March, 2006
I preface this letter with this introduction of our friend, co-worker, and fellow believer, Anna Monteviller, who serves the WMF community in Lima, Peru as President of the Board of Directors and as Director of Programming. Anna has been serving faithfully in this community for three years, in which time she has offered to us her gifts selflessly. She, along with the other Peruvian staff members, desire to partner more faithfully with all of you through these monthly prayer letters, and in this make our mutual joy in serving God complete. As their letters are composed in Spanish, we long to be faithful translators both to the literal sense and to the tone of their originals.
Sincerely,
Brian and Rachel Langley
Field Directors, WMF Lima, Peru
It is a privilege for me to be able to write you and thank you for your prayers and your offerings for the work of Word Made Flesh in my country and city, Lima, Peru. Although I don't know your faces, God knows them and I believe that each one of you together with your families and churches are beautiful in the eyes of the One God who unites us.
Let me share with you this testimony:
Today, a day like any other, God choose to continue teaching me. Today, He would continue to break down my preconceptions even more. Today, I would see a little more of my neighbor and a little less of me. When I allow Him to teach me, to break my heart, things happen like what I want to share with you now.
We have changed the schedule of the Casa Job to be able to spend time with a group of young kids who are 6 to 13 years old, who sleep on the streets and who already are inhaling glue. These children are losing their childhood more quickly than what I can even try to explain to you. We arrived to the spot where we know they hang out, but they weren't there. “They went to the beach” a 9 year-old boy said in explanation, and offered to go and bring them back. I have no idea how a boy of 9 would even know how to get there and back by himself! Fifteen minutes later a little girl came up to us. She looked at us timidly, but with the innocence of a child trusted us when we offered her some crayons and a page to color. Where would they color, I asked myself? We were right on a huge street, in a spot where I would never want to spend very much time; it was dirty, crowded with people still half drunk from the night before, the buses “perfumed” the air with black smoke, and there I was, standing, I didn't want to sit on the filthy sidewalk. I saw though, that it was necessary to get closer to the children, as they were making steps to come closer to us. So I crouched down, still looking around me wondering what all these people would think of me. Right then I heard a little voice asking me, “What color should the lamb be”? After I answered this little girl, she continued to ask more questions, as little girls do, and slowly the people around me disappeared, the noise seemed to quiet and without thinking about it too much I started to clean off the sidewalk with my hand so that the other kids had a place to color.
Beside me, the 9 year old that we met up with when we first arrived was arguing with another kid much older than he was, defending another of the younger ones. The law of the street says that even though someone is bigger or stronger than you are you must never show fear. But just then I heard him start to sob, he came and sat right next to me and hid his face between his knees. I touched his head and he leaned into me accepting and asking for my protection, at the same time yelling loudly at the older kid who made him cry. He was just a child after all, a child who had to act like a man. More children came up to us, and their faces were so beautiful as they shared the crayons, concentrated on making their picture nice and tried to find the cleanest place to put their precious drawing, all the while laughing, smiling and enjoying our company. For this moment I was comfortable out there sitting on the dirty sidewalk under the feet of the people who passed by. I watched a little as they walked by; some very curious, some making fun. A young man we know stopped by our little group. He was very dirty and had been beaten up. This young man has been on the street since he was a child, much like the ones we were sitting with. Drugs have badly damaged his mind. He asked to be able to color as well, so minutes later, he joined the children, happily coloring.
Jesus said you have to become like little children, and my heart saddened for an instant. Is this what Jesus means? For us the language these children use is filthy, for them it is a normal part of the world they live in. They have to fight to defend themselves and they always find a “big guy” to protect them. But this “big guy” is only a child himself, a child charged with protecting the others. This day when I finally stopped fighting my preconceptions of cleanliness and order, I felt free! And in this freedom I found some children that maybe no one else looks at, that maybe no one else loves…children that God created and who are waiting that we would love them. Jesus said, because I was hungry and you gave me food, because I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink
It was a day like any other, and that is how God works, using ordinary days to teach us extraordinary things. The difference is when we are willing. You know what is the most wonderful thing? That this day can be today.
May God bless you!
Your friend,
Anna Monteviller Pino