I’m so annoyed right now.  I had a bit of a long week and I topped it off in fine style this morning.  I tried to park in a space that (in hindsight) was a bit too tight.  I wasn’t paying that much attention to be honest, and I ended up dragging the bumper of the truck (also a Tundra interestingly enough…) that was parked behind my spot, all the way down the side of my freshly painted truck.  It didn’t do that much damage to the parked truck (although…enough…), but it sure put a dent in my truck.

Back to the autobody place I go.  And we all know how much I enjoyed that last time…

In my defense (if I had a dollar for everytime I wrote that!), this truck is like driving a bus.  It’s a good third longer than my last truck (which seemed like a boat after my Prelude), and that’s taken a bit of getting used to.  That’s the problem actually.  I got used to it…and stopped paying attention.

Anyhow…just one more thing to pay for.  I should just stand on the street corner with hundred dollar bills and let people randomly take them.  It’d work out to about the same.

On a separate…and yet still connected…note, feel free to pray for us today.  It’s been a week of fairly extreme ups and downs.  Things to be very thankful for…and things that make me want to take off and go lay by a pool for about a month.  The part that’s difficult sometimes is that, even the good moments and conversations where I can really see God at work, still take a lot of you.  It can be pretty emotionally draining.  That’s kind of how this week has been.  And there are a couple of conversations I still need to have, to deal with situations that happened over the past couple of days.  I definitely need some wisdom to know how to proceed. 

But I’ll leave you with something funny…or at least funny to me.  I mentioned a while back how the little guys out at the other home used to call me “Cachorro” all the time.  Then they’d laugh and laugh.  I finally remembered to ask someone one day what it meant.  It turned out to be a street kid term for a someone you could take in a fight.  =)  Made me laugh…

Yesterday I was “discussing” something with Jimmy.  It ended up with him on the floor and me telling him that I’d only let him up if he admitted he was my cachorro.  Which he eventually did.  Later we were working on homework at the dining room table and this hat I got for free (when I bought the battery for my truck) was sitting there.  It’s kind of a funny hat.  So I told him it was the cachorro hat and he had to wear it.  He actually came up with the idea of writing on it….

It got passed around a bit as the guys argued about who was who’s cachorro.  In the end it somehow ended up in my room.  So I put it under Jimmy’s pillow.  This morning it was tied with string to my door handle.

It’s a funny life I lead…
 

I’ve been telling lots of stories lately…so I figured today I’d tell you a bit more about what’s been happening at the home lately. However…before that…we need to take a moment to talk about… things you generally don’t expect to see in a public restaurant…

I was surprised by…but okay with…the lady who came into Burger King the other day with her pet monkey. He was pretty cute. Just a little guy…all black with big eyes and long arms and legs. He sat at her table and ate his french fries like a little person. It was entertaining.

The guy the other night in the chicken restaurant with the python? Not so cute. It was still entertaining, I guess…in a “hope that thing doesn’t kill anyone” kind of way. It’s just that I’ve never really been a snake guy. I don’t have any phobias exactly, but snakes would come close. The scene from the first Indiana Jones movie where he falls into the pit of snakes still makes my skin crawl a bit. And every movie that has the big snake slowly advancing on the unsuspecting guy sitting against the tree eating his sandwich? Does not take me to my happy place.

So you can imagine how I felt eating my chicken while this dumb snake kept lifting his head and staring me down. It was wrapped around the guy’s neck and one arm and seriously…it kept looking at me. I don’t know how fast pythons can move when they want to, but I figured I was probably the biggest and tastiest morsel there. I was glad when they finally left. The funny part was that it seemed like everyone else was completely fine with dining alongside something that could potentially dine on them….

That’s as weird as it’s gotten so far. I’ll keep you updated.

So…life at the house…

Well, there are definitely some things to pray about. One of the struggles that some of the guys here face, is trying to understand and believe that God has a future for them. They tend to live in the moment and base their decisions on what’s happening right now. I knew that going in, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this…to help the guys understand that there will be good experiences in their futures. That God does have purpose for their lives. That, with God’s help, they can accomplish what they set out to do. That it’s okay to have dreams.

