Our street team is hitting the pavement once again. This week we uncovered a new group of street kids in a completely different canal in another part of the city. It's a huge canal, underneath one of the main roundabouts in the city. We met new boys Pacho, Carlos, & Christian; and some old friends we hadn't seen in a while like Jorge, Epson, Shirley, Michel, Jose & Freddy. Although their 'sleeping quarters' are a bit more spacious, & there's no bullying from the police as of yet here - the plight of these kids & their blindness to their own destruction just breaks your heart. Surrounded by trash, human feses, rats, & drugs - what begins as a Huck Finn like adventurous existence quickly becomes addiction, disease & even death.
Jorge, a boy we've known for several years, who's now 19, upon waking up, let us know it was his birthday the other day. No sooner had he gotten the words out of his mouth, & another kid piped up & said, 'yeah, this sissy tried to hang himself on his birthday, had it not been for some little kid who found him in a noose & brought him down, he would've killed himself.' Jorge responded w/ silence, head hung low & ashamed. It's a dark reality & a lonely existence. We urged Jorge to let us take him to a rehab center for young adults that morning, and he just was not interested. Pray for him, his salvation & also for Jose, Pacho, Carlos, Christian & the other kids mentioned above. Time is NOT on their side, but God longs to do a redemptive work in them!
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