Have you ever heard of sandboarding? I’m not exactly sure if it’s a thing in the United States, but it is a thing here in Trujillo, Peru. It’s pretty much snowboarding, only instead of snow, you hike up giant sand dunes and board down them. It’s really fun. It would be even more fun if there was a chairlift and you didn’t have to climb back up the giant dune you boarded down, but hey what are you gonna do?
This past week my team has been working with one of Inca Link’s local missionaries named Joca (you say it like Ho-ka). Joca is 25 years old, was born and raised in Trujillo, and has a HUGE heart for the city and the people in it. Joca felt the Lord inspire him to start a sandboarding ministry in the area to get to know young boys, mostly between the ages of 8-13.
Let me tell you a little bit about why this is so important.
Trujillo is a city controlled by gangs. Every single street. Each taxi driver and bus driver pays somebody for safety driving the streets. The gangs have people in the police stations, prisons, banks, churches even. It is a city heavy under the hand of corruption.
This is where the kids come in.
You know how in the United States if you commit a crime severe enough as a minor you can be tried as an adult? Yeah they don’t have that here. Punishments for kids under 18 in the legal system are extremely minimal.
For example, one of Trujillo’s most infamous killers is a guy they call La Gringacio, because of his lightish skin. La Gringacio had killed about 15 people by the time he was caught and imprisoned. During his sentence he escaped 3 times, each time killing 3 or 4 more people.
La Gringacio is 17 years old.
His initial sentence for the murder of 15 people was 4 years in a minimal security home for troubled youth. It was not extended or changed following his escapes and added murders.
Maybe you can see where this is going.
Gang members take full advantage of the minimal consequences for minors by recruiting kids as young as 10 years old to do their dirty work. They offer the kids attention, money, alcohol, and women, preying on the fact that most kids come from broken families and don’t have anyone looking out for them.
Out of this issue came Joca’s sandboarding ministry. A couple times a week, he takes the neighborhood boys on a hike to their usual dune, sandboards with them, loves on them, asks them about their lives, and teaches them about the bible and God’s love for them.
After spending a week with these kids, the thought of a gangster handing any one of them a gun and turning them loose to become killers makes me feel sick.
These kids are so little. They are so full of joy and silliness and giggles and smiles and mischief, just like little boys should be.
One day this week we had all the boys come to the orphanage Inca Link is building (and also where we are living this month) to play in the skim boarding track Joca is working on in the front lawn. We filled it with water and skim boards and about 20 kids and just let them go wild. It turned into mass chaos within about 5 minutes, but it was so much fun. The kids just wanted to play and play and play. They splashed us and ran around jumping on our backs and sprayed people with the hose and had competitions to see who could hold their breath the longest under water and attempted to skim board.
On the way home from the dune one afternoon Joca stopped us to point out a field mere minutes way from the orphanage where one man gives little kids shooting lessons.
It’s upsetting.
But one thing Joca reminded us of this week is that we are the light of the world. We shine for Jesus, and most often the places we need to shine in are dark. We don’t always need to shine in the light places. Joca told us that sometimes we will have to go into dark places where the only light there might be the light of Jesus we bring inside of us.
I think the Lord used this week to remind me that there is darkness in the world, but to take heart, because in the light of His Son darkness cannot stand.
Isaiah 60:1-3 says –
For the glory of the LORD rises to shine on you.
Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth,
but the glory of the LORD rises and appears over you.
All nations will come to your light; mighty kings will come to see your radiance
Joca is truly a light shining in the darkness of Trujillo. I have been so blessed to get to hangout with him and the kids this week. I am encouraged and reminded that I do not need to feel hopeless or scared of darkness in the world, because God is all over it. His glory will rise and shine through me, even in the darkest places.
God's light is here in Trujillo through people like Joca and Inca Link, and I know it is only going to get brighter.
[Joca and another Inca Link intern with some of the kids]
[skim boarding]
[photo credit: Nicole Ulrey]
