Monday morning we meet up with three people from YWAM, to help them with a program called Operation Restoration. The main guy in charge is Larry. He has been working trying to get kids off the streets for over 4 years, but has been working for 8 years in Bolivia doing various ministries. Larry and a few other people go out every Monday and Thursday, in the morning and at night. They talk to kids trying to get them off the streets, away from drugs, abuse, gangs, and just a horrible situation. These kids are either born on the streets, because their parents were street kids and that’s all they ever known. Some end up on the streets because they had no other option, because they were either abused at home, or kicked out.
We walk to a bridge and climb down, and found 12 kids just starting to get up. We walk around and introduce ourselves. Fighting the smell of urine, feces, trash, and glue I follow one of the members from YWAM named Suzette inside. We sit down and talk to a mother, name Tasha who had three kids but who are all in a children’s home, and are off the streets. She is the only women/girl under the bridge. Looking at her she has cuts from her wrist to her inside of her elbow, which look self-inflicted. Spending time with her, I realize that she is sniffing glue. Not only do I realize that she is sniffing glue, but I look around and all the other boys hand a bottle that is cut at the top to make a bigger hole, which allows them to get higher. A few of the boys come up to her and hand them their glue bottle. She pulls out this giant bottle of glue and pours it into their bottle. The boys then give her some payment, at which I was unable to see of what.
The entrance to the place and few street kids call home.
The trash they walk in and live in everyday!
In the streets the kids will get ahold of anything that can send them on a high. Glue is the cheapest, along with cocaine, but some also get theirs hands on marijuana and consume it anyway they can. To get drunk they get ahold of 100% rubbing alcohol, which some will drink straight and some with case it with whatever they have on hand.
This ministry, I know will be challenging because I never had an experience like this before. In Ecuador we built a church, in Peru we went door-to-door, and now I will be working with kids who not only have nothing but how are living on the streets and who knows what happens to them. Today was a very hard day to process, because seeing what I saw today just blew my mind. Words just cannot express what I witnessed today. I just have to trust in God, knowing that this is what I am supposed to be doing. I hope to touch one child’s life, and get him or her off the streets for good.
Josh talking to a few of the street kids.
I was unable to really take pictures inside of the place, for they don't trust us yet. I hope to gain their trust and show you how they live.
