Jesus

There's something different about Jesus. And there's definitely something different about those who really live their life in him. Who have been changed.

My friend Eloy from Kusi was telling us that he still feels there are things he wants to change about himself. It’s certainly a process, being changed inside out. But Eloy took the first step and you can see the difference. He trusts in Jesus - that he healed his past and that he loves him. You can see it in this kid everywhere he goes. Eloy has so much love in his heart that makes him an absolute joy to be around. He’s able to talk about his past and the mistakes he made because he knows he’s forgiven. He’s been made clean. A new creation.

A lot of these boys have been made new. Literally saved from the burning fire and cleansed from their pasts by the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Sometimes, their pasts still come back to haunt them – in nightmares and destructive thoughts. In horrible memories. Some of them still don’t know the freedom found in the unfailing, unconditional love of Christ. I pray and long for healing for them – that their souls may be washed clean, that they may dance, celebrate, and rejoice in Christ and the free life he offers. Close to him. Joy-filled in him.

Last night, we had a dance party/guitar jam sesh at Ica. My friend Richard was playing the guitar, while a large group of us gathered around shouting off-tune words, bouncing up and down dancing. I looked down at one point and saw my friend Jeen, the cutest 6-year-old Peruvian boy you’ve ever seen, jumping and twisting, flailing his arms around, and beaming with the largest smile on his tiny little face. It was the purest picture of joy I’d seen in a while.  “That’s it,” I thought. “That’s the way to live in Christ – ever rejoicing and dancing in celebration of his love. Without a care or worry in the world.”

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” – 1 John 4:14-18

The Shower

Cold showers. I remember talking to my good friend Christie about her trip to Ecuador a couple of years ago:

Christie: “Cold showers, strange stomach bacteria, smelly farts, being dirty… yup, that’s Ecuador alright.”
Me: “Strange stomach bacteria, okay. Smelly farts, used to it. Being dirty, I can deal with that. But cold showers? I’m not sure I could handle that.”

I think I’ve had at least 7 cold showers in the last three weeks. Maybe more. It’s hard to remember cause it’s not exactly a favorable experience. Not horrible, but not favorable either. You stand in a cold, cement room, feel the freezing water, and try to get out of there as soon as possible without contracting hypothermia. They’re just another slight “inconvenience” of being here. Yet considering the opposite circumstance of remaining dirty, it’s what you’ve gotta do sometimes here in Perú.

I’m so impressed by the boys of Ica and Kawai who only ever have cold showers at those sites, and I’m pretty sure have to bathe on a daily basis (as opposed to dirty old American gringa me).

It’s better though than where they were before. I’ve been reading Southern Cross, the book by Paul Clark – Director of Unión Biblica Perú, aka my superboss. I can only make it through a chapter at a time, because I always end up bawling at the end of each one. This book paints a picture of Unión Biblica here in Perú – specifically our mission with las Piranhas, the street boys. It’s quickly becoming my favorite book after the Word – I highly recommend it.

Knowing these boys personally is something else entirely. They’re my friends, my brothers, my “causas” and “baterias,” as they say here. I’ve been learning so much about love since being here, and I’m not quite sure I’ve really loved anything in my life. Not the way Jesus does, anyway. I love with self-intent, with a mirror in front of my face. I’m beginning to believe God’s using this time to break me of that.

You’d be surprised how easy it is to think of yourself first when there are 40 boys and a new group of 20 people to divide attention to each week. Easy, but empty. And yet, these boys are amazing. Literally amazing. I mean, they’re still boys – fighting, joking, sarcasm-ing, playing, wrestling. After 1.5 months here, I truly believe this is the international language of boys. But these boys are something different from all of that, too. They’re loving, caring, absolutely 100% sharing in clothes, items, food – everything. They don’t understand possessiveness the way we do it because they’ve never had a whole lot in the first place. Whatever they have, the often freely give it away. It definitely strikes a chord in my American consumerist heart. And then… it makes me wonder about how they came to be that way. What’s behind the mask of joy, boyhood, and a humble disposition? What kind of pain could they still be holding onto – as their possession? They have a phrase for the one possession these boys knew before coming to these homes - “mi verdad” – my truth.

