Bondad means goodness, and that’s what I want to talk about this time around. I want to talk about the LORD’s goodness, and how I saw it in Peru.
So the month of August started off with a high for sure. I was in the gorgeous tourist attraction town of Baños, Ecuador, and even though my birthday landed on a travel day, I was blessed with videos all day long that were sent to me via my lovely team leader and friend Meg. Meg had coordinated with my mom to have a bunch of friends from all over the world send me some birthday love. I also got to spend the night in picturesque Cuenca, Ecuador. Please go google a picture of Cuenca, as I did not get the scenic pics I wanted. That night I had an amazing dinner with a bunch of my girls from the squad. I was feeling the love all day, and I was so excited to get to Peru and see what Month 8 would be like.
I continued to see the LORD’s goodness when there seemed to be a change of plans in our getting to Lima. Our contacts asked us to not arrive until the 7th, as they were on vacation. That meant that we got to spend a few days in Trujillo, which is Peru’s second largest city – and where my cousin Gabi lives. I had been praying in Ecuador that we would be placed in Trujillo so that I could be near Gabi and get to see her. I was a little bummed that I would be so far away in Lima, yet here the LORD made a way that I would get that time with her. Gabi founded and runs her own non-profit called iChangePeru, and it’s pretty incredible all the hard work she does and all that she does to help those in need. Check it out here – ichangeperu.org.
While in Trujillo, I got to hang out with Gabi, have some of the best food I’ve had this entire year (You did good Peru, you did good), and get to see a glimpse of her world and what she does. I got to reconnect with family so far from home and it was a beautiful thing.
We eventually got to Lima, and things sort of took a turn. Let me tell you about where we were for the month. Now, I’ve stayed in hard places before, not just on the Race, but on other mission trips – but there was something different about this place. We were in a district of Lima called Manchay, and it’s definitely no the pretty part, to put it quite bluntly. We’re in this sort of in-between place by tons of small dusty foothills, and a large, large landfill that we lovingly just referred to as the hole. There’s nothing beautiful about the place. It’s dusty. Sometimes it’s freezing and sometimes it’s hot. Our ministry was a church and pre-school called Brazos Abiertos (Open Arms). We primarily helped the preschool and other needed tasks around the church during the week, and assisted with youth group and church on the weekends.
I wasn’t excited to be there. This was not what I was expecting; but I’m not really sure what I was. We have a saying around here that oftentimes on the World Race, you don’t really know what you’re expectations are until they aren’t being met. Day in and day out was hard. Our team was struggling in different aspects and I was asking the LORD to show me something.
He gave me this verse: I am still confident I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Psalms 27:13
God convicted me so strongly with His word. Everything around us looked so glum and so void of anything beautiful – but this was the land of the living. We were serving the children of this community by helping at the school. These people lived here. People dug through this massive dump for things I would call useless. In fact, during a trash run one day, Leah and I took a broken little wooden chair to the hole and as I left it there to rot, a sweet old woman came by and asked me if she could take it. I was crushed. Of course, I said. As I walked away, I wanted to cry. I was grumbling because I didn’t want to clean this shed, yet somehow, our bringing the stuff to the hole ended up meeting a need for someone – a need that opened my eyes.
There was another morning when one of my favorite little girls from the pre-school, Linda, came to school in tears. Linda means beautiful in Spanish and the name is so fitting for her. She is beautiful and sweet and could melt the hardest of hearts with her dimples and pigtails. Seeing her in tears was the saddest thing in the world, and as I offered her my arms, she ran to me and hung on for dear life, crying into my chest. One of my friends Fiorella, who teaches at the school, told me that she had tried asking Linda what was wrong but got no response. I took Linda inside where we waited for her to get her breakfast. Pastor Jordi came by and asked her what was wrong. She continued to cling to me as he talked to her. And then the question I was hoping he wouldn’t have to ask: Did your mom hit you? She nodded. I was breaking inside. Linda did not let go and I was doing everything possible to console her. No four year old, or child for that matter, should have to be put through this.
I am still confident I will see the goodness of the LORD…
But this certainly wasn’t good. Not at all. But I realized that this ministry was a safe haven for children like Linda. The LORD placed me there to get a glimpse into their world and pray for these precious little children.
Ignorance, they say, is bliss – and it’s often true in these cases. But I would rather see and hear these hard things and have my heart broken, then live in oblivion. Not all children are loved by their parents. Besides the situation with Linda, a young preteen girl in the youth group told me that her mom had told her she was good for nothing, fat, and ugly. How do you say to a 13 year old girl who is clearly so smart and pretty that those are flat out lies? You just tell her, and you tell her God crafted her so beautifully, and you just pray that you are getting through to her heart. My team and I also had a chance to visit a government-run rehab home for teenage girls with eating disorders or substance abuse. On our second visit there, one of the sweet, chatty girls ran to Mollie and I and clung to us crying. She told me her parents weren’t going to/didn’t want to visit her – that she hadn’t seen them in a long time. As she sobbed in my arms, she told me that she knew for a fact that her parents loved her little sister more because she was the real daughter – and she was only adopted. Then she asked me one of those gut-wrenching questions that I did not to be asked: Por que Dios es malo conmigo? Why is God mean to me?
Wow. Well, seeing as the question was directed right at me, I had to say something. I honestly don’t remember what I said, only that somehow the Holy Spirit spoke through me to calm her down and explain to her that her Heavenly Father sees her and never forgets her, no matter who else does. She is His beloved daughter. I wanted to cry so bad because her tears were staining my jeans she was crying so hard and I felt so utterly helpless.
I am still confident I will see the goodness of the LORD…
Okay, LORD, I’m trying to see your goodness. I’m trying to see it in all of this, and I don’t.
That day at the rehab center, I lead some worship on the guitar and shared a bit of my life. The girls seemed so intrigued by my every word and hugged me tightly afterward. I couldn’t fix their problems or promise them that everything was going to be great, but I could offer my story, my presence, and hope that maybe the LORD was planting a seed of hope, a seed of faith, and showing them that He is good.
And the LORD is good to His children – He began to show me that in these hopeless situations, He was allowing me to be a vessel to shed His light. And when I was one the one who needed encouragement, He sent angels like Elizabeth, Fiorella, and Helen, teachers at the preschool who I was able to get so close to and share in deep conversations with. He provided us with more international friends who loved us so well: Rachel, who is Australian and has an “Around the World” ticket this year and let us hang out at her apartment with her; Anne from the Netherlands who is volunteering for 5 months; Gina, who’s husband works for the U.S. Embassy and took us for a delicious dinner to her beautiful home; and Isaac and Fabio, two young, Peruvian seminary students who stayed with us on the weekends and who we got share laughter and friendship with.
I can say that I surprisingly shed some tears when we were leaving Lima. I can say that I was so blessed beyond measure by the people there at Brazos Abiertos, who literally opened their arms to us and loved us so. I can surely say that I saw the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.
