Loving the Least of These

Next we headed to Casitas Kennedy, the state run orphanage. This is another place that is hard for me to visit. The kids don't get the best care, they aren't loved on, and sometimes they are abused. The kids in this place come straight off the streets, so they still have a street mentality, and that often leads to problems. We had pizza with them for lunch, and did a VBS which they loved. After that we just spent some time playing and loving on the kids. A few of us walked up to where they keep the babies. They are kept in a little Casita, and they literally lay in a crib in a dark, hot room, they aren't picked up and loved on at all. I walked into one of the rooms where a little boy was laying in a bed that looked like a prison cell. The bars on the bed were so high that we couldn't even reach to pick him up. But as he tried to stand up so we could try to get him out he started crying, and by the look on his face it was obvious that he was in pain. A lot of the little kids that come from Casitas have atrophied muscles because all they do is lay in a bed all day. I feel certain that that was the case for this little boy. He was about two years old and it appeared that he wasn't able to walk. On the other side of the room was a tiny little girl, who was only a few months old. She sat up as soon as we walked in and started crying, but it wasn't just the usual baby cry, it sounded like a cry of fear, and helplessness. I went over and picked her up and she just laid on my shoulder. Wanting nothing more than to just be touched by someone. As I cradled her in my arms tears stung my cheeks as I realized that laying in a dark room was what her life consisted of. She won't get the chance to develop correctly, and later in life she will have all kinds of deep hurt from the way she was treated here. It just isn't right for these kids to be treated that way. They didn't do a thing to deserve it. As we got ready to leave I walked toward her crib and she broke out in that same cry of desperation. I tried three times to put her in her bed and walk away, but each time my heart broke more and more. I finally had to put her in her bed and walk out because the bus was getting ready to pull out, but it nearly killed this heart. And so again, I beg for your prayers over this place, and over the kids that have to live there before they can go to another Children's Home. Pray for the workers there too, pray that they will start showing these kids the love and affection that they need. It just isn't right that the kids that are trying to escape the horrors of the life they lived at home, or on the streets, and come to this place that really isn't much better.

Then we went back to the mission house and filled more food bags, and then loaded up the bus and headed to the Jesus Statue. Jen went and picked up some people from the Los Pinos community to bring them to the Jesus Statue to have pizza and a devotional with us. I think there were close to 100 people that came. They were all so excited, none of them had actually been to the Jesus Statue, they had only been able to see it on the top of the mountain from down in the city. We ate and played with the kids and then had a devotional, which is one of my favorite things to do here. We would sing a song in English, and then they would sing it back to us in Spanish, it was a beautiful reminder that we are all God's children, no matter what color your skin is, or what language you speak, he loves us all the same. And it is a beautiful thing when all his children come together to worship him. I love it when those walls are broken down and we simply come to be in his presence, when two kingdoms collide and we become family. By the end of the service they had blessed and encouraged our group in ways that words can't even begin to describe. It really was amazing.