It’s a rare and special thing when one of the boys shares “mi verdad” for the first time. In fact, this is a lot of the work of the Union Biblica house parent – to love them and help them cope with the psychological, physical, and emotional issues they carry from the truth of their life before. Some were abused by their parents or passed around between family members, treated like more of a problem than a person. Some come from an extremely impoverished lifestyle or were abandoned. Some were left to fend for themselves at young ages, because their mother, a victim herself, couldn’t afford to care for them anymore and figured they were strong enough to make it on their own. Once on the street, some resolved to stealing, gangs, prostitution – just to eat or get by.

These are my friends. These are the boys I have come to love and care for so deeply. Their pasts are dirty and hard to forget. They’ve been abused by the police – some beaten with bats, or tortured beyond what you could ever imagine in juvenile prisons. They were often ignored by society, or worse, totally abused and treated like the scum of the earth. My friend Paul Clark said he took photos of the boys from one of the centers into a photo developing shop once.  The man in the shop asked, “Who are all these boys in your pictures?”

Paul said, “It’s a boys’ camp for street boys. I work for Scripture Union, and we care for them there.”

Man: “You know what I would do to solve that problem?... A bullet through each of their heads.”

It’s hard to fathom, but true. 

They say there’s a place in Lima where the fire never goes out. It’s a furnace on the edge of the dump where they cast the lifeless bodies of abandoned street boys. Ones who died young from disease on the street. Who were poisoned and killed by policemen or in gang violence. When there’s no one to claim them, no family to their name, there’s no one to give them a proper farewell from this world. And so, into the flames they’re cast. 

A couple of weeks ago, sitting at the kitchen table at Ica, I started to imagine my friends as the lifeless ones being cast into the fire. The mere thought strained every muscle in my body. Tears splashed the page I’d been writing on in my journal as their faces ran through my mind. It sickens me. I can’t even begin to fathom it. These are my friends – the boys who I’ve come to love so much. And it very well could have been them in there.

The last time I was at Kusi, a week or so ago, my friend Eloy shared his testimony with us for the first time. Being one of the older boys, it’s kind of surprising that he doesn’t often share it – especially because Eloy is super outgoing and charismatic. Regardless, he kept his past mostly a secret. After our time of sharing, I can understand why. I won’t go into too many details, but he has a past filled with hardship, mistakes, violence, things he longed to run away from. We started talking about Jesus and how, even if we feel like Jesus still remembers our past and that we’re not truly forgiven – he doesn’t. We’ve been totally washed clean by His blood.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

La Lavandería

So, I haven’t written in a while. Three weeks-ish, to be relatively exact. For this, I apologize – both for the delay, and for the compensation blog - meaning this post may be a hop, skip, and a jump longer… and maybe in three parts… but it’s worth the read, I promise.

After my first three and a half weeks in Kusi, the place and people that hold a piece of my heart, I parted ways temporarily to head to Lima, and Ica – the camp at the northern tip of the Atacama Desert. Also got to hit up Kawai, our coast-side camp at some point.

The Lord has blessed me SO much through these groups that come, the boys, and just through time with Him. The fellowship I’ve gotten to have with these group members is incredible and is teaching me a ton – about fellowship, humility, marriage, pride, love, and Jesus. A lot has happened – more than I can say here, so I’ve broken it down into three parts: La Lavandería, the Shower, and Jesus. Here we go.

La Lavandería

La Lavandería = The Laundromat. Why do I bring this up, you ask? Because I’m dirty. Straight up. Before my last time in Lima, I hadn’t washed my clothes for two or three weeks. Clothing, mind you, that I wear out in 10 days tops. Stanky. So, I was in dire desire of finding a Lavandería while here in Lima last weekend to wash all of my clothes and feel like a relatively hygienic person again.

Much like my dirty laundry, lots of little “unclean” things have been accumulating while living here in Perú. They've built up over time, and paired with small unfortunate circumstances here and there – they can break a person. Or more specifically, they’re beginning to break me.

