So my plans to update my blog with pics and stories of Christmas with the guys and the team from Canada, as well as the supper we helped with for street kids….not happening.  Even though I definitely have time on my hands (I have nothing but time right now…), my internet isn’t working.  I went to the company today…and they have no idea what’s wrong either (I’m writing this from my friend’s place).  For some reason the modem died.

I’ve mentioned many times over the years that if I touch something technical or electronic…it stops working.  It’s true.  Nothing I can do about it. 

So maybe tomorrow….that’s what they tell me.  That’s what they’ve told me many times in fact.

As a side note, my I-pod and the TV also stopped working on the same night.  Explain that one.  Please.  They were both fine one day and not the next… 

So, we’re without TV (not a bad thing) and I’m without my I-pod (a sadder thing).
  

I’m having kind of a rough day.  Just with the back stuff.  I was better for a bit last week, but today isn’t so great again.  But whatever…that’s not the point of this post.  I was taking the opportunity to download pictures off my camera, and I came across these.  I think they were taken before Christmas one night when I was driving Isabel home and I’d left my camera out.

I know they’re kind of repetitive…that’s what makes them funny.  =) 

Personal favourites…Jesus with the toaster and pot that Uncle Norman and Nancy gave us for a housewarming gift.  He’s got a scowl that says he’s ready for anything…and he’s holding a toaster. 

Also the last two…

Anyhow…hope they’re funny to other people and it’s not just the painkillers.  My guys…they’re a creative bunch… 

There’s really not much more to say….
 

Just a quick note to let you know that Juan left this morning.  I talked with him for quite a while last night, as did Isabel and our other volunteer Maribel.  It’s a sad thing for sure, but he left knowing that we still care for him and want to help him.  He was calm and thoughtful as we talked and prayed together last night.

Please continue to pray for Juan.  He’s a good kid.  He’s just not making good choices right now.  He desperately needs to be set free from his past.  He needs to learn that healing for his pain is not going to be found anywhere other than in Christ.

He’s planning on coming to church with us on Sunday, so that’s good.  I talked to the guys for a long time about how we can be an encouragement to him.  Some of the guys here weren’t very gracious to him earlier in the month.  They knew (before I did) what was going on in Juan’s life, and instead of coming alongside him as brothers…they hassled him and said some kind of harsh things.  I had to take them to task about that, but in the end, it was a good learning experience for all of us. 

One of the guys here is especially black and white.  He holds himself to a fairly graceless standard, and then ends up applying that same standard to others.  We talked a lot about how to be firm in our convictions but still have compassion for people who are struggling.  Hopefully it helped him.  He’s never had anyone in his life show him much grace, so it’s hard for him to understand.

At any rate, I can see God and work using this situation to deepen and teach us.  And the ministry continues here.  As Juan leaves, I have two more guys moving in next week.  Possibly a third, but I have to think and pray a bit more about that situation.

Other good news is that both Juan and Franz passed the entrance exam to get into university.  That’s a huge thing.  Literally hundreds of other students didn’t.  They’ve been taking classes for the past few months to prepare for the exam, and we hired a tutor to help them.  I was there when they found out, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them quite that excited or happy.  

A couple of other things quickly.  My back is still bothering me.  I’ve been on bed-rest (more or less) for nearly a month now.  Certainly I’m better than I was, but it feels like I’ve hit a plateau and nothing much is changing now.  It’s pretty frustrating.  So I would appreciate prayer for that.

As well, Jorge is home and doing well.  I haven’t seen him yet, but I plan to go over to his house sometime soon and see how things are going.  Thanks again to all of you who prayed and gave.  It’s really a miracle that he’s with us and recovering so well.  Thanks for being a part of that.  

And thanks again for praying.  We all appreciate it!  =)  
  

My friend Corina said an interesting thing the other day.  She works with families who are trying to get off the streets.  She said that everyone is welcome to study at her centre (she provides job training to help these families learn to support themselves in honest and positive ways)…but the first rule is that they have to be willing to change.  If they don’t want to change, her centre is not the place for them. 

That struck a chord with me.  I’ve said many times to my guys that I’m willing to give anyone an opportunity.  What they do with that opportunity is their choice.  Sadly, not everyone uses the opportunities given to them wisely.  Unfortunately I had to ask one of the guys to leave the house this week.  It’s been a while coming.  We had some issues come up in the fall, and then again in the beginning of January.  But I really believed that things were changing for this young guy.  If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have said that he was doing well.  

