My Story

Ok, so you’re a newcomer to my site.  You see pictures of children in Peru, yet hear of my eventual move to Honduras.  I can see how this might be confusing.  So, to clear things up…ahem…

My Story:

My first experience doing missions in a Spanish speaking country was around 2004, where I spent six months in Guadalajara, Mexico.  At the end of my stay there, I couldn’t wait to get home.  I thought, ‘Shouldn’t I be more sad to leave these people behind?’  Many similar experiences would follow.  In my head, it would go something like this, ‘Well, I’m fluent in Spanish, and I’m a Christian, so I should really consider doing some missions.’   The thing is, I was never sad to leave and never truly enjoyed my time there.  I wasn’t passionate about anyone’s eternal soul, it was just about enduring it so I could get home.   Great reason to be a missionary, right?

Well, fast forward to my first trip to Puerto Alegria, Peru, in the summer of 2008.   The children: 40 boys who had formerly been abandoned, neglected or abused in some way.  The place: about 30 miles (boat miles, that is) outside the jungle city of Iquitos.  The journey: about 1 1/2 days.  It only took a week for me to fall in with the boys I encountered there, in this home in the middle of the Amazon Jungle.  It was hot, mosquitoes were everywhere, there was no electricity…and I didn’t want to leave.  I knew something in me had changed.

Several more trips like that would follow.  After each trip, I was always asking myself and the Lord if he had something more for me, like something for a longer period of time.  I looked and looked for an opportunity that seemed to fit.  In November of 2009, I participated in a “Vision Retreat” through Mission to the World, wherein I would explore whether God might have me work with abandoned children for a longer term.  He was silent and vocal all at the same time.  I met Mike Pettengill, the team leader for Honduras, and felt instantly drawn to know more about the work they were doing there.

In March of 2010, I took a trip down to see the ministry in La Ceiba.  I didn’t know what God would say, but I was ready to listen.  I spent a week with The Pettengills and saw a typical week in the life of a missionary family.  It was nothing spectacular.  Just life.  I knew I wanted to invest in the street children wherever I ended up.  Team Honduras had already established a vision of reaching the street children in the area, and were praying for someone to come and carry that vision along.  Well, folks, that’s me.  God has confirmed it in more ways than I can even write.

I chose the name, “A Voice in the Streets”, not only because I want to be a voice proclaiming God’s truth to them, but also because I want to be their voice to you.  You see, these children are voiceless.  They have no way of telling their stories, of letting the world know who they are.  I will be their voice for you.

So now begins the journey of support raising and a hopeful August 2011 departure date.  I can’t wait.

PS–These are all pictures of children in HONDURAS.  Just to clear that up.

Answered Prayer

Remember this post?  The issue of identity in the things other than Christ has always been a struggle for me.  It manifests itself pretty strongly in my involvement in the boys’ home in Puerto Alegria, Peru.  I tend to throw myself so completely into it, thus creating an identity that is way too closely intertwined with them.  I forget that I am first a child of God, THEN I am a Spanish-speaker/teacher.

This can get sticky when things down there don’t work out as you planned.  For example, you get there and a child you have devoted yourself to praying for and loving is gone.  Or perhaps you get there and aren’t received like you thought you’d be.  You find yourself feeling desolate and confused.  What’s my purpose now?  There are a million different reasons why putting your identity in earthly things just doesn’t work.

Before this past trip, I prayed.  A lot.  I prayed that I would be able to love them with the love of Christ, not with my own, self-seeking, satisfaction-needing love.  I prayed that whatever happened when I got there, I’d be able to love them because of and through Christ, not my own efforts.  God really answered my prayers.  This trip was different.  I wasn’t anxious of how I would be received.  I didn’t feel a need to win anyone’s approval.  I was just there to love.  That’s it.  Ahhh.  Sweet relief.  Praise be to God.

“The saint who is intimate with Jesus will never leave impressions of himself, but only the impression that Jesus is having unhindered way, because the last abyss of his nature has been satisfied by Jesus.”  –Oswald Chambers

Here’s a few pictures I took with my SWEET new camera!

Junior blowing bubbles.

Nixon, who let me pat him on the back for the first time. Some of these kids have been so hurt by the adults in their lives that they won't allow themselves to feel or receive love. Praise God for changes in his heart.