Two weeks ago, I headed to Ica, the desert, for the second time. Funnily enough, it felt like I was in a spiritual desert as well. I met up with a group of Catholic high school boys from Michigan, along with their teacher and chaperones. Their Spanish teacher, Renee, and another mother there spoke Spanish very well. Definitely better than I could - something that never fails to humble me. God would use these women to both break and build me at this perfect point in the desert.

By the end of the week, these little tiny circumstances began to gnaw at my self-esteem and pride. I had accidentally (unknowingly) said a bad word in Spanish to the daughter of the site director, been rejected for a seat at a dinner table, and roughly stumbled through a translation one morning. Instances like this and more that separately would not affect me as much, together began to break me down.

God’s sovereignty is something beautiful amidst the brokenness though. During the breakdown, I had an amazing conversation with the Spanish-speaking mother, who told me she used to be like me – trying to please everyone and trying so hard to be good at everything. Called out, but she was so right. She told me, “you have to be at peace with yourself and know that Jesus loves you just as you are! Not for who you could be, but for who you already are.” Amen, amen.

Later in the day, still feeling something somber from the grey desert clouds and morning tears, I had a wonderful conversation on the bus with Renee the teacher. Totes love that woman. May have inspired me to become a Spanish teacher someday. Anywho… we talked about life and courage in Christ. She told me about her friend Beverly who she met in the gym one day. Renee was having an apologetics conversation with a guy at her gym, and Beverly overheard. Afterward, she walked up and said this :

Beverly: “Hi, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear and I just wanted to tell you that you did a great job!”

Renee: “Oh, thank you.”
Beverly: “I’d really like to get lunch sometime and just have a conversation. Would you be up for that?”
Renee: “Yeah, certainly”

So, the two met for lunch one day, had a great conversation, and parted ways. Three months later, Renee ran into Beverly again and found out she had contracted a fatal brain tumor – and had two months to live.

Renee: “I’m so sorry to hear that!”
Beverly: “(smiling) Why would you say that? I’m going to be with Jesus soon! If my time He has given me is up, then it’s by His hands!”

Beverly lived 5 months longer, and then went exactly as she said she would - to be with Jesus. She carefully planned out her funeral to be a celebration – with dancing, flag bearers, laughter, music, and all. “And it was,” said Renee. “It really was.”

I wiped the tears off with the back of my hand, and breathed deeply, feeling like my heart filled my entire body sitting there in that bus seat. “I want to live that way. I’m afraid, but I want it.”

To be clean. Cleansed of self-pride. Of the false need to please others. Even of trying so hard to earn the affection of God, when it’s already mine in Christ.

“… that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” – Deuteronomy 30:20

La fe que mueve montanas

“Celine Dion knows no language barriers.”

“Fact.”

We all laughed. In retrospect, it’s probably true – considering one of my good Peruvian friends, Eloy, a respectable and upstanding citizen of 18 years, said Titanic is one of his favorite movies. I laughed and said, “de veras?” (really?).  “Sí.” He obviously gets the transcendent power of Celine’s voice. Que hermoso (beautiful).

Something I’m learning while amidst Peruvian culture and beauty? I am not Celine Dion.

No, seriously. Transcending language, culture, food, even ‘physical ability to handle altitude’ barriers? Not an easy thing. The luxuries of a US lifestyle are out the window – internet, phone conversations, warm showers, cleanliness (I brought only two pairs of jeans that I constantly wear in spite of dirt clouds rising from them) and even finding time alone.

So, what am I finding out? I can’t do this on my own. At all.

Pretty much discovered that right away when I realized my job is to translate for incoming group mission trips from the US/Scotland, while I myself felt Espanol-incompetent. High school and even college Spanish vocabulary don’t begin to put a dent in how many words you need to know. For example, roof. Or butt. Or pancake. Just to name a few…

Language adjustments aside, this first week’s group has been SO much fun (cue the Celine Dion quote). Last Thursday, we traveled 11 hours to Kusi with a high school youth group from Alabama, accompanied by some seriously sweet adult leaders. While I haven’t gotten to spend too much time alone and away with the Lord this week, He’s been faithful in so many ways. Namely – speaking to me through others and showing me the beauty and truth of a faith that can move mountains.

