Not Yet Faithfulness

From an earlier post, but still true...



She remained on the outside of our little group, just close enough to hear the conversation, just far enough away to not have to interact with anyone. She stood out from the others in their dirty jeans and sweatshirts with her bright pink outfit. We didn’t recognize her as part of the usual group of cleferos who hangs out in front of the bus terminal. She looked about 14 or 15, but it’s hard to tell sometimes.

We headed down to the bus terminal area last night despite rumors that the police were doing sweeps to clean things up for the people coming in to celebrate Urkupiña, and while there were fewer than normal, there were some from the usual crowd. We’re continuing to build relationships and trust with mostly the girls, a long slow, often seemingly fruitless, process. There’s a few who want us to help them be able to visit their children who are in state care. In the most caring, but truthful way, we try and tell them what would need to change in order for that to be even a remote possibility. They don’t seem to consider what kind of memories they would be creating for their young children if they were to see their mothers the way we were seeing them last night… stumbling, slurring, giddy with laughter, then despondent, deadened to reality. Of course we’ll try and do what we can, but it ultimately rests in their willingness to respond to the help being offered.

The girl had moved to the other side of the ATM machine (I could still see her pink pant leg) and was chatting with one of the less flamboyant transvestites selling sweets and cigarettes. One of the several men we had spotted trolling the area approached her, he already lewdly had his belt undone, and a few moments later, they passed us heading off to wherever she would earn her next few bottles of glue.

It takes a lot to shock me, which is probably why I’m able to do the work I do without losing my mind. I’m never surprised at the level of depravity of which humans are capable. However, I remain thankful that while I may not be surprised, I continue to be disgusted and outraged and motivated to keep fighting against these injustices experienced every day by these street kids.

It’s heart-wrenching and infuriating that in the moment there’s nothing I can do. Vigilante justice is common here, and sometimes I honestly rejoice with them for hog-tying and dragging men through the streets when they’re caught having sex with a child. My housemate and co-worker were talking about last night’s incident, and remembering what Jesus had to say about those who cause children to sin. At that point, we would have been more than happy to haul the stone and buy the rope to tie around his neck. Or at the very least, I wish I had brought more than bus fare to make it worth her while to not sell herself, even if it meant I was buying her the glue for the night. I’d have felt better about that than knowing what she did instead. But justice, in whatever form, is all too uncommon here.

So, now I’ve got this fancy title, Director of Communications and Development. We always laugh about our titles; there’s four of us in administrative positions, so our “role and function” that Americans are so hyper-concerned about get blurred a lot down here. I spend a lot of my time looking for the elusive grant we might be eligible for, but usually we’re not, so I keep searching. It can be discouraging and frustrating, and quite frankly annoying, when I’m looking for funding to provide programs that are so desperately needed, and instead of finding people who want to provide safe nurturing environments for street girls or children with HIV/AIDS, I find plenty of funding for community improvement projects like gardens and improved signage. Those things are nice, but it’s hard seeing that knowing what that $10,000 could do here.

Although we joke at our titles, I do take it seriously in that I want to be able to communicate, to give voice to those who don’t have one, to tell of the ones to whom nobody will listen. Lamentations 2:11 says, “My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.” I’ve seen the children passed out on the street. I’ve seen the baby who died of something as preventable as diarrhea, lying in its small white coffin, learning that his mother carried him on her back, dead, searching for a place that would take them in.

Recently, in my studies, the faithfulness of God has struck me anew. It would be easy to throw my hands up or rather shake my fists at the sky and cry out “Where are You!?” I often forget that God works outside of our timeline. I had to wait a long time before He made it possible for me to be down here, but looking back I can see how it all fit together better than I could have ever planned it myself. “The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (Psalm 103:6), but He also says, “…If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.” (Habakkuk 2:3b). So in the meantime I’m not going to remain quiet. I will continue to “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless, maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.” (Psalm 82:3), and also continue to believe that God is forever faithful, believing that eventually all the abuses heaped upon these children will be accounted for and justice will be accomplished in their lives.