Thanksgiving Reflections in Peru
Thanksgiving Day 2012
Lima, Peru November 23, 2012
Yesterday Becky and I enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving Day
with family and friends. With the idea of
“thankfulness” in mind, we thought we would share this story with you all. We hope it blesses you as well as helps you
to appreciate how fortunate most of us really are…
Becky and I have acquired
many precious memories during our six years in Peru. A few days ago, we added another.
I had a preaching engagement
in Chincha on Sunday. We also needed to
attend to ongoing construction matters at the church plant in Tambo de Mora.
Before we returned to Lima
Monday evening, we decided to visit some of the church members in Doce de
Septiembre. We went to Victoria’s house
but she was not home. So we went to
visit with Consuelo.
During our visit with Consuelo
we were sharing about the progress we were making at the church in Tambo de
Mora and suggested she come with us sometime to see for her self. She asked very directly, “When?” Becky and I looked at each other and Becky
said, “Well, we have some time now…” so we suggested we go right then if they
had the time.
Without hesitation they all dropped
what they were doing and got ready to go.
The “they all” I just
mentioned includes seven children and two adult women. Consuelo’s 26 year-old daughter and her two
children spend most of their time with her. Consuelo has also been taking care of her cousin’s five children-all
boys who range in age from 3 to 12 years old. So with Becky and me, we were eleven.
For us taking such a trip is
routine-no big deal. But these five boys
have lived in Chincha for a year or so and they almost never go beyond school
and Consuelo’s temporary shelter they call home. When they understood that Tambo de Mora was
close to the ocean, they were incredibly excited for they had yet to see it.
So after visiting the church
and giving them some time to bang on some percussion instruments and to do some
coloring (both of which they energetically enjoyed), I decided to take them to
see the ocean up close.
into the older part of Tambo de Mora-the part that had been so devastated by
the 2007 earthquake-and then drove parallel to the shore until we came to an
opening to the beach. The small army
piled out of our van and took off to get close to the ocean.
Luis, the oldest boy began to
peel off his clothing until he had only a pair of swim trunks on. Consuelo and her daughter were telling him
sternly he was not to go into the water. It was a chilly evening and the waters of the Pacific Ocean off the
coast of Peru are colder than the waters of the Atlantic in Maine. This is due to a powerful ocean current that
runs north along the west coast of South America from its source, the South
Pole.
Nonetheless, Luis frolicked
along the water’s edge. At one point he
took off running like a gazelle right where the water met the sand. He would continue in a generally straight
line until a wave would break his plane and then he would jump over the wave
into calmer waters. He did this several
times running up and down the beach.
The other boys took off on a
scavenger hunt finding all kinds of treasures like empty crab shells and other
interesting creatures and objects.
It was a magical moment and
it was our pleasure to see the joy that our small trek brought to those five
boys. We celebrated by going to the main
plaza and buying ice cream cones for the kids (and Becky).
A BIT OF THE BACK STORY
Consuelo is from Peru’s
jungle region. Becky and I have actually
spent several days in the small city she comes from and we have a missionary
colleague who lives and ministers in that same city-a community of about 16,000
called Nauta.
Consuelo has had a pretty tough go of it. She had an abusive husband with whom she had
two children. Her children are now both
adults. She left Nauta about five years
ago and moved to Chincha in the hopes of obtaining property after the
earthquake. Apparently the people who
are less advantaged in Peru understand that after a major natural disaster like
this 8.0 magnitude earthquake, there will be government programs. Thus, numbers will migrate in hopes ofgetting in on the benefits.
Consuelo now lives in Quince
Agosto which is a squatter community adjacent to Doce de Septiembre. She works as a teacher’s assistant in a
primary school in Chincha. A house church meets in her home.
A picture of Pastor Nestor and Robert dedicating Conie’s two children during a service at the house church.
Consuelo shared with us that she had a cousin who was also living in
Chincha. He had left his five boys with
their mother in Nauta in order to find work. He learned that the mother had become involved with another man and had
abandoned the children. They were living
with grandparents at the time who did not want to be responsible for them.
We had our missionary friend
Crystal locate the grandparents and confirm the situation. We learned that some of the boys don’t even
have birth certificates. Consuelo was
wanting to go to Nauta to collect the boys so she could help her cousin take
care of them.
She eventually gathered the
resources to do so. Nauta is in a part
of Peru that is not accessible by land. Thus you can not take a bus or a car to get there. You need to fly into Iquitos or take a 5-day
journey on a river barge. If I
understand correctly, she flew to Iquitos from Lima and then came back out of
the jungle with the five boys by boat.
She and her daughter have
been caring for the boys since then. They have those who are of age in school. The cousin has been staying with her as well. He works as a security guard and, for a
while, he was providing for most of the boys’ expenses.
However, three or four months
ago he started seeing a girl who lives about an hour north of Chincha. He began to spend more and more time with her
and began to contribute less and less to the care of his sons. Consuelo says there have been a number of
times when they did not have enough money to buy food.
Recently her cousin told her
that the girl he’s been seeing is pregnant. She is 16 years old and He’s in his late 20’s. That girl doesn’t want anything to do with
his other five boys. Consuelo and her
daughter have been largely left to manage on their own.
Consuelo is understandably
distressed. Her daughter is
resentful. The boys were already abandoned
by their mother. They are certainly
sensing the vibe that things are not well and that Consuelo and her daughter
are stressed. I suspect the resentment
Consuelo and her daughter are feeling manifests itself from time to time and
the boys-especially the older ones-probably feel insecure and vulnerable…and
angry.
Becky and I are not sure what
we should do. We do not want to reward
Consuelo’s cousin’s bad behavior by subsidizing the boys’ expenses. We’ve spoken with Consuelo and we think she
needs to speak with her cousin and draw up a contract where he commits to
financially support his children. The
consequence of his failing to do so would be Consuelo going to the police and
letting them know he is not supporting his kids and that he impregnated a 16
year old girl.
For the record, abandoned
kids and 16 year old girls getting pregnant by older men are commonplace
here. There are laws but they are not
enforced. The legal system does not hold
fathers financially accountable here the way we do in the U.S. But Consuelo being willing to go to the
police and to press charges may be the leverage needed to get the dad to live
up to his responsibility.
We welcome any thoughts you
might have and ask you to pray for Consuelo, her daughter, the five boys and
their father. Changing the destinies of
children such as these is at the heart of our vision.
With grateful hearts,
Robert and Becky