But the truth that our “sin will find us out” came into play this week, and it turns out that he wasn’t being very truthful about some areas of his life.  He knew what the consequences of his actions would be if he was found out…like most of us, he just didn’t think he’d be found out.

What saddens me the most, is that I understand what he’s going through.  I understand where the motivation for his actions and choices is coming from.  These guys have grown up without much in the way of love and acceptance for most of their lives.  It’s easy for that need or desire to take precedence over everything else.

I tried to give this young guy as much grace as I could.  But I have a responsibility to the other guys in the house, so in the end, the decision was clear.  We had a good conversation.  Of course we were both sad, and at one point he asked me if I was disappointed in him.  I told him that it’s always difficult when a friend chooses to lie to you, but in the end, he still had my friendship and forgiveness.  That nothing could ever change that.  I also told him that our door was always open, and in six months or a year, if things were different for him, he would be welcome to come back.  I really hope that happens.  He’s a fellow that I’ve known for a long time.  When I first thought about this ministry, his name was one of the first I thought of, in terms of helping him.  

I also tried to encourage him to not let his pride get in the way of continuing to go to church and hanging out with us.  I know he feels bad and I imagine it’s going to be difficult for him to face the other guys.  I’m going to work at keeping in touch with him, but in the end that’s his decision.

Like I said, the conversation went as well as it could.  He understands why this is happening.  He’s not leaving probably until Thursday (he has the last of his classes for his English course this week), and today he was friendly and normal with me.  So that’s encouraging.

Please pray for this young guy.  Obviously he has some difficult choices and decisions ahead of him.  And he desperately (along with most of the guys here) needs God to heal the wounds from his past.  He knows this, but so far he hasn’t been willing to pursure it.  I could use your prayers as well.  My heart is pretty heavy right now.  But I’ve said many times, God taught me early on in ministry that it’s never the end of the story.  I know that God will continue the work that he began in my young friend’s life.  

I have another difficult conversation I need to have as well, with another of the guys.  I’m not asking him to leave, but he needs to start thinking more seriously about his life and choices, or I may have to. 

These are not decisions I make lightly.  If you know me at all, you understand that.  But in the end, sometimes difficult choices need to be made.  Sometimes we need to face the consequences of our decisions.  I trust and pray that God will use this experience to bring all the guys in the house into a closer relationship with Him…

Thanks in advance for your prayers.
           

Last May I bought a new truck. It was a nice truck. I waited six months before I finally got to drive the nice truck. Two days later someone stole the mirrors off of the nice, new truck.

So I decided an alarm system would be appropriate. But thanks to my parents, I can sometimes (not all the time, mind you…only when it’s important…) be cheap. With my last truck I had an alarm system professionally installed. It was expensive. This time, while I was at the automall getting tires, I decided to get sixteen year old Victor the alarm guy to install an alarm, as well. It was a spur of the moment decision, based mostly on the fact that I was bored while the tires were being put on and I liked the alarm activator key tag that this system had. And Victor seemed like a nice enough guy.

Five hours later as the automall closed and people went home, Jimmy (who was happily suffering with me) and I were still waiting while Victor the alarm guy continued to (try to) install the alarm system. Three hours in, he’d been joined by Jose who was now holding the flashlight and giving random pieces of advice. I didn’t catch all of his advice, but at one point as I leaned in the passenger window I heard, “You think? That doesn’t look right…”

I went back to sitting and waiting on the tailgate with Jimmy. There are some things I’m better off not knowing…

Eventually the alarm was installed, and Victor took the time to patiently try to explain to me how it worked. In fairness to Victor, I’d been sitting on my tailgate for six hours and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have cared less about anything. I accepted the manual (which I later discovered was written in six different languages including what looks like Mandarin Chinese…except, of course, English) and got the heck out of their. I figured, it’s a dumb alarm system. You push a button to turn it on and you push another button to turn it off. If bad guys try to steal something it makes a lot of noise. How complicated can it be?

Which brings us to last night….

Before I explain what happened last night, let me give you a little context and preface this by saying…I HATE this alarm. I hate it with every fibre of my being. I’ve never hated an inanimate object more in my life. Okay, that’s probably not true, but whatever. You get the point. Actually…it may have been true last night…but I’ll get to that.

