05/30/2018 9:00 p.m., Medellín, Colombia
As the van pulled into the gas station we finally saw the full view of the street. It was dark but all of the human shapes were visible around small campfires, and illuminated by the occasional streetlight. I’m not quite sure how to find the words to describe what we were looking at. Many people were passed out, with their bodies slumped into the gutters, others were struggling to walk. You could see small clusters of people lying under tarps to stay dry from the incoming rain. The occasional woman would drunkenly saunter through the camp hardly wearing any clothes, looking for the first man to call her under their tarp or offer her drugs. A few women had already found a place and we saw them passed out between groups of strung out men. There were transgender prostitutes and cross-dressers standing on the corners. In total, there must have been well over 200 people littering this one street. The odor of extremely dirty human bodies, urine, garbage, and smoke from all of the crack pipes burnt the inside of our nostrils with each inhale. We had been warned that it was going to be shocking, but I don’t think anyone could have prepared me for this.
As we walked through the dimly lit camp in pairs, passing out bread, and sugar water, we would pray for some of the people who were coherent enough to understand what we were saying. Not so many were coherent. Many proceeded to inhale from their homemade crack pipes as we offered up a plea to God on their behalf. One woman jumped into my face as we walked by, screaming unintelligible slurred words. Some drool was running down her face and behind her eyes I didn’t see any life. Many people were frantically rushing by us, so high on cocaine that they couldn’t stop shaking. They would yell to us “cuidado cuidado: watch out. Some people were sitting on curbs all alone. Just alone with a little bag of drugs, waiting for sleep to finally allow them to escape this nightmare.
There was the young girl who Regan and I approached. Her shirt was falling off and talking to her was about like talking to someone who was in the midst of having a stroke. She couldn’t form words, her right arm and right leg were twisted in a grotesque way, helping her keep balance, and behind her eyes was a mixture of desperation and lifelessness. When she was handed a piece of bread we struggled to watch as she attacked it with zombie-like mannerisms as if it was the first food she had seen in weeks.
There was Fernanando, the man who desperately wanted to be remembered. He was a bit more sober than the average out on the street that night and clearly had once had a very sharp mind. He immediately recognized that we were volunteers from the refuge center and wanted to make sure I returned to the center and let all the important people know that he wasn’t too high this particular night. After being deported from Miami a few years ago he has been in and out of the streets and can’t seem to get sober enough to receive the help that he so desperately needs.
And then there was the group of people in their early 20’s. They didn’t fit the scene, their clothes weren’t tattered and they were not near as high as the average person here. They didn’t need to sleep on the streets because they only came for business. To sell the drugs to whoever wanted to pay. To make sure each addict got their fix before passing out. When a few people on our team asked them if they dreamed of getting out of the narco life, they looked shocked and responded with, “Why would we do that? We make so much money?”
This is just one of the devastating results of the drug cartels that dominated Medellín starting with Pablo Escobar in the late 70’s. It’s hard to meet someone in this city who doesn’t have a personal tie or story from the times that Pablo Escobar’s cartel tore apart this city making it the murder capital of the world. While the city has done a complete 180 from “murder capital of the world” to “hipster holiday destination”, there are still many who can’t seem to climb out of the depths of addiction, violence, and homelessness.
This particular neighborhood that we visited is a place where hundreds of homeless people camp out each night. By sleeping in the masses they are able to have quick access to drugs, and protection in numbers from threatening gangs or violence.
Colombia society functions very similarly to India. There is a strict social class system that rates people from a 1 to a 6. 6 being the wealthiest and 1 being the poorest. If you are homeless you are called “sin estrato” or “without a status”. This is crippling for the homeless, as they are sometimes not even seen as worthy to use the same bathroom as others with higher social scores.
According to the Huffington Post:
“In Colombia, the number of internally displaced people (those forced to live without homes within a country) is approximately 4.9 million — nearly the population of Colorado. This makes Colombia the second largest internal displacement country in the world next to Sudan. Internally displaced people in Colombia account for 11 percent of the nation’s population and 19 percent of all internally displaced people globally.”
So as you can see homelessness is a serious problem in Colombia and it’s going to take an army to win the battle.
Currently we are working with an incredible ministry in Medellín called Fundación Ciudad Refugio. A brave soul named Douglas felt God put the calling on his life to move here 25 years ago in the midst of all the violence and open a homeless shelter. When Douglas started the organization he had no money or income and each day was a test to his faith. He rented a huge garage and would go out to the streets at night to gather all the homeless who wanted a safe place to sleep, then he would proceed to sleep in the garage with them, many times staying up all night preaching the gospel.
Since then the foundation has grown to be a fully self-sustained homeless shelter, a drug rehabilitation center for men and women, and a school for underprivileged youth. There is even a bakery where the men and women who are excelling in the rehab program are given the highest privilege of working.
Every night 70-100 men sleep in the garage and every Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday the very same garage becomes a church. Many of the first men that Douglas preached to 25 years ago, have now graduated from the rehab program and are leaders for the organization or are elders in the church. And let me tell you, this church is one of the most alive places I’ve ever been. It’s one of the only churches in the city where you will catch homeless people worshipping next to someone in a social class of 5 or 6. You look around and you see people from all backgrounds with tears covering their faces, falling to their knees, humbled by God’s goodness.
Because of the initial bravery of one man, hundreds of lives have been transformed and redeemed. The foundation believes that the transforming lives part is all thanks to the Holy Spirit. They have seen time and time again that the only way for someone to leave the lifestyle of addiction or violence is by the softening of their hearts. The program focuses on physical and mental healing, but starts with an internal spiritual renewal that can only be found from the Lord.
After visiting the streets and seeing the state of those living in the midst of deep addictions and homelessness I felt two things.
The first was an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. How is a little food and a business card about the refuge center going to help these people? Even if they wake up sober enough to read, how are they going to have the ability to stay sober enough to make their way to the shelter and on the road to recovery? And even if one makes it, what about the other 199?
And the second was an overwhelming feeling of amazement. Amazement by how much the women I work with and adore that are currently in the rehab program, have truly turned their lives around. Seeing the starting point had me really believing in the miracle that must have occurred to get each man or woman into the program. Seeing the starting point made me aware of how far each person I have gotten to know this month has come, and how big our Father in heaven is to make it happen.
The foundation describes their battle technique as this: Each person we encounter on the streets at night has a hardened heart. It has been hardened by drugs, abuse, violence, or deep hurts. Our job as believers is to keep loving them with all that we have. If it is giving out bread and sugar water, offering a small prayer or even just a smile, we are slowly using love to soften their hearts. It is a long process but after many drops of love on a frozen heart, eventually it will crack. And only then will they be in a place to accept help. We can never know when our small act of love will eventually do the cracking so we just keep at it. One day a simple genuine smile might be the last drop of love that a person needs to experience break through.
To end the war on drugs and homelessness here in Colombia, or really anywhere in the world it is going to take a lot of drops of love. Buckets of love, maybe even oceans.
Quite precisely why need all the soldiers we can get, and more importantly why we truly need a direct connection with the source of love, the source that will never run dry, fighting with us and for us.
“Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” John 7: 37-39
