Juan is nine years old. He apparently has no madre (mother) and has not seen his father in five years. He has four siblings, and each day it is their task to roam the streets of Palenque begging for food. He lives with some sort of motherly figure, whether his abuela (grandmother) or some other woman, we couldn’t figure out.
We first met Juan in Burger King, a haven of air conditioning and a free bathroom in the middle of the main city street, Benito Juarez. His eyes looked hollow as he timidly asked us for food. Krystle bought a meal for Juan and we all smiled and chatted a tiny bit with him in what broken Spanish we could conjure up. He smiled–what a beautiful child! We sent him on his way.
Kiatera had a meal out last night. While we were sitting at the table, many women and children approached us gringas with their wares, trying to make one more purse or keychain sale. “No, gracias….” But suddenly there was a child at my left elbow with that same timid voice. I recognized him immediately–“Ah! Su nombre es Juan, no?”…He smiled and said something about Burger King, so I know he remembered us, as well.
As a team we invited Juan to sit down and join us for dinner, which hadn’t yet arrived. We asked him a few more questions about his life, but our Spanish wasn’t enough. After learning what little we could, we sat in near silence waiting for our food to come, smiling encouragingly at Juan.
Manuel is much bolder than his brother. He showed up, threw an arm around Lisa’s shoulders and chatted away at us and at Juan. His impish little grin when he asked for photos with us was hilarious! But we soon realized why Manuel didn’t want to sit and eat, too: he already had a bag of food, and he and Juan needed to get home before it got dark. Juan attacked his food when it finally came, but still he couldn’t eat it all before he and Manuel needed to go. They thanked us and went off down the street to wherever it is that they live.
We believe God put Juan in our paths these two times to begin building a relationship with him. We prayed that we might come across him again and get to know him more. Despite not being able to communicate well, we hope the love of Christ might be shown to Juan in the form of four girls from los Estados Unidos.
