I DIG PERU
The story of how we started-Page 1
Where to begin our story is a difficult task. First let me apologize for using "I" too much and please recognize that it is one of my many great failings that when referring to the work God has blessed me with, I find it difficult to write about it without saying "I." Please recognize none of this would have been possible had God not blessed it and guided me and many others giving us strength and love along the way to do His will.
Now back to where it all began. I had been blessed to go on three mission trips with Volunteers in Medical Missions. I had managed to work with Dr. Stan Rampey in both Panama in 2002 and Peru in 2003. Dr. Rampey's trips embodied many elements I really liked such as going to places that were fairly tough to get to and often sleeping one step away from the actual jungle. On the trip in 2003, I was introduced to the Street Boys of Peru and spent a week in a Jungle orphanage. Those boys reached in and touched my heart in a way it has never been touched before. They showed me that no matter how far I had gotten from God and how many bad things I had done I had a purpose in God's plan. The most important thing they showed me was how to love, because up to that point it was the one element of my Christian life I was missing. I knew how to hate but not how to love. These boys who had every reason in the world to hate showed me nothing but love during my week in their care.
These boys were victims of their society and of their families. In third world countries the society is full of the very rich and the very poor with few people in between. While many in America live hard and difficult lives it is common for there to be elements of help around them. This is not the case in most third world countries. More importantly the family unit is not the same as we are used to. Most women in these cultures have grown up believing their worth is tied to the man they are with and the babies they can produce for him. Men often bounce from one woman to another having several children with each. Many of these women have 4 or 5 children and no job to produce real income. Most bring in about $1US a day which can't feed their children much less provide them with shelter and other necessities. So when they have more children than they can care for, they typically have the oldest male child leave because it is assumed he can fend for himself better and because they associate the male child with the men who have treated them so badly. Another typical scenario is that a new male will come into the families' life and he will not want to care for the children that are not his. So he will kick the boys out to the street as well.
While on the street these kids are the lowest common element in their society. The are often abused and tortured by police officers who see them as nothing more than criminal elements that have no rights. No one will give them jobs or a place to stay so they go into hiding and sniff glue to escape their problems. Only coming out when their hunger forces them to steal for food to eat or for more glue. Their are countless stories of these boys being beaten and tortured and most have scars they try to hide.