Now, here in Kusi, we’re situated right under the tallest mountain in Perú – Mt. Huascaran, at 22,000 ft. It’s an incredible, almost surreal, snow-capped backdrop for everyday life here. So, I thought about this for a second the other day –

“So the faith of a mustard seed can move a mountain like that?? How?”

At first, my faith was looking pretty small. “Why am I here? Can I even do this? I feel so unprepared.”

“Surely, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, THE LORD is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.” – Isaiah 12:2

Oh, word! What is there to fear? God willing, I am here. God willing, I feel unprepared – and rightly so! He’s brought me to a place of really leaning on and trusting in His abilities, not my own. A place where, with faith, mountains can and will literally be moved.

It’s amazing to see how free we are to have this kind of faith – because of His faithfulness. He’s been sovereign over every detail here – over new friendships with high schoolers/adult leaders; Spirit-filled and life-giving conversations with one of the leaders; over my schedule – just being in Kusi for my first three weeks with familiar faces, places, and a seasoned intern, so I haven’t had to translate everything right away. How full of love and grace is our Father, who knows us, our hearts, and His plans for us better than we ever will!

My prayer for this time here is to grow closer to Him, to fall so deeply in love with Him. Trusting Him. Leaning on Him for energy, joy, peace, each day. Longing to know His heart, to love Him and His children well. Walking with Him as best friends through an incredible adventure.

Thanks again for reading and for your support through prayer. It’s been an amazing first week, and I can’t wait to see what’s yet to come! Just taking it day by day.

If you’d like to support me in prayer (big THANKS!), please pray for:

-          The prayers mentioned above^^

-          Prevention from illness, especially as I’ll be traveling a lot!

-          The boys of these homes – who are trying to move beyond their broken pasts to live in the freedom and love of Jesus Christ

-          The families of these homes – who need strength to carry on even just daily activities

-          My friend Rosa, the house mother, who is super tired from caring for the boys and a new baby they’re trying to adopt! Please pray that, God-willing, they’ll be able to adopt this baby, Jesus Miguel.

-          The interns, workers, and myself here – that we’d share God’s love with incoming groups, these boys, experience great fellowship, and grow closer to God.

-          For my Spanish!! And just being here in general. That I’d keep trusting in God and will be able to understand and speak it better, still.

Thanks again, amigos. Until next time!

- Lore (“lo-ray”)

 

This is the first post

First postest with the mostest!

Alas, my friends, I'm a wee bit tired from preparing for this most exciting and incredible adventure, and so I leave you with a few words:

1. thank you for deciding to check out this blog! seriously. I'm beyond appreciative that I have you as a friend, you beautiful creature, you.

b) Praise the LORD for this opportunity! This has been an incredible era of blessing in my life that I accept with open arms and a willing heart, in awe of God's amazing love and grace. He is so gracious and kind to offer me the very opportunity and adventure that has been on my heart! I love it! I love Him!

III. Here are some pictures from last year's trip to give you a taste of Peruvian beauty! These are from the site Kusi, the first site I will be traveling to this summer.

 

Mt. Huascaran - the highest mountain in Peru, and the backdrop for Kusi!

Lake Llanganuco - up the hill (giant mountain) from Kusi

 If I stay long enough, I may turn into one of these.

 

These are some of the boys, Mauricio and Royer. They love playing "Ninya" (Ninja)

Our team from last year with the boys, house family, and interns!

      Boys will be boys will be boys :) Roughhousing, wrestling, wheelbarrows, baseball bats, and the like!

Next update may be from the far far away land of Peru! Exciting! These next few days will be filled with busyness as my flight departs May 31. Please pray for smooth preparation! :)

Thanks again, friends, for all of your prayer and support Stay posted for more :)