There’s good news… and not too bad news… The good news… I found my Birkenstocks… in a bag, in our storage room… mixed in with some plastic jugs and muffin tins!!! I do often forget them here and there… but I KNOW that I didn’t leave them there!!!!! Anyhow… I was just happy to have them back again…
“Royce”… well… he is STILL in the shop… its been almost 2 ½ weeks now… they’ve said “mañana” several times now… so we should be getting close to getting him back!!! Maybe tomorrow!!!! Each day that goes by without him, I am reminded what an incredible tool a vehicle is… hmmm… hopefully tomorrow…
As for the “motorcycle diary” … the process continues on… The secretary would like some money to “close” the case… the police investigator seems to be more on the motorcyclist’s side of things… Please continue praying for all of this… and continue to pray for Eddy to heal well… Thanks…
Well… I wanted to write about something other than accidents or misplaced shoes!!! Life continues on… in spite of the ups and downs that come with it… There are three people in my mind right now…
… the first one is Pilar… a beautiful, 14 year old girl… A couple weeks ago she asked me to talk with her mom… Pilar had been kicked out … but didn’t want to leave… Why? Although her mom rents a room... she still is very much tied to the streets and everything that goes with it… Her aunts tell me that it is Pilar who tries to find a job for the mom… The roles seem very much inverted… I know that this adolescent is far from perfect… but I know that the things she has been witness to can’t have helped…
The day that I went to visit them, there was another girl from the streets living there as well… A small room… a single bed and a bunk bed for the mom, her lesbian partner, Pilar, her little brother… and now this other street girl and her 4 month old baby… I wish Pilar WOULD want to leave this situation…
I heard a couple days later that the baby was abandoned… and Pilar was the one looking after her… caring for her… waking up in the night with her… looking for milk… and if there wasn’t milk… well… lemonade or something to feed the baby…
On Saturday I stopped by El Jordán… Pilar came running over… her eyes were puffy and red… The mom never showed up for her baby… they had found a grandma… but she didn’t want the baby either (she was already raising two granddaughters)… Pilar desperately wanted to keep the baby… however… the baby was given to a “godmother”…
Tears rolling down her cheeks, she cried, “But they don’t really want the baby…” She wondered if there was any way the baby could come live at El Jordán…
Pilar so very much wanted to love and care for this baby… in the same way she’d love to be loved… This little girl who so rarely shares her heart… I had the opportunity to see beyond the “dependent kid” who “doesn’t need anybody” into a raw and wounded heart… Has she ever felt cared for? …or “mothered”? Has she ever really felt part of a family… or felt that she had ties with anyone? All of a sudden a little baby showed up… and Pilar loved and felt loved…
…and then it was taken away… Poor, poor little girl… both of them…
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Marisol turned 12 years old today… She wanted to come to El Jordan for her birthday… Why? She told her mom… “at El Jordán there are dolls!!! …and there is even a little doll bed!!” (It is actually a little four poster bed my dad and brother made for me many years ago...) …so Mónica phoned to ask if they could come to El Jordán…
Do you think 12 years old is too old to be playing with dolls?
This little girl was a bit like Pilar… a little kid – trying to look after mom… Mónica would go off drinking and partying for days at a time… It was Marisol who would hide her own lunch… saving it for whenever her mom might come home… She’d have to do it secretively because Mónica’s siblings and dad wouldn’t allow it – they thought Monica wasn’t worth it… That didn’t stop Marisol…
The siblings and dad would lock their doors as not to be bothered… but as Monica stumbled into the yard, it would be Marisol who’d run to support and guide her to the wood shack they called “home”… to the one bed they had as a family… It was Marisol who would cry… and ask her mom to change… It was Marisol who pleaded with her mom to go study at El Jordan…
Now that Monica is literally, a new person… life has changed drastically for everyone… Now Marisol’s heart is no longer raw and wounded… For the first months when Monica would come to El Jordan, Marisol, without fail, would always phone… wondering if her mom was coming home…
She no longer phones… She knows her mom is coming home…
…and now Marisol plays with dolls…
* * *
I got a phone call at noon today… Could I go by the hospital? “Sueño Mayor” had been badly stabbed in the intestines… and wanted to talk to me before they operated on him… His nick name is “Oldest Sleepy” – to differentiate him from his two younger brothers who have also spent most of their lives on the streets – “Middle-sized Sleepy” and “Youngest Sleepy”. I walked through the wards of the hospital tonight looking for the familiar face… because I couldn’t remember his real name…
I finally ran into Eber - “Youngest Sleepy” who directed me to the emergency room… Javier (I found out Sueño Mayor’s real name) hadn’t been operated on yet… Eber proudly told me that for the last 2 months he has been off the streets – working as a welder’s assistant…
I met this kid 13 years ago… maybe 9 or 10 years old… shining shoes… and studying… without a scar in sight… He ended up following his older brothers’ example… into drugs… delinquency… and the streets… Wow… He has more scars than the last time I saw him… scars on the face that are hard to hide… …scars that make it hard to be trusted and accepted again by society…
They let me into emergency to talk to Javier… His many scars were easy to see… all up and down his arms - along with the skull and cross bones tattoo… and the tattooed heart with a girl’s name in the middle…
There he was… a grown up “tough guy”… but really just a “kid” - alone and scared (and scarred) lying on a gurney… I thought about Pilar her wounded and raw heart... Marisol with her heart that has had the possibility to heal… and now Javier… a heart so wounded in the past… time and time again… now there are just scars…
Now he has new wounds… which to me, are another opportunity to repent and change direction in life… He is still alive… and he has that opportunity if he chooses… he says he doesn’t want to go back to the streets… that he wants to work…
Before I left, I asked if I could pray…
…my heart breaks for Javier and so many like him… so wounded and scarred… I pray that one day they might come to know Christ who offers them a new heart… a new life… Christ – scarred… for them… for me…
* * *
Please pray for Javier… he should have been operated on by now… I pray that this would be a turning point for him… Pray for the many, many like him on the streets… for Pilar who isn’t on the streets…but whose life is in the balances… …for Monica, Marisol and others who are enjoying life in abundance…
Please also pray for El Jordán… that we’d continue to be a light… a finger pointing in the direction of hope… life… Christ…
Thanks so much…
Lots of love,
Corina (for Marco too)