jesus died on the cross for us, and how we can feel his presence. And the final week, we'll talk about evil and why bad things happen. Each week, the girls memorize a verse to earn points toward going to camp in January, and I'm thrilled that they are cataloguing God's word in their hearts and minds in this way so that the Holy Spirit may use it to reach them, convict them, and encourage them in moments when they desperately need it.

Please join me in praying that this series will be a rich time of study for us together and that the girls will develop a thirst for God's truth that will drive them to search out all of the answers to their questions in the Bible.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8

Peace, Andrea

Learned helplessness

One of the hardest things for me to understand in the lives of the young men I'm working with in La Carpio is their fatalistic worldview. Nearly all of the boys I encounter on a daily basis have little or no desire to work, to learn or to improve their lot. Most eat maybe one meal a day. Besides a shower, the only other activity they have day after day, is playing pick-up games of soccer. A psychologist would likely diagnose a majority of them with "learned helplessness."

Learned helplessness is (from the Encyclopedia Britannica): "A model of depression in which exposure to unforeseen and adverse situations gives rise to a sense of helplessness or an inability to cope with or devise ways to escape such situations, even when escape is possible. Learned helplessness often occurs in children who are raised in harsh social environments where success is difficult to achieve. They suffer motivational losses and are very resistant to training."

Ironically, Andrea and I are both engaged with trying to instill training and discipline of one type or another (be it academic studies, vocational preparation, pursuing God, following rules, etc.). We have definitely noticed these characteristics strongly present in the youth of La Carpio.

Two sad examples of those "unforeseen and adverse" situations occurred last week. Alex (one of the young men in the carpentry program) was the neighbor of 9-year-old Stuart. Last Monday night, Stuart was playing in the street with a group of kids when a gang fight broke out. Stuart was shot in the eye and died shortly thereafter in the hospital. A woman, also an innocent bystander, was wounded. Later in the week, around noon on Friday, a 12-year-old girl was shot by a boy a year or two older than her.

When I talked to Alex about what happened, he told me the details matter-of-factly, almost as if he was reporting something on the news. His face was impassive and blank. I couldn't get a read on his emotions. Besides wrestling with anger, the combination of the randomness of the violence, its senselessness and the young age of the victims made me feel sorrow. It dawned on me that being raised in such an environment, would inevitably lead to feelings of despair and a fatalistic worldview. These kinds of events happen with regularity in Alex's world. It must be so easy to conclude that it's really not worth trying or persevering in life when it can all end in a random, harsh moment.

However, despite the sorrow I feel over these two recent killings, I know there's hope for the boys in the carpentry program, the girls in Andrea's classes and other young people in the community. Besides the growth I've seen in the boys as they've learned to work and devote themselves to something, and begin to take pride in the work they do, I've also seen them grow in the knowledge of Him in whom we place our hope.

Peace,
Seth