This past month in Guatemala, my team and I worked in Guatemala city with a ministry called The Street Revolution. Their main focus is loving on the homeless people living on the streets who are addicted to drugs as well as kids at risk of ending up on the streets. It was one of the most emotionally challenging months, but it did something to my heart.
It expanded.
God gave me a bigger view of Himself. He showed me His radical, unstoppable love for all people.
There are about 5 areas in Guatemala city where the homeless live. They find a group to make their community and family. We mainly focused on one group and area throughout the month. This particular group of people live a couple blocks from the bank tower and the high rise buildings of downtown. They have become a family. They look out for each other and protect each other. Tarps and a couple mattresses line one side of the street. As the sun hits that side of the street in mid-day, they move to the other side where it is shady.
They are all addicted to solvent and other drugs. One of the main drugs they use is solvent. It is liquefied glue that they put into used plastic coke bottles. They soak small, dirty rags in the liquefied glue, and then inhale the rags. The solvent kills so many brain cells and is quickly killing their bodies.
We would go and hang out with them for a couple hours playing games, making bracelets, singing worship songs, painting nails, building relationships and speaking truth into their lives. As I looked into their red, hopeless eyes I felt the love and heart of the Savior. Drool ran down a forlorn face that looked as if his youth was trapped in the body of an old man. Limping, weak bodies with clothes held on by pieces of rope revealed despair and hopelessness. Pain and hurt was being covered with the relief of a short lasting high. Parts of their stories were written on their bodies through scars, peeling hands, or a missing eye. The street was scattered with dirty, hunched-over skeletons of beautiful people. Glorious creations.
The Lord revealed Himself through them, children of the King caught in bondage. They try to heal their pain and past hurts by solvent, marijuana or alcohol. Jesus came as a substitute. He came to heal that hurt, wash over the pain and mend the past by the flow of His pure and sinless blood. He “came that they may have life and life abundantly”. (John 10:10) We might not cover our hurt by getting high on drugs, but we all have a type of cover for that hurt, pain and past. A hypothetical drug. We use it to cover the pain in our lives; to help us cope; to help us live.
Yet instead, it is killing us.
It slowly kills us from the inside out. It might be humor, happiness or the appearance of being “good”. If we would only let God heal those areas of our hearts, open up and surrender to Him, He has the power to heal. He wants us to have new life. Abundant life.
So what is your solvent?
God is starting a revolution on the streets, but it starts in the heart. It’s started in my heart. Will you let it start in yours?