Oriel. He has grown so much! Check out the post linked to above to see an older picture of him.

Edward is new to Puerto Alegria. 9 years old and has come from a life on the streets. My prayer is that he STAY. I know that those who arrive from the streets often go back to the "freedom" of the streets. Pray with me that he stays where he can be loved and fed.

Luis, now five years old.

Ronald, who has been close to my heart since my very first trip.

Identity Crisis Continues

Will I ever stop putting my identity in things other than Christ?  It feels like a battle that cannot be won.  (Remember this post? And this one?)

We’ve been studying the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42) this week.  In reading over it last week before church, I could see myself so clearly in Martha.  Joel’s sermon only confirmed it. You see, Mary was content to sit at Jesus’ feet.  She was content to SIT and listen to his Words. Martha was not satisfied to just be in Jesus’ presence.  She needed to be DOING something for him.  But, I don’t think it was for HIM.  I think it was for HER.  I know because she is ME.

This battle for me lies mostly in my ministry to the boys at the home in Puerto Alegria.  I so desire for my time with them to be an overflow of love for Jesus.  That I would be so fixed on Him, that it would just spill out onto them.  But, frankly, it just isn’t.  My time with them is mostly an overflow of love for THEM.  This seems good, at first.  But then, it rears it’s ugly head when they don’t love ME back.  When they don’t respond to ME in the way that I want them to.  Then the awful realization dawns on me: I have made THEM my object of worship, not HIM.  It’s not for Christ and His glory at all, it’s for me and my own satisfaction.  If it were unto the Lord, and not unto THEM, then it wouldn’t matter so much to me how they respond to me, because it is unto HIM.

Then, perhaps, I wouldn’t come back from Peru so completely depressed and down and out because I feel I have left my purpose right there on the banks of the Itaya River.  You see, my purpose is Christ.  My ministry is knowing and loving Christ, wherever I am.

“Wretched [woman] that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24)

Oriel, who "loves" me and always responds in the way I "need" him to.

 

Hox, who can be so tender, (like in this picture) yet at times can utter words that, if you don't have the right perspective, will cut you down to the core. (PS--He's also the "cameraman" in the last video post)

Luis again

This is an old video, but in light of our upcoming trip, I thought it deserved reposting. Enjoy!

Loneliness

Me and Rene

Rene is beautiful.  Big brown eyes with long eyelashes.  10 years old and can dance like you wouldn’t believe.  He and his brother, Marcelo, came to Puerto Alegria after a neighbor kept finding them unsupervised in their house for weeks at a time.

It was close to the time that we (the team) would be leaving Puerto Alegria.  I was giving my last Bible lesson and the boys were absolutely horrible.  Teaching former street children is hard enough in itself.  But this day was especially hard.  And Rene’s behavior was one of the worst.  By the end of the class, he was laying on the floor in defiance.

I pulled him up off of the floor.  He wouldn’t look at me, his body limp in defiance and defeat.  I sat him next to me on the bench and put my arms around him.  I told him that I loved him and that there was nothing that he could do that would make me not love him.  I told him that God loved him in the same way, but so much more.  Still not looking at me, he put his arms around me and laid in my lap.  He stayed there for a good while.

These boys experience loneliness that is beyond what I or most people can imagine.  As Willy (the in-house disciplinarian) shared with me, the nights are the worst.  They go to sleep with no one to tuck them in.  No one to remind them to brush their teeth.  No one to make sure they have clean pajamas and a teddy bear.  They go to sleep lonely and wake up lonely.  There are days that the loneliness turns into an anger that they carry with them throughout the day.  I think this day was one of those, perhaps exasperated by the knowledge that we were soon to be leaving.

When I try to imagine the loneliness they feel, I become thankful for my own times of loneliness.  Not only does it give me a bit of an understanding of what they feel, but it is also a vehicle for God to communicate his ever-present message: I am enough for you, Kate.  And the more I learn this, the more I am able to believe it for them.  I am not there to wrap my arms around them and to tell them that they are loved.  But God is.  And He is enough.

PS–He wears that thing on his head because he INSISTED that I give him a haircut instead of the worker there who usually cuts their hair.  He regretted it for the rest of the week.