Life in the Third World

Living in the third world, or the more recently coined phrase, "Global South", we are confronted with extreme poverty every day. Just a few blocks from our house is a main road with a canal running down the median. Living in the canal in makeshift "homes" are homeless drug addicts. Stopping at a stoplight in this area, they will rush to your car window wanting to clean it with a rag, hoping for 1 Boliviano (about 14 cents). Because we see this everyday, at times it is easy to roll up the window, shake your finger "no", look the other way, and not see the person trapped in this lifestyle. Going downtown, as is the case in many big cities, we are confronted with beggars. Mothers are sitting on the sidewalk with one or more dirty faced children, while the children come up to you with an outstretched hand, sometimes following you, sometimes pulling on your shirt. As a Christian, it's hard to know how to best help. We don't want to hand money to the drug addict, nor do we want to see children go hungry. A long term missionary that I respect once told me how she was trying to encourage the indigenous women she works with to sell their handiwork (purses and bags) instead of begging on the streets. There is a lot of theology involved in this advice that I won't go into here, but I really agree with what she said and with how she treats beggars. She tells them that if they have something to sell, she would be more than happy to buy it to help support them. This is a little oversimplified, but I hope it makes sense.

So, last Sunday night, we decided to go downtown for ice cream and a stroll in the central plaza to look at Christmas lights (sweating and in shorts :). While at the ice cream place, an Ayore(indigenous tribe) mom and her three kids passed us. When the mom sent the little girl, probably 8 years old, to come to us for money, I told her that if she had something to sell, I would buy it from her. She ran off, and through the window I watched her tell her mom, and then they proceeded to dig through the trash and find an empty water bottle. I watched her run to the bathroom with it and come back with a full bottle of water, which she then tried to sell me. It broke my heart. Here were my three clean healthy children with huge ice cream sundaes. We told her we couldn't buy that water, but that we would share some ice cream with her. The injustice of poverty is so completely overwhelming.

On another note, this past Sunday, we were able to host two orphans for the day. There are over 150 orphanages here in Santa Cruz alone. This one in particular wanted to give the kids a chance to spend time with a Christian family, while at the same time giving the staff a break. Georgia has a special place in her heart for orphans, praying for them almost nightly after hearing a talk at school from a woman who works in a girls' home. So on Sunday, we had two girls, one age 15, named Jenny and the other Christina, age 7. Jenny and her brother and sister live at the home and are true orphans. And Christina is the daughter of a prostitute from an indigenous tribe. We just shared our normal Sunday with them - church, out to lunch, home to play (which included painting nails, braiding hair, playing dolls and legos), watching a movie with popcorn, and making and icing sugar cookies. While not our ministry focus here in Santa Cruz, it was good to be able to reach out to two little girls who need to see the love of Christ in action.