But the reality is…that’s going to be a long road and we may lose a few guys before we get there. Some of them understand this and are moving forward very positively. But I had three different conversations in the past week or so, with guys thinking about leaving. That was discouraging.

For sure these guys face all kinds of pressures that we in North America often don’t. One of the fellow’s family is very poor. He’s feeling like he should be doing something to help. The fact that if he studies one more semester, he’ll be able to get a decent job in his area of study, and will be able to continue studying, just didn’t entering into his thinking. Another guy’s family wants him to basically give up everything to babysit his thirteen year old sister while the parents work. She could go to her mom’s store after school…she just doesn’t want to. So this fellow is supposed to give up everything because his younger sister is being stubborn. But he feels obligated to help.

The third story is the saddest for me. This fellow is thinking about leaving because, ultimately, he just doesn’t believe that God has anything better planned for his life. This guy spent the majority of his life on the streets with no idea where his family was. Nothing very good has ever happened for him. So you can understand why he thinks the way he does. He does have dreams for the future, but doesn’t believe that anything will come of them.

So please pray for them. I’m hoping that I was able to talk through these situations with the first two guys, and give them some ideas of how we could help their families without them having to leave. The third guy…I don’t know what he’s thinking. He’s one of the guys that I’ve known the longest, and I can see incredible potential in him. But I have no idea, really, what he’ll do in the end.

But on a more positive note. Some of the guys are doing very well. We have a volunteer coming in every week to teach a class in English. Two of the guys decided that English was a priority for them (the ability to speak English opens a lot of doors here), and asked if they could enroll in more intensive classes. They’ve been studying diligently…and it’s been fun since I’ve been able to help them. I told them I was useless when it came to helping with Chemistry or Physics…but English I understand. More or less anyhow. One of the guys came to me with a question about possessive adjectives and I was like… “Uh…what?” I’m a little rusty on the terminology, but I can at least teach them how to pronounce “th”…(it’s not “da” as is normally taught here). As a side note…when you try to pronounce words slowly and clearly…they don’t really sound like English anymore. It’s actually kind of hard to teach proper pronunciation.

And finally…the guys and I have an ongoing “discussion” (argument) about which language is more difficult, English or Spanish. Yesterday the volunteer who’s teaching English (but is a Spanish speaking Bolivian) agreed with me that Spanish is the more difficult language…

Ha…I win.

Thanks for praying everyone! We appreciate it!
 

So some of the guys and I went to a futbol (soccer) game last night…and just about died. I know if I don’t stop saying that, people are going to stop believing me. But it’s true. This is the second time things have been a bit dicey at a futbol game. The first time was last winter. I’m not sure if I mentioned that one or not. It involved public transportation…need I say more?

That game last winter was fine…if you ignored the crazy security measures being taken. It happened during a tournament for all the professional teams in Bolivia. This game was a “clasico”, a game between the two teams of Santa Cruz…Blooming (yay from me) and Oritente (yay from Isabel). As a side note, Isabel and I like opposing teams. I’m not sure how our relationship has survived until now. We continue to work on the issue. Mostly it’s fine because when my team wins (usual) I’m very supportive and understanding about her team.

Yep…I’m so going to pay for that.

Anyhow, back to the game. It was crazy. The funniest part was when Andres (the guy who was with me) and I entered the stadium. They were frisking everyone as they came in, looking for weapons. Andres got the treatment, but when the police officer looked up at me, I think the fact that I was a gringo threw him off for a moment and he waved me through. Which was funny ‘cause I had a knife on me. I usually carry my Swiss Army knife (I used to be a Boy Scout…) and I had it in my pocket. I really like that knife, and I’m really glad it didn’t get confiscated. I showed Andres later and he just shook his head and laughed.

Another side note. Along with weapons, the police also take away these little plastic tubes that people here use for flagpoles for their team flags. What they don’t take away are Roman Candles, firecrackers, fireworks in general and these crazy firecrackers that you shoot up into the air.

But those plastic tubes man…those things are dangerous.

