My First Two Weeks

I finally have a little time to tell everyone about what I've been doing. Unfortunately the computer in this internet cafe is a bit antiquated and doesn't read my camera, so I can't post pics right now, but I'll try to come back later and insert them.

So after my first couple days to tour Lima and the Scripture Union center in Lima, I set off to Kawai with a church youth group from Alabama. Kawai is about an hour south of Lima on the beach. There's a home there for the boys and bungalows that rent out to vacationers and church groups for retreats. The bungalows raise money to support Scripture Union.

We started construction on a couple new bungalows on the beach. We spent most of our days shoveling sand, shoveling concrete, and moving rocks. Fun, fun, fun. Then the real work began... playing with the boys.

Most of the boys in Kawai come from the boys' home in Lima so they can live away from the city. I'm going to try to post more information later on why the boys are abandoned by their mothers and what kind of conditions they live in, but I'll just be brief today.

I'll just say that in Perú, a street boy is the lowest of creatures, more despised than prostitutes. They hide and sleep in places like sewage pipes during the day and only come out at night. They can be as young as 4 years old. With the unemployment rate at 50%, they have absolutely no chance of getting any kind of small job to pay for food, so they survive by either stealing or selling themselves sexually. The smallest boys of 4 and 5 years old, of course, have almost no chance of stealing from somebody and getting away. The police are responsible for getting rid of the kids, not helping them. If the police catch a street boy, the boy will most likely be thrown into a police "dungeon" and be tortured. The boys that survive come to believe that they are worthless and deserve the suffering that they endure. The only thing that they have experienced in their lives that they associate with love is that which they exchange with perverts for a meal. This is why it's extremely difficult for them to understand the concept of a loving God or even another person that loves them.

With all that said, I was a bit surprised when I began to play with some of the boys. I found out that they're just like the little boys that I know from the states. They just want to be loved. The group from Alabama gave the kids lots of love, throwing them around, wrestling, and playing soccer. I was amazed when I found out how smart some of the boys are. One night they were quizzing some of us on tough Bible questions and it was embarrassing that they knew far more than we did. It's sad to think how many amazing kids are out in the streets when you realize what great potential they have.

Aside from the kids, I got to know the folks from Alabama really well, and another fun group from South Carolina joined us in Kawai. We all traveled to Puerto Alegria in the jungle together, which I'll talk about in my next post.

Yesterday I got to go back and visit the kids at Kawai and they were really happy to see me, even though I can barely communicate with them.

Now I'm out of time and I haven't even proofread this post. Forgive me - I'll clean it up later and add some pics. Oh yeah, and the food here is delicious.