Putting on their shoes...

I've decided it doesn't matter where you live, it is too easy to become immune to what you see on a daily basis. The homeless man sitting on the corner or curled up under the freeway pass; the crazy person walking down the street talking to themselves; the family down the street who screams at each other all the time...

Mexico is no exception. A few weeks ago we took our students through what we called El Colli Boot Camp. El Colli is a poorer area about 12 minutes from our house where we do our kids program every Saturday. It's probably one of the harder ministries. Not because of where it is, or who we even work with. It's the ministry that everyone is involved in and requires the most amount of preparation time. It's tough. It's hard to give your all to these kids week after week, amidst homework, other ministries, lack of sleep, group stuff, etc...It gets really hard.

But a few weeks ago, we decided to give our students a wake up call; a very small chance to put themselves in the shoes of those kids. If I could have, I would have had them stay there all week long, but due to safety & other such issues, we weren't able to go to that extreme. But we did the best we could!

Some ground rules for the week: no use of electricity, 2 pairs of clothing for the week (including undergarments), $20 pesos for the entire week (which is about $1.30), no hot water, & no facebook. We also threw in some surprises as the week went along. The first night, all 14 of them stayed at our house on the floor. They had one sheet & their pillow on the cold hard tile. They were also crammed about 4-6 in a room. They were to act as though this were their one-room house with all of their family members crammed in, sharing floor space & anything else to sleep on. The next morning, all 14 of them had ONE HOUR to get showered, in the dark, with only cold water. Plus they only had one bottle of shampoo to use...that was it. They also had to ration out breakfast for everyone, from 1/2 box of cereal, 1/2 small carton of milk, 2 apples, & 3 granola bars. No utensils. This was day #1!

Day #2 they were allowed to take bucket showers, using the water from the hose in the backyard. Nice and cold. Day #3 they weren't allowed to shower at all! It made their normal COLD shower on day #4 much easier & by this point, they were very grateful.

The final day everyone fasted & we broke the fast together by spending some time in El Colli at nighttime, just observing. We weren't there to see something amazing happen, or something dangerous or anything like that. It was simply to observe. To look at the houses around them & see how these kids really live. Some of them don't even have roofs on their house, much less electricty, running water, 3 meals a day, computers, & facebook.

It was a tough week. One with some complaining, but in the end, greater insight of what we really do have, and a greater appreciation for all of those things. And what did it help us do on Saturday mornings? We just love on these kids more & more. We realize that the HOPE we have in Jesus is, for some, the only hope they'll have in life. Heck, it should be our only hope too...but oftentimes we get "distracted" by electrictity, running water, 3 meals a day...