At any rate, back to the “clasico”. We were fine during the game. It was awesome…we won (of course). However after the game, we…along with 35,000 other fans…descended on a public transportation system that wasn’t not prepared. I didn’t have my truck (go figure) and so we needed to catch the bus back out to El Torno (the town where I was living at the time). We walked a few blocks up the road where our bus would be coming, thinking we might beat the crowd. Unfortunately two or three hundred other people had the same idea. When the bus pulled up, it was…complete insanity.

Andres got pulled (pushed) into the bus by the rest of the crowd. I…did not. But I didn’t want to lose him, so I grabbed the hand bars by the door (along with three other guys) and managed to get one foot inside the bus door. A couple of one-footed hops as the bus drove away…and away we went. It was all good until we passed our first other vehicle. It feels close when you’re sitting inside the bus. Try having your butt hanging two feet out from the side of the bus. It feels a lot closer then.

It was at that point that I suddenly realized that I might be in trouble. Then the bus picked up speed. And my hands started to sweat…and get slippery. This is a bus that leaves the city…so it moves pretty fast once it hits the main road. I was still standing on one foot, trying to hang on with now sweaty (and slippery) hands. The problem was, there were other guys between me and the bus. So I was kind of hanging on overtop of them. In general…not my happy place.

I was pretty sure I was going to die. No lie. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hang on until we got to the next town (twenty minutes or so). I had no idea what to do (well…except continue to try to hang on…that seemed pretty clear). The upside to all of this, is that these situations do amazing things for my prayer life. Jesus and I are pretty tight in these moments. Trust me, I was praying.

And then…unexpectedly a group of students needed off. Normally the only people who get on this bus are people who are headed out of town. These guys must have decided that any bus would do. Lots of people had to get off to let them off, and trust me when I tell you that my Canadian politeness went out the window in the ensuing rush to get back on the bus. I’m proud (?) to say that I managed to beat out a dozen others for a space (?) on that bus. I’ve never been so happy to be butt to butt with a hundred other people.

So last night. We got there late, and found a huge line to get in to the Blooming section. I suggested we go to another section, but the guys didn’t like that idea. We were there to root for Blooming and that means being in Blooming’s section. By the time we got into the stadium, we were only minutes from the start of the game. And of course there was no room. Well, there was room…we just couldn’t see the field. Die hard fans (and trust me when I tell you that you have no idea!) hang these huge banners on the chainlink fence surrounding the field, which is fine. Except that they block the view of anyone in the bottom five rows. Normally that’s okay…no one sits there anyhow. But this game was packed and those rows were full.

Some people decided that their right to view the game was more important than those die hard fan’s right to hang big, dumb banners, and some guys climbed the fence to start taking said banners down.

It started a fist fight. I’m pretty sure those guys were convinced that if Blooming Player 18 didn’t see his name badly painted onto a huge piece of material, he would give up and not play to his potential. I kid you not. It was quite intense.

While the fight was taking place, another group was petitioning the police to open the gate between our section and the next (where you paid a bit more). It wasn’t completely full yet. The police made everyone get into a line before they opened the gate.

The line lasted about three and a half seconds. Then pandemonium broke out. Couldn’t the police have seen this coming? Don’t they read European sports pages?

It was a fairly tiny gate that about two hundred people were trying to push through. I was with Andres and we weren’t really planning on trying to get into the other section…until the two hundred people trapped us against the chainlink fence. I seriously thought we were dead. Once again. I figured I’d be just another statistic or fifth page headline (except in Biggar…I’m pretty sure I’d make the front page there)… “Local boy killed in soccer riot”.

It was hard to breath. I think I still have chainlink fence marks on my chest. At one point I was trying to push back against the crowd to protect Andres and another guy as they tried to pass crying, little kids over the fence to the police on the other side. Eventually our section of the crowd surged through the gate and we popped out the other side. I’m pretty sure if I could remember being born it would have been the same sensation.

On the upside, the new section had way more space and much better food selections. On the downside, we lost Franz in the crowd and didn’t seem him again until two hours later, after the game, back at the truck.

And so Ken survives to celebrate another day. The guys tell me there’s another Clasico next Sunday. Pretty sure we’re going to go.

