Yesterday we went to play with kids who live in a poor neighborhood that is inhabited by the 18th street gang. The only reason we were able to go was because of a person (whose identity I cannot disclose) that got the gang to agree to let us come for a couple hours. Before we left in the morning we had to decide what activities to do. I volunteered to be the leader of the prayer team. I am scared of praying aloud and it makes me really nervous, but I knew God wanted me to. Several people joined my team. We had no idea what to expect – and we didn’t need to have expectations. The idea was to stand somewhere holding signs that said “Prayer” and “Free Hugs” in Spanish and wait for people to come to us.
Once there, kids started coming closer and you could tell they wanted to walk up and hug us, but were shy and scared. We encouraged them to come and eventually they started venturing forward in small groups. They came with huge smiles and embraced us. It was so cute and so amazing. Some kids came back to hug us two and three times. You could see the need for love on their faces.
The prayer sign was mostly geared toward the parents. There was a group of moms standing by a car near us so we walked over to talk to them. We hugged them and introduced ourselves. They had the biggest smiles on their faces. We got Daniel to come over and help us translate. We asked each of them for prayer requests, in turn, and prayed for them. Most of the moms asked for prayer regarding work and family, but were not specific.
One of the women had a small, one-week-old baby – a child just born into this poverty stricken and violence-ridden place… Will his life be different from his mom’s life? Is this where he will be for years and years to come? An even better question – will he join the 18th street gang when he is old enough?
When people stopped coming and it died down, we decided to split up and join other activities where we could be useful. I ended up where they were playing “duck, duck, goose” for a little while. Then I became a rope turner where the jump rope was going on. This is actually what I found most difficult… The kids all wanted to jump rope at the same time so they would cram in there together all at once. They also were shouting at each other about who was next, and so on. Overall, there was not a lot of jump roping because of the lack of communication. This might not seem like such a big deal to you – but it was to me. It really bothered me because the solution was so easy and they could not see that. Everyone wait in a line for their turn. But this is mostly 7-year-old girls we are talking about. So I had to take a step back (in my mind) and think about why I was upset. What did it matter? They still seemed to be having fun. Is that not what we were there for? In 20 minutes – done. Over it. Moving on.
I wandered over to where Emily was playing the guitar and singing. She was surrounded by some of our group and some Honduran men, one of which also had a guitar. In short, she would play and sing a song, then the Honduran man would sing and play a song, then Emily… and so on. They did not speak the same language, but they played the same language – music. No one was really talking, but everyone was enjoying themselves and the chance to listen to different music. I thought it was awesome. [As an interesting side note, one of the men was wearing a Charlotte basketball jersey. Yes, from Charlotte, North Carolina.]
There were so many things going on for those couple hours and all of us had very different experiences. Mine was, well, not what I thought it would be, but great, nonetheless. I expected it to be a lot more fun. I expected to really connect with kids. Others did, but I didn’t quite feel that way. Leave me alone expectations!
