Suffering

Snapshot #1
Because of the bumpy and noisy ride we didn’t get to know our taxi driver much except to hear that he had one child, a 1 year old boy who was born with, what he described as: one side of his head higher up and the other pressed down. They had recently discovered a bump that was to be operated on as urgently as possible - so the doctors told him to come back with 1,000 soles, about $350 to save his son's life - an unthinkable amount to him. When we were almost at our destination, he got a phone call that his son had died. He continued, through his tears, not wanting to leave us in the middle of nowhere, but racing to our destination with his heart and everything in him pulling him the opposite direction toward his dead son and grieving wife. When we got out I prayed for him, that the God who had taken all the pains of the world on the cross and still lives, the God who had also lost His only son, would comfort, bring relief and show His love. And then we watched as he drove away with pain streaming down his cheeks like a waterfall.


Snapshot #2
Pablo is five. His father is mostly non-present, working in Lima. His mother struggles for survival and regularly takes out the frustrations of life on her son. He spends his days hanging out in his filthy clothes and sandals out front of their adobe house, playing in the dirt. He has been expelled from three kindergartens for misbehavior. He also has a severe speech impediment, his mouth working overtime with his tongue lazily motionless, leaving him almost indiscernible – definitely indiscernible to a foreigner like me. His family and neighbors condemningly describe the situation by accusing, “He’s five but still speaks like an infant!” Pablo played with our kids and their toys all week and when we left stood at the door of his house, at a distance, and expressionlessly watched as we drove away.


Snapshot #3
Marco is 35 years old and has had untreated Rheumatoid Arthritis for 22 years. For the last 14 years he has laid in his bed, muscles stiffened like bones, in his adobe house with no windows – the only glimpse of the world coming through the open door ten feet in front of him. His elderly mother cooks for him, feeds him, turns him to not get bed sores, and cares for his sanitary needs. Marco is a very bright man who went to school and had hopes and aspirations of a professional life and a life with a family. But things that seem simple in a modern world are completely foreign in a tiny remote town like his. Marco does not have his required identification card and is lucky to even have a birth certificate. Even with them it would be literally impossible for him to go to the other side of town to apply for state health insurance and even less possible for him to make the 25 hour bus trip to Lima for medical care, the only place in the country where a confirmation of his diagnosis, steroid injections, prescriptions or operations would be possible.


Snapshot #4
Percy is fourteen and has lived the last year of his life with his aunt and uncle, who took him in because of the severe abuse he was enduring from his mother. He lives with them contentedly, smiling all day, as he goes about his chores. He is, in essence, the family’s servant. When they go somewhere, he is not invited. During the day he does all the cleaning, errands and takes care of the two year old while the family’s other daughter his age goes to school. Percy, however, is only privileged with a half-day education every Saturday; the rest of the time he is needed at home to do his chores. Other than the two year old, who he cares for so lovingly, he has no other companions.


Snapshot #5: The most heart-wrenching for me
In these two little towns that we visited there are a dozen churches. There are hundreds of children. But as far as we could find out, not one church is doing ministry with children. Every child that we saw -- leaning up against their adobe houses, running down the dirt streets with bicycle tires and sticks, trailing behind their mothers at the market – is living in a harsh reality with no one reaching out to show them that Jesus lives with them there amidst their pain, that He wants a better life for them with joy and fulfillment, that the Bible is full of examples of God rescuing His people with grace and a new life, that in it they will read about Jesus holding children like them, marginalized and invisible, in his arms.

Out of all of the pains and sufferings that we witnessed, this must be the greatest: many of these children are living those sufferings alone, unaware that Jesus is waiting with arms wide open.