Oh yea…and Blooming won…
 

I had a date with Isabel the other night.  I picked her up and we headed to a nearby restaurant for supper.  A couple of blocks from her house, the police had set up a checkpoint…

 

Of course, they quickly started blowing their whistles and waved me over. 

 

As Isabel has said more than once…I’m “dulce” (sweet) for the police here.  Basically it means that they get pretty excited when they see me coming.  I thought with my new truck, I’d be past all of this.  My papers are in order…both my headlights work…the serial number on my motor matches the serial number on the truck…  I wondered what in the world they’d get me for this time (other than my slightly destroyed driver’s licence…but more on that later). 

 

As it turned out, I only had a licence plate on the back of my truck…not on the front.  But there’s no place to put one on the front, I argued.  Doesn’t matter, was the response.  It’s an “infraction”.  No matter that lots of people have drawings of their licence plates taped to their back window…  Off we went to transito…the transit police station.

 

I leaned over to Isabel and motioned to the policeman in my backseat.  “Romantic, eh?”  I know how to treat a girl right.  She just laughed and said, “You warned me that these things always happen to you.”  That’s true…I did.  Then I asked her if she really understood what she was getting herself into.  She laughed again and said that she’d always prayed that God would give her a relationship where she could be a help the other person. 

 

Ha.  Probably one of the most ironic (and entertaining) statements ever made.  “What I did today: helped keep boyfriend out of jail…”.

 

So we arrived at transito (with our policeman buddy) and went to talk to the lady who was in charge that night.  An added problem was my aforementioned, “slightly destroyed” driver’s license.  See, here’s the problem.  It went through the wash a few months (year) ago and the water got into the laminated part and wrecked the picture (and everything else).  You can still tell that I’m a gringo (and to my thinking that should be enough).  However, most police officers seem to disagree. 

 

Up until now I’ve been able to argue my way out of these things.  Plus, Isabel had called her brother-in-law (who’s a Major in the police force here) and he assured us that this was a minor thing and that they should let us go with just a warning.

 

The lady police officer told us that they would be impounding my truck for the night and that I’d have to return the next day with my front licence plate.  And of course, I’d have to pay for “parking” my truck on their lot. 

 

I’ve been down this road before (sadly), and I really, REALLY didn’t want to get my truck impounded (again).  Isabel talked and argued with lady, but there was no budging her.  So once again we called Isabel’s brother-in-law.  He asked to speak with whoever was in charge (above this lady) and Isabel handed the phone over.  A few minutes later this gentleman returned the phone and with a smile and polite “No problem.” he told us we could leave. 

He went back into the office (we were waiting outside) to retrieve my driver’s license and registration.  I made a face and a “Ha ha!” comment towards the original lady’s office window but then realized that there were a half dozen other police officers standing around watching us and figured it would be best if I just kept my comments to myself until we left the property.

 

Which we quickly did.  Later that night as I was driving Isabel home, we drove past another checkpoint.  I saw the officer look in my direction, but before he could do anything, I just sped up and didn’t make eye contact.  Isabel started laughing, but I told her they only get one opportunity to drag me off to jail a night.  After that I get a free ride.

 

So having a girlfriend with a brother-in-law who’s a police officer is a handy thing.  Her sister’s a lawyer too…

 

I say, bring in on baby!

 

Tomorrow I really need to get that licence plate put on the front of my truck.  And get a new driver’s licence.  Tomorrow for sure…or maybe Monday…

 

So Ken kind of forgot to pay the power bill this month, and we got cut off this morning. Well, it wasn’t so much that I forgot as it was I was a little short of cash. With the new truck and paying for a bunch of unexpected things, the power bill kind of fell to the bottom of the pile. I figured I had a bit more time. As it turned out…not so much.

But it’s fine. I was able to pay the bill this afternoon, and they assured us that the power will be back on in an hour or so. Guess we’ll see….

The guys were kind of giving me a hard time, so I just told them it was all a part of the adventure of living with Hermano Ken. That made them laugh. Besides, I’m not sure I minded all that much. With no TV or music blasting, the house was a little more peaceful than normal. It was kind of nice.

I so sound like my parents right now. Good grief.

