Burning Furnace of Charity

After we had lunch with Karina on Sunday, we moved on to have a bit of "church" in Boys Town. Here's the account, taken straight from my journal. So..."dear diary..."

When we left Karina’s room, we went down to Nora’s bar to find Nora asleep on her bed. Lucia was trying to wake her, but to no avail. We sat outside of Nora’s while Erin played the guitar and we all sang. Lucia just hung on me and listened. When she could, she sang along in Spanish. I really loved singing “Abre mis ojos, O Cristo" (Open my eyes, Jesus) in BT. As we sang, “Yo quiero verte…I want to see You,” I looked around the dusty streets of my Boys Town. I saw little Carlos across the street at the Ho Mi Nina cantina, drinking Mexican whiskey from a plastic bottle and dusting off a car with a dirty rag. I saw a young girl in a doorway, waiting for a customer. I saw another girl walking hastily down the street, very unsure of who we were. I saw Lucia struggling to keep up with the singing, though still singing from her heart. I saw cars driving slowly by us, also unsure what exactly was happening at the old cantina. I saw Jesus, in the face of young girls selling their bodies, in the face of Carlos drinking his Mexican whisky from a plastic bottle, in the face of Lucia trying to remember a sound of heaven she hasn’t really heard in many years, in the faces of Kim and Erin as they sang (somewhat uncomfortably) on the street of this little red light district that so clearly owns my heart these days. I think we were all hoping His words are true, “Whatever you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto Me.”

From Nora’s, we moved on to the courtyard behind Kilo’s old bar. We sat out in the open and sang some more. Lucia went around to the rooms to round folks up – she finally was successful when we saw her with a very sleepy Chavela, still buttoning her shorts as she came out to meet us. Liliana came out while we were singing. While she was opening her can of jalapenos with a rather sharp knife, she said, “We don’t need to go to a church – we have the temple right here!” Later, she came back to the courtyard and we read Psalm 139 aloud together, alternating verses. Chavela was out there, just mesmerized by Erin’s voice and guitar skills. It was like having a little kid around with Chavela…she just laughs at silly things and makes silly faces. Her leg looks kind of normal now, and her countenance is so different. It’s really beautiful what Jesus is doing in Chavela.

I got a little distracted while Erin was playing the guitar. I kept looking around at the disheveled courtyard…random pieces of trash everywhere, wires strung along from room to room, sheets for doors, the smell. That’s what Kilo saw and smelled everyday when he woke up. It must have been a heavy weight for him to carry. I’m glad he doesn’t have to see that any more when he gets up in the mornings. A girl named Ruby now lives in Kilo’s old room. An older American man was with her when we first got there. It’s still hard for me to feel compassion towards the American men I see in there using my friends.

It’s only about 9 pm, and I feel as though it’s about midnight. I love BT a lot, but it certainly zaps me. It’s a good kind of tired, I suppose.