Hope Road

One year ago today, I was finishing all of my last-minute preparations for Peru. After a very brief night’s sleep, I got up around 2:00 a.m. to leave for the airport. Two days and four flights later, the airplane wheels touched down in Lima, and a month I will never forget began.

Not surprisingly, I still haven’t finished processing through all that occurred during that month. It was so much harder, yet so much more rewarding than I expected. One of the images that remains in my mind is from a home we visited our second week. It was a two hours’ drive from Lima, I think. I’ve written about it before, yet it made such an impression on me that I am compelled to reminisce again.

It was a home for boys, and it touched my heart so much. So many forlorn yet brave little souls. Safe, really - grateful for what they had, away from whatever trouble they had been in. Some were mentally handicapped, and others were loud and wild. Some of the older boys - eleven, twelve, thirteen, perhaps? - watched over the younger ones like big brothers, quietly keeping them in line.

At the end of the afternoon, before we said goodbye, we stood around talking on the big concrete slab in the courtyard, with gray skies overhead and a dirty beach nearby. It was curiously peaceful, with an almost isolated feeling. I felt as far away from home as I’d ever been in my life. And I felt helpless. My heart just yearned over these children, the same way it yearns over the children floundering in the inner-city school systems I’ve worked in. Not for them to know the extravagant poverty of “the good life,” but for them to know the all-embracing shelter of home and family, a living image of Christ’s love.

It was a very long goodbye with the few boys I was talking to (with the help of a translator). They asked how long it took me to fly here. They told me their stories of how they got to the home - one boy was from the jungle and was able to speak Quechua, which I was excited to find out about because I was reading Elisabeth Elliot’s novel No Graven Image - it was tucked in my bag at that very moment. They followed us to the bus, and I leaned out the window talking to them and holding their little hands. They asked if I had children. They asked when I was coming back. I knew I might never come back to this place, only a memory to me now but as real today as it was then.

I cannot be their savior. I pray they will know the real Savior. And I hope He might use me in other children’s lives. Those boys gave me a gift - they let me come into their world and catch the tiniest glimpse of understanding, and inspiration for the future. They showed me my own helplessness, yet the possibilities for a weak child who has a strong Father.

Filed under: Personal Reflection on July 4th, 2008