Thanks for praying for us this weekend. It feels like things have improved a lot. There was a lot more laughing and joking around yesterday, so that was good to see. I could definitely feel the difference in myself as well. I was able to handle the fact that some lady backed into me on Saturday night and someone else stole the mirrors off my truck Sunday morning…with mostly calmness and a minimal amount of anger or frustration.

Yep…the honeymoon period is over with the new truck. It was nice while it lasted. I made it a week and a half…not bad really. The funniest part was after the lady backed into me and then asked me what I was doing.

Um…not moving. I’m kind of big and hard to miss (the truck…not me personally. Well…okay me personally too…but I was referring to the truck.). Fortunately she didn’t do that much damage…only a couple of small scratches near the right tail light. I’m more grumpy about the mirrors. While we were in church, a guy and a girl drove up on a motorbike (someone in church saw them, but didn’t know who’s truck it was). The girl jumped off, ripped the glass out of my side mirrors and away they went.

You might be asking why they stole the mirrors? Everything has a price here and those mirrors are actually fairly valuable. Tomorrow one of the guys and I are going to go search the local market where you can buy everything and see if we can find some new ones. Or even maybe the ones that were taken off my truck in the first place. One of my friends had the back window stolen out of his car. He found it in the market and bought it back.

On the way home we saw another Toyota Tundra like mine and someone suggested we could just “borrow” their mirrors. That made me laugh. It could be like a game…Tundra owners constantly taking mirrors from other Tundra owners. Maybe we could even make up t-shirts or something…

A couple of other prayer requests before I go. A couple of the guys are dealing with family issues that are pretty tough. One of the guys’ father drinks a lot. Sunday morning at church I asked him how his evening went (he spent Saturday night out at his house) and he just made a so-so movement with his hand. There’s more to the story that I can’t really get into, but suffice to say it’s a difficult situation.

One of the other guys is having problems as well, with his family. It’s not surprising I guess. There were reasons these guys ended up on the streets in the first place. But if you could pray for them, that’d be great.

One final request. One of the guys is thinking about leaving the home after this school year ends in December. We talked about it the other day, and I feel pretty strongly it’s not the right decision. There’s a whole story that goes along with this, but ultimately (and he agrees with this) it’s because he really can’t believe that God has a future for him…or that he even deserves that future if He does. That’s what’s killing me. So please pray for him as well. He says he hasn’t made up his mind yet, so I’m praying that God will work in him to help him understand how destructive this way of thinking will be for him.

So…that’s Monday here in Bolivia. Thanks for reading and (hopefully) laughing along with the craziness that is my life here. And more importantly, thanks for praying! I really can sense when people at home are praying for us here. It makes a difference.
 

This is just a quick note to ask you to pray for us.  Not sure what’s going on exactly, but it feels like we’re in a bit of a battle today (and yesterday).  I was telling Isabel this morning that these things seem to come in waves, and we’re definitely getting hit by a big one right now.  Some of the guys are fine…but others (more than normal) seem to be struggling with emotional/personal issues.  I’m feeling it for sure.  

It’s not like we haven’t been here before…we have.  And it’s not like I don’t know it’ll pass…it will.  But still…when you’re in the middle of it, it’s a bit tough to catch your breath.  The problem is, these are the times that the guys need more of a helping hand, but I’m feeling a little…whatever-ish.

Anyhow, thanks for praying.  As a side note, we played “Four on a Couch” last night at youth group.  Whoever invented that game needs a pat on the back.  We played it when I was in youth group and I’ve made every group I’ve ever worked with play it too.  It crosses every cultural barrier I’ve ever seen and everyone enjoys it.  It was a good time.  Good job “Four on a Couch” inventor guy…  
 

Yesterday, Jimmy, Juan and I set off in the afternoon to see if the road to some nearby waterfalls was open or not. It also seemed a good opportunity to break in the new truck. I want to take the guys camping to these waterfalls soon, but the last time I travelled this road…it didn’t turn out so great. We came around a corner to find the road was washed out. But of course my friends and I figured that shouldn’t stop us. It…did.

So as we left the highway yesterday, and turned onto the sand road that would quickly deteriorate into ruts and rocks (as it turned out), I asked the guys if they were ready for an adventure. Jimmy turned to me and said, “I’m always ready.”