The problem is, it’s got all these great little features that drive me crazy. For example, every time you start the vehicle, you have 30 seconds to push a little hidden button under the dash or the alarm starts to beep loudly. If you don’t push the little hidden button in time, the alarm activates and eventually the motor shuts off. Great in theory…dumb in practice. Because it’s not just when you start the motor. It’s every time you open a door. Any door. So when ten guys are constantly getting in and out of the truck…and I’m consistently forgetting to push the little secret button…the alarm is constantly going off.

Another example….if the truck is sitting idle (wether or not the motor is running) in park for more than 30 seconds, the alarm system turns itself on. And, as an added bonus, locks the doors. Doesn’t matter if the keys are in the ignition or not.

Wow, that’s a handy feature…

Oh yea, and I forgot one other thing. If you don’t push the little, secret button in time, and the alarm does activate. You can’t shut it off. Really…you can’t. You can push all the buttons and even different combinations of the buttons and even talk nicely to the alarm (or…not) and it doesn’t matter. It just keeps howling and beeping and screeching…until it randomly (and for no reason I can figure out) just stops on it’s own. I’m not sure, but I don’t actually think that’s part of the original system design. I think that might be something Victor the alarm guy added on his own.

I was at the market the other day with the guys to buy our weekly groceries. I hopped out to go to the bank, didn’t remember to hit the secret button, and was far enough away that when the warning beeping started I couldn’t get back in time to deactivate the system. David tried, but couldn’t find the secret button. Which, at least, tells me that would be car thieves probably wouldn’t find it either.

At any rate, there was nothing I could do. After trying everything I could think of, I finally went to the bank and left all the guys sitting in my truck as it did it’s screechy/howly thing (oh yea…and all the lights flash off and on too). I have to admit that I was somewhat entertained when I returned, by the pained expressions on the guys’ faces as they endured the truck’s little tantrum, with everyone walking by watching and wondering why the idiot guys in the truck weren’t shutting the alarm off.

Which brings me to last night…

At about 4 AM or so, one of the worst lightening and thunderstorms we’ve had this year started. As a side note, the lightening was so bad that it hit a building in our market and partially burned it down. Which is impressive since most things here are made of cement and brick and don’t burn much. Fires are rare. But this one did some damage.

But back to the storm. I was awakened to the BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP warning the system gives if something is close to setting off the alarm. I reached over and hit the button on the key tag and shut off the system. Thirty seconds later I heard the BEEP as the system rearmed itself, and then ten seconds later the BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP warning again. I again shut off the system. Thirty seconds later it rearmed and this time instantly activated as a rumble of thunder shook the house (and the truck). I hit the button and shut it off. Thirty seconds later it rearmed…

This continued for awhile. I got quicker though. When a flash of lightening lit up my room, I usually managed (but not always) to hit the deactivate button before the alarm went off. I got to the point where I just held the remote in my hand and tried to nap between claps of thunder. But then the rain really started to come down. My truck is parked under the eave of the roof, and since we don’t have eaves troughs here…all the water poured onto the roof of my truck. Which was enough to activate the alarm.

This went on for the better part of an hour and a half. Ruddy finally knocked on my door and told me he couldn’t sleep (his room is right beside my truck). I handed him the alarm remote and told him to knock himself out. He wasn’t any quicker on the draw than I was, and I could hear the alarm continuing to go off every thirty seconds or so.

Finally I’d had enough. I went downstairs and silently took the remote from Ruddy, who was, by then, watching TV.

And so…in my boxers… at 5:30 AM…in the pouring rain, I popped the hooded and yanked the battery cables off the battery, and with a sad little dying noise, the alarm gasped it’s last, and we were done for the night.

But don’t feel too bad for the dead alarm. It got it’s revenge this morning when I reconnected the battery cables and the alarm resumed at full blast just inches from my head. Scared the daylights out of me.

At any rate, it seems Victor the alarm guy and I need to have a little talk….
  

I saw a truck driving this morning that had (in English) “Strange things happen to me…” written across the back window. Yea…that made me laugh. Not sure if I’ve ever seen a stencilled message better capture of the essence of my life experience.

