Here is my email that I sent to my family and friends after my first trip to Mexico City. It is a blessing to be home, but what a rollercoaster
of emotions. As
many of you know the boys will be moving soon, DEC
1!!!!, to the
village of Bombo. Abby and David have worked
for several years saving
the money, looking and now building what will be
the permanent home of
API. A labor of love. Several people
warned me that not all of the
boys would want to move to the land. So
before I left I tentatively
asked Abby, "What will you do if a boy runs
away?" "Bring him back
home of course! So I left her and began to
pray that I would not have
to face that situation. On the day before I
left, a boy ran away.
Abby talked with him, David talked with him, Alex
talked with him.
But he refused to come back. Why? Here
is where it gets really
messy. Both of his parents were killed in
the area around Bombo.
Trauma. So my heart broke some more. I
then went to a conference in
Mexico about healing from trauma. Trauma
victims do not make rational
decisions, much less little boys. How can
something so very right,
moving to a village away from the slum, with
gardens and animals and
flowers be a bad decision or be seen as a bad
decision by the person
it is designed to help? Before you make any
decisions here is another
situation that I saw firsthand. Is it wrong
to not allow drug use in
a hospital or a hospice situation? No, of
course not. Then I met
Elisa, a 20 year old drug addicted woman dying
alone, dirty and sick
from HIV, refusing to give up her drugs and
choosing to stay on the
street instead of being in a hospital. Well
that is her choice.
Hmmmmm, yes but wait, she witnessed the brutal
murder of her mother by
her father and was herself abused. She left
home at 12. moved to
Mexico City ended up on the street with all that
is involved with
that. Her choice? mmmm Now it seems
messy. The truth is that being
just and doing what is right is hard messy work.
Work I am loving and
hating at the same time. Getting back to the
boy, to make matters
worse for him, he tried to poison his grandmother
in the village.
Those of you that know me well, know I like to fix
things. Well there
is no easy fix for this one. Can this little
boy still come "home"
with us to API? Yes, but we can not make
him. And more pointedly, I
can not make him. I have no legal right to
make him do something that
he refuses to do. I didn't even get all of the
answers from experts in
the field. Abby and David are doing
everything they can to encourage
this boy to come back. He comes to the
street programs sometimes and
he is back to living in the slum Kivulu.
When I saw Elisa a Mexican
doctor was trying to wash her matted hair with
lice rid shampoo and
she was refusing that too. The doctor told
me that they had taken her
to the hospice unit of the hospital twice and she
had always run away.
They could not make her stay. So
Blanca one of our team members
gently washed her hair and talked to her. We
gave her a blanket. I
tried to feed her. In the end, Blanca got
lice and Elisa was still
alone on the street. Had she felt the love we had
for her? The love
that Christ has for her? When I see this
little boy, I will join Abby
and David in trying to love him back home.
Messy business. I opened
my heart to these boys and got it broken, not by
them, but by the
broken, messy world that we all live in. Come
quickly, Lord Jesus!
Even as I yelled at God and cried many tears, life
went on. Abby and
David adopted two more boys, boys that hopefully
find a shelter in the
storm in the API family at home in Bombo.
Dec.1-4, I will go back to
Mexico with Blanca to teach the first group of
leaders how to use
Mending the Soul to heal from trauma and abuse.
We will go and visit
the street kids and bring them Christmas
stockings. If Elisa is still
alive, Blanca will love on her some more and I
will do my best to get
out of "must fix the world" self and
love her as well. December 29 I
will land in Uganda once again. Abby and
David will be back here
telling many stories, seeing family and resting.
I will have the
awesome opportunity to love on those kids again!
Those women again!
Lord please help me to not be consumed in fixing,
but on serving,
loving and empowering.
For more information on Social Justice, but no
neat tidy little
answers, I encourage you to read: When Helping
Hurts, Mending the
Soul, The Wounded Heart, and check out Bob Kerry's
last four messages
at www.moonvalleybible.org
Thank you all for praying for me and the entire
ministry of API. It
really is worth the mess
