Anayeli, and some turtles

This is my little friend, she comes to visit me usually every day, and we play checkers.

Recycling

We dropped off the recycling we've been collecting to a guy named Don Kiko in a neighboring "village". Always an adventure. So far we've earned about $11 that we're donating to a drug and alcohol rehab center. Don Kiko told us we should sift through the local dump and bring him more plastic bottles (at 1 peso/kilogram, equal to 5 American cents per pound). I respectfully said we weren't that interested in hanging out at the dump and that and we'd probably just stick to collecting recycling stuff from our house and our Club 121 kids' houses, probably whatever we come across in the streets too. Don Kiko is a little different from the recycling drop-off for the City of Independence, MO that we were accustomed to in the U.S. But it works. He's closeby...and colorful.

Norma and kids

So last night we're enjoying being in, getting ready to read The Hobbit (We decided to start the series recently). It was around 10pm and we hear knocking at the door. There I found our friend Norma (early 30s). She's like, "what's up, so this dog bit me tonight, see here's my wound, and can you guys watch my kids (5 of them, age 1 - 12) tomorrow from 8am to 1pm or maybe until 3pm when you'd need to then take them to the Children's Day event in the plaza and watch them there?". I was thinking to myself, it's kind of late at night to be asking for the next morning and the next morning is Saturday and 8am is kind of early, so I checked with Christy and we said "sure".

She arrived at 7:45am and dropped them off. Then she came back at 8:30 and picked them up. Apparantly she was going to clean the Catholic church today to earn a little money. She said they clean it with diesel fuel, to which we asked, "isn't that a little dangerous, like if someone is smoking or something?". She said no, not dangerous like, of course it's not dangerous. But the guy who was going to bring diesel fuel showed up and when asked about the diesel said he forgot to bring it. So away the kids went with Norma, which was just as well with us, although Christy was really quite enjoying herself with Cheerios and puzzles.

Lupe and our Compañera (co-worker) Amber

Lupe's Ministry

So maybe now we´ll actually start blogging. It took a while to get going on it. As much as we have struggled in the relationship with our "partner" church (Torre Fuerte), we see new life springing up outside the bounds of the status quo constraints we´ve been experiencing with Torre Fuerte.

Lupe is a local guy from Croc in his early thirties. He's been working with the street kids and other chavos (teenage guys) in Croc for a few years now. His goal has always been to draw the chavos into a close relationship with Christ by reaching them on their turf. He used to spend his free time in the streets hanging out with the guys that hung around in a sort-of gang on the corner. He is genuinely interested in each of these chavos individually. So they started hanging out with him, not just on "their" corner, but also in front of his house, then in his house, so much so, that his "free time" dried up. They brought their problems to Lupe, He opened up his home to the chavos and now you can´t go to Lupe´s house and find less than 3 or 4 guys there hanging out, playing foosball, lifting waits, playing guitar, improv rapping, or just chillin' in a safe environment.

Lupe and two of our YouthFront co-workers (Rodolfo and Amber) started a weekly prayer on Wednesday nights that has now turned into sort of a house church meeting at Lupe's house. Within the last few months, it's grown from 5-8 people to now more than 60 at last week's Prayer. He leads worship there, prays, opens up the floor to those who want to share testimonies, short talks, prayer requests. The Holy Spirit is powerful at these Prayer gatherings. The chavos sense it and are hungry for more.

Throughout the week, Lupe serves dinner to anyone who comes to his house. On friday night, a group of the chavos go with Lupe to visit different families in the community. There they pray with the family and share the gospel with them, sing a few songs and drop off a "dispensa" (some food basics) for the family. Then everyone meets back up at Lupe's house for "Rasa en la Casa" (maybe a rough translation would be "homies in the house"), where they eat together and hang out till late into the night.

Lupe is visionary. He is empowering some of the chavos to be in charge of various things like: a soccer team to play in an upcoming league, a theatre group, guitar lessons, and I'm sure I'm already behind on everything else he's scheming.

Christy and I have attending the Wednesday Prayer for a couple months and we receive so much being there just worshipping and praying with all the young people. It's amazing to see so many "street guys" piled into a small space, just soaking up God's word and praying together.

It's been a tough week

A few things come to mind:
1) Coco came on Monday to tell us he had gotten drunk, and high over the weekend. First "fall" since starting rehab 5 months ago.

2) We were told this week we will no longer be able to use our second Club 121 house because the owners are selling it and raising the rent in the meantime. So we're scrambling to find another location.

3) Went to Laredo mid week to renew a vehicle permit and got the worst diarhea that I'd ever experienced. It took it out of me (literally) in a way that I'm still feeling a bit.

4) Polo (15) is being a punk. He borrowed a bike, didn't return it till I went and got it back from him, at which point he started talking to his friend, who was with him, about going smoking. I think he does stuff like this to try to get a reaction from me. It makes me ask, have we even made a difference with this kid? How could we have done better? How can we do better mentoring and doing discipleship with him?

5) Some of the ladies from Torre Fuerte church taught a lesson for Club 121. They dropped a few frustrating surprises on us, and left us feeling like, why do we even try to collaberate? (more on this a little below)

So yeah, I feel a bit worn out from the week. Some weeks are like that.

Here's the story with the church ladies helping with the Club 121 lesson:
We invited a couple of the "hermanas" (ladies from our "partner" church, Torre Fuerte) to teach a Bible lesson to our Club 121 (after-school program) kids. They told us they'd love to help, but we'd need to ask Pastor Martinez first. I don't know how many of you know much about the difficult relationship we have with the Torre Fuerte church (pastors particularly), but that's a small example of the pastor's absolute control over the church member's lives. So we asked him and he told us yes, they could help, but "don't pay them". We were like, "ok, we wouldn't pay them to come teach a Bible lesson, so no problem." We don't pay people to volunteer with us, only our full time staff. So then a couple days later the assistant pastor, Samuel, approached Christy worriedly and told her we need to ask ALL the main "hermanas" from the church to get involved so some didn't feel left out, and that we'd have to manage them so that each one took an equal role so no one would get upset. At that point we were like, is this even worth it? (no, but we were too far along.)

Christy had asked the ladies to teach about Jesus, from the New Testament. We told them we were specific like that because last semester we did a lot of old testament lessons and this semester we're focusing on the life and ministry of Jesus, trying to help the kids get to know who this Jesus really is. They showed up with a lesson about Jonah and focused the lesson on obediancy and punishment for disobediancy. We were thinking, man, this really isn't turning out well, but at least it's just one time. But no, it wasn't to be. After the lesson they told the kids, "see you next week to talk more about Johan", at which point my blood pressure went up I'm sure. Turns out they have a four-part series we didn't see coming. What do you even do with stuff like this? You try to plan, and then to communicate clearly, specifically. "Flex and flow" is our motto. Sometimes easier to say than to live out.

Valentine's Day Photos

Us, pretending to be in a mariachi band. Hard to hug in these hats, even harder to kiss.

















Kids, trying not to laugh. can't do it.