Christmas on the Streets” has come and gone for another year… With a few quieter days, the frantic activities of the last weeks fade in my mind… and thoughts like “reports”, “letters”, “planning” and “looking for a new administrator and shops people” start to overtake my thoughts… Thinking back to Christmas four things stick out in my mind… COMING HOME: One of the things I love about “Christmas on the Streets” is seeing everyone who “comes home” to help… Josué, one of “Marco’s kids” who hasn’t missed a Christmas even though he can’t come during the year because of work and studies (his dad died years ago and as the oldest son he carries a lot of the responsibility…)
Ivan is an ex volunteer who comes to help for Christmas because we are his family… Alejandra came to replace her grandma, Laura, our volunteer who passed away with cancer a year ago… “Meñeque” – another person who doesn’t have a family to go home to, has helped us serve “Christmas on the Streets” for the last 13 years… I have no idea how to get a hold of him, but he ALWAYS shows up to help on the 24th… Little Annie – now 12 - has helped on “chicken cutting days” ever since she was 7 years old… Every year there are new faces, old faces… from all walks of life… young and old… coming together for this purpose… Neighbours share their gas tanks and ovens, people from afar – like you – participate through prayers and gifts… We are blessed.
CONVICTION: The day before Christmas, two men came to offer their help… They are a funny pair… one quite tall and lean, the other short and wide… mismatched clothes… and instead of using your name, they call you “Servant of God” or “Blessed of the Lord”… they talk a bit like travelling salesmen… Hmmm… It makes you not want to take them seriously… And yet God chose them to humble me, teach me a lesson… and convict my soul… The one started talking about two street people who they had met outside of El Jordán’s gate maybe six months ago… They remembered their names and details from their lives… Ashamed, I could barely remember the incident, let alone their names… I used to be great with names and faces, but the more people I meet, the more mixed up with details I am… That’s been my excuse anyhow… But, how did they remember… if the only contact they had with the men was a “chance” encounter?
It is because they PRAY… For them, they aren’t “chance encounters” – they are God ordained possibilities… and when God puts someone in their path, they respond tangibly and with the word of God… They write their names in a book and start praying regularly for them… (one man had 700 names in his book from this year alone…)
They challenged me that this year we ask the churches to get the names and a few basic details of everyone they gave Christmas on the Streets to… and ask them to commit to praying for those people through the year… This would encourage the commitment of the churches to be deeper, richer and longer term… humbly recognizing that it is the Holy Spirit that must work in one’s heart in order to bring him/her to repentance… Because it was last minute, we only partially implemented the idea but it is definitely something we want to weave into the planning and execution of Christmas on the Streets… The example of these men has challenged me to pray more diligently… Am I going to pray for 700 people every day? Probably not… Actually, I know I won’t… but maybe I will intercede once a week for a dozen people or so who aren’t in my “regular circle” of family, friends and ministry… Maybe week by week… month by month, year by year my discipline will grow… and more ministry will be done on my knees instead of running around… That is my desire… A MAJOR HICCUP… There is never a Christmas without some type of a mix up… Like: In the middle of putting together the gift bags, we run out of candies… or in the morning dawn, we run out of gas… This year we caught (just in time!) one of our freezers full of chickens on “Refrigerator” instead of “Fast Freeze”… Yikes… Everything seemed to be going excellent… On the 23rd we had great help who washed the potatoes, cut and counted the plantains in record time… We were just waiting for the 500 kilos of pork… I smelled it before I saw it… A very bad sign… It was disgusting… horrible… a nightmare… but I don’t want to gross you out with the details. It was 7 o’clock at night, the oven guys ready to roll… with over 366 kilos of rotten pork!!! The people responsible promised to pay us back… and we arranged to buy more pork (at a more expensive price) that was arriving to the local market at 1:30 a.m. (which ended up being 4 a.m. - and we needed to start serving the meals at 7 a.m.!!!) In the end the new pork was great and was done just in time… and
2798 plates of food and gifts went out to many pockets of our city… (Another upside to the smelly experience was that it made our traditional pancake lunch on Christmas taste even better!!! We didn’t even miss the turkey and trimmings!!!) THE LEAST OF THESE… Christmas was really HOT… Several of us who went to the streets met up with the problem of there being very few street kids “out”… they were scattered, looking for cooler, shadier spots… We had food and gifts left over so we needed to find another area of the city where nobody had gone… I remembered a wooded area just off a main avenue that lined the far side of a canal… There was a little trail into the bushes where sometimes you could see little “shelters” made out of rags, sticks and other scraps… I’ve always had the curiosity of “going in” and this was my opportunity… Most people driving by would never guess that this “trail though a garbage dump” is home to between 20 and 50 people, depending on the day… When I walk into one of these “neighborhoods” I feel like I should ask permission or ring a doorbell… that just because they live under a piece of plastic doesn’t mean you have the right to just barge in… We had to bend down to look almost knee high into the first little shelter… Gerson, in his early 20s, looked ashamed to be seen… I nicknamed the second man Santa Claus… because he had crazy white hair and beard… (he just needed 150 pounds more to be a good
Santa…) He was obviously not well… but kindly welcomed us and insisted on leading the way, carrying the food farther back into the woods where there was an open area with another half a dozen shelters scattered around… Completely removed from ANY hustle and bustle, from ANY glitter and pretense, sitting on makeshift “stools” with a group of people whose addictions have robbed them of everything they have in the world, I think all of us who went felt an unexpected peace and quietness… and in a strange way, closer to the true meaning of Christmas than in any other spot… The Savior came for such as these… The ones that Jesus was most comfortable hanging out with… the humble and lost… nothing to show or to give… These dear people were thankful for the food, gifts and cold juice – but they were even more thankful for the visitors who would sit beside them on a dirty old mattress thrown on the ground… I asked if anyone had a paper and pen so I could write down their names so we could pray for them… One man found a pen… another man had a notebook – with one piece of paper in it… which they gladly shared… After polishing off his beef and pork…and leaving the chicken bones shining, the 55 year old man sitting beside me on the couch (mattress) hung his head and with tears rolling down his cheeks said… “I don’t want to be here anymore… I want to get out…”
This place has an extra special meaning to me… 18 and a half years ago, in the exact same spot - only on the road on the other side of the canal - my friend’s car broke down… It was the night that God sent us a drug addict – from those same “woods” – to help fix the car… and to change the direction of my life… That night God opened my eyes and engraved on my heart this group of people I never had considered before… My life has never been the same… Wow… If someone had told me 18 ½ years ago where I was going to be today it would’ve been hard to believe!!!