Which is why I appreciate that kid. =) He really is always ready. His life hasn’t been easy, but he always seems to manages to face most things in life with a smile on his face. And so, with the windows down and the music blasting, we manoeuvred our way across the first river we had to cross and then punched it into four-wheel drive (no more wading through knee deep mud to lock the wheel hubs) and off we went.

There were a few…dicey…moments, shall we say. The solution to the aforementioned washout was to push most of the trees out of the way and then just drive over the mudslide. A couple of times I was trying to avoid tree branches scraping the side of my truck, when I realized that sliding into the ruts (or off a cliff) was going to break…well, more things than a scratch in the paint would.

As I said, I had a couple of “Oh oh…” moments as we drove over/around/through various obstacles/ravines/mudholes. But in the end I pulled into up to the entrance to the waterfalls with a sense of pride in my new truck. It had, in my opinion, proven itself more than worthy. I drove through the gate, basking in the warm glow of my pride and satisfaction…and parked next to a little Toyota Corolla station wagon taxi that had obviously just made the same trip. A happy little family played soccer in the field, as the taxi driver sat peacefully under a nearby tree. I’m pretty sure I got a sense of smugness (and possibly contempt) from him as I parked my big, muddy, four-wheel drive monster beside his little (clean), toy of a car. I guess it’s true that if you pay enough, taxi drivers here can (and will) get you there.

Jimmy and Juan had never been to these waterfalls, so before we headed back to the city, we did a little hiking and swimming (and cliff jumping). It was a good way to end the day. I’m looking forward to taking the rest of the guys camping there. It’s a beautiful spot. None of the guys have ever been camping before, so it should be fun. A couple of years ago, I took groups of guys from the home where I was volunteering on overnight camping trips there. I’ve always been bothered that the guys are growing up with very few happy memories from their childhoods. I set out to try and build some good memories, and since camping is something I enjoy (and something I loved doing with my family when I was a kid), it seemed a good idea.

It’s funny…the younger guys at the home were pretty excited (you can read about that experience here), but I had to do a bit of convincing with some of my older guys. They really are city kids to the core. One guy (I won’t embarrass him by saying his name) was pretty concerned about the possibility of being eaten by an anaconda. And while anacondas do exist here (I drove over one with my truck once), it’s fairly unlikely that you’d be eaten by one while camping. In the end I lured them in by promises of good food. We need to do something like this soon. The guys have all been stressed to various degrees with classes…personal stuff…family issues. We all need a break.

A couple of prayer requests before I go. Isabel has taken over the organizing of the educational side of the home. To my great relief. I can ask your basic “How was school today?” questions, but I generally don’t have the answers to the challenges the guys are facing. Most of our guys are struggling to various degrees, adjusting to full-time studies, and need some encouragement/kicks to the butt. I’m good with the personal “How’s life?” conversations, but I know nothing about the educational system here. It’s a good thing God brought Isabel along or I’d be dead.

Anyhow, she sat down with most of the guys last night and talked with them about how things are going. Some are doing well…others not so much. Some of the guys still struggle with a sense of not being worthy or wanting to quit as soon as things get difficult. I knew that was an issue going in…it’s one of the reasons I want to do this. That’s a mind-set that needs to change. It’s about having a sense of purpose and knowing that God does have a future for them. Both Isabel and I need wisdom to know how to best encourage and challenge the guys to move forward.

As well, there are still some other issues that are plaguing us. Things that I need to deal with. I know that God will bring us through it all, but it can get a bit overwhelming at times. And when you’re dealing with the same issue in a person’s life for the millionth time…it gets a bit frustrating. But again, I need to remember who I’m working with and have patience. It’s a balance some days….not to make excuses for someone’s behaviour, but at the same time having patience and compassion.

And that brings this day’s epistle to a close. It’s hot and sunny out, and I’ve been enjoying the air conditioning of this restaurant for far too long. It’s time to get out there and sweat a little…

Thanks for reading and for praying. Once again…we appreciate it.

PS I let Andres drive the new truck the other day. It was fun. Especially when we found a strip of empty road and I let him punch it a bit. The wide eyes and big grin were pretty entertaining. But then I was like, “Okay brother…slow down a bit. Okay…slow down now. Time to go a bit slower. ANDRES, SLOW DOWN!”

It seems he enjoys the speed…
 

Life always seems to move in cycles here. I’ll be celebrating some good steps forward by one of the guys, just in time to see someone else fall flat on their face…sometimes it’ll even be the guy who just took the good steps forward.

So we deal with those difficult moments, and then celebrate again when positive things happen. Always moments of celebration and thanksgiving…followed by difficulty and frustration…followed once again by celebration. In the difficult times I remember that good things will happen again…and when good things are happening, it’s helpful to remember that no one is perfect and bad choices will once again be made.

I try my best to remain level headed and balanced. Joyful when life is good, and the guys under my care are making wise choices…but not too frustrated when life is a struggle and I want to smack someone upside the head. Some days I succeed better at that, than others.  Although…I have yet to smack anyone upside the head.  =)

At any rate, yesterday was just such a day. I felt like I had a checklist of conversations I needed to have. “One down, three to go…” “Two down, two to go…”, etc. Right now I’m sitting at three down, and just one to go. The first three conversations went well I think. As a result of some of the choices these guys have made in the past, they’re dealing with some fairly serious consequences in their lives. It can get complicated sometimes. Especially when I’m attempting to share advice and counsel in a language that is still a bit mystifying to me most days. But I certainly felt God’s guidance in the conversations, and I think we made some good headway.

But this last conversation I need to have is a difficult one. It’s one of those situations where we were just celebrating how well this guy was doing…and now there’s a potential issue to be dealt with. Possibly a big one. I don’t want to be too cryptic, but it’s one of those situations where someone is lying, wether it’s my guy or someone else. Either way it’s not going to be an easy route to navigate.

I certainly need wisdom and a sense of God’s leading. Feel free to pray about that. I’m trying to be sensitive to God’s timing on this, and approach the topic in the right moment. Sometimes I’m good at that…other times not so much. Usually when I go blasting in on my own…that’s when things get dicey.

Please continue to pray for us here. Some days it’s easy to celebrate and be joyful. Other days the spiritual battle rages. The line drawn in John 10:10 is never more obvious than it is down here.

But God is good, and even though we experience our ups and downs…there are always more up moments. I can see that, where the guys are now is better than where they were a year ago. And that’s encouraging.

Well…to end on a funny note…the vegetables wars have begun in our house. I’ve been trying to get the guys to eat more vegetables. It’s an attempt to balance the fact that the guys fry everything. So I bought some green beans the other day and told one of the guys to add them to whatever he was cooking. Somehow I don’t think three beans chopped into microscopic pieces and added to the pasta counts.

So then I made a stir fry that actually had more than two vegetables in it. One of the guys was really struggling to make his way through the broccoli and cauliflower. I told him that maybe his brain was saying no, but his body was thanking him. Yesterday the guys made soya juice…juice made from soya…one of the foulest concoctions ever created. I was in the process of “politely” refusing, when that same guy plopped a glass down in front of me and told me that maybe my brain was saying no, but that my body would thank me later.

I hate it when my advice comes back to bite me..

Umm…so yea….don’t ask me if I drank it.  I’d hate to ruin whatever good opinions you might have of me.
  

I had one of those days the other day. It was ridiculous. It was the kind of day that, if something could possibly go wrong, it did. Everything from flat tires to dead batteries to traffic tickets (I sort of ran a red light. In my defence, the traffic lights here can be a bit tough to spot sometimes. They get put up wherever might be convenient for the guy putting them up…not necessarily what’s convenient for the guy driving, who’s trying to spot them…).

At any rate, the whole day was like that…just one thing after another. That night when I was getting ready for bed, I took off my jeans and realized my underwear was on backwards.

I’m not sure if that explains my day…but it pretty much sums it up nicely.
 

I got home the other night at around 10 PM, to find one of the guys waiting and upset. He’d gotten a call from a family member that his older brother, who still lives on the streets, had been in a fight and was hurt. He wanted to know if we could go look for him to see if he needed help. For sure I said yes…so off we went.

