One of the best lessons my parents gave me, was when I was about 17 or 18 years old. We went every Monday night to the back of a train station in Mexico City, and my mom prepared a nice hot meal for a big crowd. There, we waited in the dark until little by little young kids 7 to 15 years old, started to come out from the darkest spots, most of them holding a can of yellow glue sniffing it as they came to us. Every Monday they were expecting us to come and visit them. They would come and gave us the nicest hugs you'll ever receive, filled with lice and smelling as.. kids living and sleeping on the streets of Mexico City. It is the most humbling experience I ever had. It shaped a my character a lot. It is easy to remember those times when I deal with not being content.
This kids were sweet, part of them were as Innocent as any other kid, and part of them, have had more experiences in life that I will ever have. They trust like kids, and they distrust like adults, they love like kids, and they hurt like adults, they play like kids and they are abused like no person should ever be treated.
Some times, we could not find some of the young girls (ages 10 the most), and we often were told they went to Acapulco with some taxi drivers for the weekend. It was an excruciating pain to be exposed to this truth especially because you love those kids and now you knew them... we just wanted to grab them all and adopt them and force them out of there!. Other times, the girls were all bruised, because they asked their friends to hit them as hard as they can in the stomach so the could have an abortion.... and stories like these were an every Monday night end of the day for us,... beginning of a nightmare for them.
Some of them were sent to a house where a wonderful lady with the heart and love for this ministry was working hard with them, trying to keep them out of the streets. Some of them got out but others came back to this life.
We prayed for them constantly, and pray with them and told them about God and His Son, and the eternal life... and I just hope and pray today for them... I can't remember their names, but I can see their faces in my mind, even though most of them must be grown ups by now.
I wonder what it is of their lives, whether they married or not, whether they got out of the streets or not, whether they follow Jesus Christ or not.
Why am I remembering this lately?... I don't know, my heart is aching for them.. for those kids that live behind the train station now, for those kids that are sniffing glue today and for those adults that I met as kids. It is easy to forget because things go well for us, because we are not in that desperate need for food or love that we are willing to do anything to get a comfortable bed for one night and maybe a meal, or maybe just a hug.
I hope I can give my kids that experience my parents gave me at one point in their lives, I hope they will have a burden in their heart for the people who does not know the Lord, I hope the Lord give them a heart that would ache for the lost, and that they will be used for His work wherever they go. Behind a train station, in a remote area in Africa or in their neighbourhood. But that they and I will never stop thinking of the blessings we have, not as much as the material blessings which I am grateful for His mercy in giving us more than what we need, but the blessing of being part of the family of God, for the blessing of the adoption that we were part of, and for God looking down on us and having mercy on us by saving us.
And I hope, that I will one day I will see in heaven these kids that I once met at the train station.
Thank you mom and dad.
Then we went to the zoo and a water park:
