Before you continue reading this article, make sure your heart is clear. Please say a personal prayer to open up your heart and let the Holy Spirit speak to you while reading this blog. The places and people that I will be describing is heavy.
Jesus,
Thank you so much for blessing your children. Thank you for only wanting to get your children back. Remove any spirits that are not your Holy Spirit, God, from the readers of this blog and from those at Agua Panela. You have defeated death, hell, and the grave. We have nothing to fear in this world. Pour Your spirit into the city of Medellin, Colombia. Just as in Psalm 23, though this city may be a valley of the shadow of death, we do not need to fear evil for You are with us. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be in this place at this time for Your glory. I love you God.
In Jesus name, amen.
The foundation that I am staying at has an event called “Agua Panela” each Wednesday night where volunteers drive across town to distribute bread and sugar water.
So our whole group with some of the foundation volunteers load up in the bus and head over to the Bronx of Medellin. Each time we passed an area that looked sketchy, I thought we had arrived but then we kept driving further. The further we drove, the more and more people were on the streets. We finally reached our destination and looking out the window I was honestly a bit nervous. This place is not somewhere I would ever go to in the states. This section of the streets is barricaded off by police. It consists of a crossroads that goes out one block in each direction. There are hundreds of people who have been overtaken by drugs, prostitution, and homelessness inside the roads that are closed off to the public. The people on the streets have basically no rules, and the area is ran by a gang. There was one part of the street that the gang’s leader told us we were not allowed to go on that particular night for some reason. There are virtually no rules in the barricade. The people really only get stopped by police for drugs and prostitution if they are outside of their community. When we got out of the bus, the smell hit like a brick wall of urine, body odor, and trash. Looking around, the people were crouched down, skin and bone, and high as kites. Even the shape of their bodies made it look as if they were devil possessed. Most people we spoke to had nothingness in their eyes.
It is easy to stop and think, “How can God be in this place?”
As we were wondering down the streets praying for people and inviting them to stay at the homeless shelter, one man caught my attention in particular. He had a few items for sale and one was a picture of Jesus. His name was Julian, and he looked as if he was around 30 years old, but it was very hard to tell for sure. I did not need Spanish to understand the brokenness in his eyes. The Spanish translator spoke to him and invited him to stay at the shelter. We gave him a flyer and told him how to get there. He did not keep eye contact with us during the conversation. It was as if he was ashamed to speak to us. We prayed for him. He seemed moved because we took the time to speak to him and pursue him. He hugged us as we walked away.
I may not know the rest of his story or ever see this man again, but God sees and knows him. Our host, Rebekah, told us not to get discouraged if we do not see an instant miracle. We are drops of grace in people’s lives, and even though we may not see a radical change in that moment, we may never know how our actions or words impacted someone.
It is easy to be heart-broken and moved with compassion after seeing the devastation here. However, I have to pray and give it to God. He is working while I am worrying. He knows the tragedy and how to solve it. The people there are in His hands, not mine, which is a much, much, much better place for them to be anyway.
I want to keep in mind, though, how easy it is to pray for problems when they are far away, not effecting our day-to-day life. The reality is that this street in Colombia is very far away from home and this experience was not something I would see every day at home. It is easy to say, “wow, Colombia is so dangerous, I would never go there.” It is easy to avoid people who need to be introduced to Jesus out of fear. But my perspective has shifted after my Agua Panela experience. Now, I think how silly that we fear what can happen to us physically. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18) and God’s love for us is perfect. I have a new confidence when taking this Scripture as truth.
I want to challenge you to see the brokenness in your city, whether that be a small town in the US or a large city in Colombia. We see people in every day life that do not know Jesus. They are waiting for drops of grace to bless their lives.
I want to point out that someone does not have to be at rock bottom to need a word of encouragement. The streets where agua panela happens are full of people who are not in their right mind, but that is not what all broken people look like. Not all broken people turn to drugs and prostitution. Some turn to humor and make jokes about their trauma. Some turn to success and education as their coping mechanism. Some may look like they have it all together on the outside. Drops of grace are for everyone. Life may look different on the outside, but the same emptiness may be on the inside.
It is so easy to go about life and have superficial conversations with everyone you meet. It is so easy to overlook hurt and never dig deeper. I am trying to be intentional about my conversations so that I do not meet people and talk about the weather. God did not create us to talk about the weather. His purpose for our lives is not to talk about the weather. It is to point people to Him.
As I was processing, Holy Spirit told me “The enemy feeds people every day. He feeds them drugs, alcohol, sex, and people surrounding them that normalize the situation.” Wow, they are being fed from somewhere, whether that be God or the enemy. Sure bread and water are great, but I could give away all of the resources in the world and none of that matters for salvation. Let’s feed people Jesus.