As we drove to where he thought his brother was, I called my parents to ask them to pray for us, (I think they’re getting used to these phone calls). I was feeling a little skittish after my last experience a couple of weeks ago. I had gotten a phone call from one of the guys I’m good friends with who still lives on the streets. He was upset and asked that I come down to the main plaza right away. I had plans in less than an hour, and I tried to explain that to him, but he was too worked up to listen. I was pretty sure he was high as well, so that didn’t exactly help.

Eventually I agreed to go see him. His brother, also on the streets, had been beat up and had was hurt. It was hard to figure out from the conversation how bad it was, but I figured it’d be best to go and see if he needed to go to the hospital. I met my friend and we went to an area where the street kids hang out. He needed to ask around to figure out exactly where his brother was. He’d only heard through the grape vine about what had happened.

While he was talking to some of the other kids, I saw another fellow start to walk towards my truck. I did a quick scan of my truck to make sure there was nothing laying around that easily stealable. It’s not that I want to think badly about every street kid I meet. But the truth is…when someone is using drugs, you really can’t trust them. I’ve learned to be careful. My truck was mostly empty (it’s been ready to be sold for the past two months…as I wait for the new truck…), so I figured everything was fine.

I really, REALLY wish I’d thought about the faceplate on my stereo….

The first kid who walked up to the truck was a kid I knew from the home I volunteer at. I hadn’t realized he’d gone back to the streets. I chatted with him for a couple of minutes, and then another kid walked up. He said he knew me, but I didn’t recognize him. The truth is, he made me a bit suspicious. He walked around to the passenger side of my truck, acting like he was planning to get in. That idea didn’t sit so well, so I hit the door locks. But the window was open and so he stood there and talked with me. Then my friend came back and for just a moment I was distracted and looked the other way. In that split second, the other kid reached in, hit the release on my stereo, grabbed the faceplate and took off. My buddy took off after him, but he had too much of a head start. He busted the stereo too, since he didn’t wait for it to completely open before he pulled the faceplate off.

That was a bit of a disappointing moment. I had plans for that stereo. The truck isn’t running that great…so I was hoping the stereo (which was a nice one) would distract any potential buyer away from some of the…less stellar aspects of the truck. =)

In the end though, God used the situation. My friend was pretty upset and started to cry. He kept asking why these things always happen to him. I explained (as compassionately, but firmly as I could) that many of the difficult things that happen to him are a direct result of his own decisions. In the past he’s blamed God for all the trials and tribulations that have come his way. But the reality is, he experiences many of these things (not all) because of the lifestyle he’s chosen. I explained to him that God has something much better for him, but he has to make a choice.

We ended up talking for nearly an hour. We never did find his brother. He made some decisions (one was to leave the streets and seek help), but sadly, I’m not holding my breath. I went to see him a couple of days later, and he was his old self again…making jokes and still living on the streets.

Anyhow, back to the other night. We ended up finding this fellow, and talking to him for a long time. This is the oldest brother in the family (there’s another younger brother, who I know actually, still on the streets as well). This guys’s probably around thirty. For sure there’s a profound sadness when you see a child or teenager on the streets. But somehow you still have the hope that there’s time for the direction of their lives to change. Seeing an adult still trapped in all the same bondages and addictions is really heartbreaking. This fellow has a daughter who is living in a children’s home. I talked to him about what a blessing it was to have a daughter, and how sad it was that she was growing up without a father. That he was missing the joy of raising her.

In the end, we prayed for him, and then I bought him some food and we gave him a few Bolivianos. His cut wasn’t too bad, although no doubt it’ll leave another scar. We told him that we would continue to pray for him. Both the fellow from my place and this older brother had tears in their eyes when we left. No one wants this, least of all this older brother. But I think he’s convinced that there aren’t any other options anymore.

So please pray for this fellow and for the guys in our house who still have family members living on the streets. I can’t imagine what it must be like to watch someone you love choose to live such a destructive lifestyle. I took a couple of the guys aside later and told them how happy I was that they were living here. There wasn’t any of our usual joking around. These guys know exactly what they’ve been saved from.