God’s love, mercy and faithfulness are incredible. I’m blessed to be a very small piece of the puzzle of His great picture… My prayer for those who have lost all hope and see no way out of their addictions and darkness that they would recognize that God IS Able… and He desires that they be a piece in His great picture as well… Please pray for us as a family this year… and for El Jordan… that we will be clean, useful vessels for God to use... that we will be prepared to reach out, speak out and pray for those God brings across our paths in this new year… THANK YOU so very much for your part in my life… family and ministry here… A FEW OTHER RANDOM EVENTS IN THE LAST WEEK OR TWO:
There never seems to be a Christmas without some outside drama… On the 26th when we were cleaning El Jordan, Fernando showed up to talk to me… He used to be a street person/addict who lived in El Jordan’s neighborhood… His only family is a sister who moved to Chile to try and find a better life… and a nephew who has been in maximum security more once… He had an infected broken jaw… Oh dear… “Merry Christmas… God bless you!“ didn’t really cut it… He actually only came to ask for a painkiller… but my conscience didn’t allow me send him away with just a Tylenol!
The free clinic is closed until January 6th… but I remembered the dentist who operated on Tania (he took out a 20 year old piece of glass from her cheek a while back)and said to call if we ever had any other issues… His clinic was also closed for the holidays… but he kindly came in to see Fernando… The bone was exposed and infected… and it needed to be operated right away… We needed to come up with money for the materials and to pay his nurse who he’d have to call in for the surgery… The dentist who Fernando originally visited said his surgery would cost $2500 US which is why Fernando had decided to live with a broken jaw…Unfortunately, it was too complicated to heal on its own… So thanks to the kind doctor… and to different ones who have given towards medical emergencies etc., Fernando got his jaw operated on for Christmas… Thanks!
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The house next door to ours was broken into on Christmas day… The thieves must have been watching because in the 3 hours that the neighbors left the house, they climbed over the fence and had time to look for money, laptop etc… Our fence is the same height as theirs… and without even the traditional broken glass on top to deter the thieves… The thought of thieves so easily climbing over the fence brought back some fears that I had when we were broken into/held at gun point/cleaned out 3 years ago… I know our lives are in Gods’
hands but with so much delinquency I think we also need to be wise… SO… our Christmas present was some security measures for the house… Please pray for protection – for us… and for El Jordan… Delinquency always rises here around any major holiday…
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Three things I would like you to continue to pray about are:
- For Janeth’s children… their house is well on its way to be built… and two major prayer requests are: that Ricardo (the dad) would be able to find work nearby… and the 5 school aged kids could find spots in nearby schools (to find space for new students is really, really difficult…) I’ve been thinking about suggesting if anyone wants to “sponsor” one of the kids to help with their school uniforms and supplies… but first we’ll get them into school…
- The other situation that I’d like you to continue to pray for is the sexual abuse case from the children’s home that came out last year… It has not been processed yet… and apparently Marco and I are on the list as witnesses for the accused side. Please continue to pray with us for truth to triumph… and anything that isn’t honoring to our Lord to be defeated… Many people involved in one way or another are going through difficult times, and I know they would appreciate your prayers… Thank you…
- In the next weeks we will be actively searching for… an administrator for El Jordan… a half time cleaning person… a welder and a carpenter. Please pray for wisdom and discernment on our part… and that God would place the right people in our path…
Thank you, thank you, thank you for upholding this ministry in your prayers… We need them… and are very thankful for them… May you see God’s graciousness and kindness in your lives in this new year… God bless YOU…
Lots of love, from Corina, Marco, Keiden and Marlee…