Which then raises a question. Is it just me? Or do other people have these same stories and just aren’t sharing. Obviously the driver of that truck felt the same. But in general…I kind of feel like it’s just me. Well…maybe me and a few others who are usually along for the ride. Sometimes it’s me who’s along for the ride (Cheryl), and I enjoy those moments. Somehow I feel less alone. =)

Anyhow, I’ve been examining (questioning) my life lately. How I’ve come to be where I am. That’s what happens when you spend two weeks sitting in your bed. After you’ve watched entire seasons of CSI, Lost and Corner Gas, along with every current movie out there, you run out of things with which to dull your mind with. So you end up thinking…

I imagine, to a certain extent, the strangeness of my life’s experiences may have something to do with the locations God has placed me in. There’s no doubt that living as a missionary in a foreign country, in the same house as a bunch of ex-street kids, does lend itself to a certain amount of adventure (I prefer that word to “strangeness”). I had a moment recently (in one of my darker days) when I wondered how and/or why I ended up here. I do enjoy the unpredictability of my life (mostly). But in this darker moment I was certainly feeling willing enough to exchange all the “adventure” in my life for a ministry that involved a white sand beach or a quiet village somewhere in rural Ireland. I use those examples because I have friends who were called to those places. Why them and not me?! Maybe (probably) they have their darker moments as well. But a dark moment on a beach sure beats a dark moment in 40 C weather without an ocean wave or palm tree in sight. Okay, yes…we have palm trees…but if there’s no beach, they don’t really count.

These past couple of weeks, the adventure/strangeness of my life has been wearing me down. The doctor (and other concerned parties) have been clear to me that my back problems are definitely being aggravated by stress. And yea…there’s been some stress. It’s probably a good thing my internet crashed over the weekend (after two days of being online in my house, my internet provider’s system crashed and I was back to living in the dark ages…). If I’d been online, I likely would have been ranting and complaining under the pretense of asking for prayer. =)  Sorry…it happens. It’s not that I don’t covet your prayers…I do. But sometimes a rant escapes me before I have a chance to stop and think about it.

Suffice to say the weekend was a rough one. Guys making seriously bad decisions and not feeling much remorse over said decisions. Guys acting like the world more or less revolves around them and not thinking much about anyone else. And…possibly, maybe a little bit of Ken feeling sorry for himself mixed in there.

At any rate, I ended up in Emergency last night for my back. It was pretty painful. My doctor graciously agreed to meet me there to see what was up. In the end, I ended up with another injection (in my end) for the pain. That actually leads into another funny story about an elderly nurse and her need to yank my jeans completely down, showing the world (emergency room) my backside, for a needle that generally goes into your hip just an inch or so below your belt line. Not sure what was up with that. But I digress….

The doctor gave me a bit of an ultimatum. I have to go back on Friday, and if things haven’t improved, “decisions” will have to be made. Yea, I have no idea what that means, but I imagine it’s not good.

I know in my heart that just because we’re going through a rough patch in the house with some of the guys right now…that’s not going to be the story forever. I do believe that…God has demonstrated that truth to me many times. But sometimes it’s still difficult. Truthfully, believing that wasn’t helping with the stress or my back much yesterday. I was feeling pretty strongly that I didn’t much want to be here anymore.

Then Isabel told me that her older sister had decided that it was time to step in, and was right then at the home talking to the guys. My initial response (in my head) was, “Oh oh.” Anna Maria is great, but she doesn’t suffer fools lightly. And truth be told, I had more than a couple of fools in my house. =)  I had visions of getting back to the house and being greeted by a room full of glowering teenagers who were not impressed by being spoken to by some lady they didn’t know very well.

But here’s where the story gets interesting. This is the part where I saw God at work and the unpredictability factor kicked in. I’m not entirely clear on what was said exactly. I do know that she arrived and told the boys to get their Bibles and meet her at the dining room table…they were going to do some Bible reading and praying. Which they did. When I arrived, I greeted everyone normally, didn’t look anyone in the eyes, and escaped to my room. A few minutes later, Anna Maria, Isabel and all of the guys filed into my bedroom. Anna Maria explained that the guys had something to share with me.

Like I said, I’m not really sure what was said in the meeting. But each one of the boys proceeded to very sincerely and emotionally apologize for their actions over the past month or so, and ask for my forgiveness. I’m not speechless very often, but that one caught me off-guard. I asked for their forgiveness for my attitude at times as well, and we prayed together.

And just that quickly, life made a right hand 90 degree turn. It was abrupt and I didn’t see it coming.

My back is still pretty sore. As is my hip where crazy nurse pincushioned me. But the house is peaceful and some friendships that were headed south have been restored. God’s providence and grace have again surprised me. My doctor’s appointment is tomorrow (and I would appreciate prayer on that one), so we’ll see what the future holds. But God has shown us (me) His goodness and faithfulness, and it feels good.

And so the adventure continues… I’ll write more when I know more. Thanks for praying everyone!