Today is day 9 in Guatemala. Wednesday we broke up into our teams and headed to our first ministry sites. My team is in San Lucas at an orphanage called Casa de Rosa’s, where about 30 children ranging from ages 2-18 live. While some of them are, many of them are technically not orphans, but they might as well be. Pretty much every child here has been physically and sexually abused, some forced into prostitution by their parents, some left naked and abandoned in the street. Many have been taken away from their parents by the government or local police.
My first day here was really hard emotionally. We hear about kids like this all the time – we are familiar with their stories. They make us sad, we wish things were different. I thought that I was prepared.
But then I walked through the doors of this place.
And these stories… they weren't stories anymore.
They were eyes looking back at me.
Hands holding mine.
Arms around my neck and legs and any place they could grab.
Kisses on my cheeks and words in my ears and smiles and tears.
And I then I had to match all of those with their realities. Real, specific, disgusting past realities. I was a wreck. I barely held it together all day.
But God is soverign. He is good. He is showing me the hope and promise of these children apart from their past. They are fighting. And so are we.
Our days have been filled with playing with the kids, singing worship songs, helping cook meals and clean.
I have really enjoyed playing with the niños (2-7) – they are so sweet and cute. The only boys we have here are niños. The oldest one is seven. And it’s really fun to sing and dance play with the medianas – the middle school girls. But the ones that really have a grip on my heart are the grandes – the jr. high/high school girls. There are about 8 of them that range from 14 to 18. I’ve spent a lot of time helping them prepare and clean up meals, and that’s my favorite time of day because it’s just us in the kitchen/back yard and we really get to talk and connect (well, as much as possible with my limited Spanish.) But it’s been really fun.
They are so fun and have so much joy and life. They are children… but deep down, they are so sad. It's suck a hard paradox. I’m just trying to pour into them, speak life into them, love on them, try to replace even a tiny bit of what was taken from them. Next week we are going to start some lessons with them on self worth, try to help them see some truth about themselves apart from what the world they grew up in told them. I’m excited about it.
Living in a paradox is hard… it's stretching. But it's beautiful. The tension is good.
