Burning Furnace of Charity

It was awesome having people from my home church, Believers Church in Tulsa, OK, here again! This time, we didn't stop at haircuts, manicures, and pedicures - we also brought a team of one doctor and several nurses, with lots of medications to give away. We had enough people to set up in two different bars - El Paris and La Paloma hosted my English-speaking friends as they served my Spanish-speaking friends - it was a beautiful few days for me. Outside the walls of BT, a team of daring builders constructed a house for a family in just 3 days! It was amazing to see it all come together.

As I floated in between our two "salons" one afternoon, I came upon Dr. Truett talking with Ruben and Miguel. When Miguel was done translating for the doctor, he told us that his friend, also named Miguel, was in a lot of pain and couldn't walk to us. So, Dr. Truett, my good friend Jed who is trained in dressing wounds, and myself all headed to a bar I'd never been in before. We walked in to La Victoria to find Miguel working behind the bar on his 24-hour shift. He was rather heavy and had quite a limp. He began to share with us some of physical struggles - pain in his knees, ulcers on his legs. We stepped back in his room as Jed and Dr. Truett began to care for this man's wounds that literally went to the bone. While they worked on his wounds, I began to talk with Miguel, as an attempt to get both of our minds off of what was happening.

Miguel's story unfolded over the next hour or so that we spent with him - he used to be married with children. Today, he is alone in BT, the place that has been his home for the last 21 years. It has been an especially difficult couple of years, and he really felt the weight of it just days before we met him. One day, a customer who could see that he was feeling down told him to read Psalm 70 and 72. Miguel asked if we had a Bible because he just wanted to read these psalms again. By the time I found one for him and brought it to his room, he had already borrowed one from someone else in BT. He told me that just the night before he prayed Psalm 70:1 and Psalm 72:12 while he was in his bed. He had a fever, a lot of pain, and he couldn't sleep. "Then, you showed up today!" He was in seeming disbelief as he told me this. When I went home that evening, I decided to look up these verses that Miguel had cried out to God just the night before:

"Please, God, rescue me! Come quickly, Lord, and help me." Ps 70:1
"He will rescue the poor when they cry to him; he will help the oppressed, who have no one to defend them." Ps 72:12

I don't think we fixed his leg that day, but Miguel's faith in God was certainly brought to a new level. I know that my faith to believe that God hears our prayers was brought to a new level that day.

The next day we went back to check on him, as well as offer him a haircut by our pro stylist, Sarah. Miguel shared more of his story, of how he had spent time in the United States many years ago. He suffered a great deal - he was beaten, thrown in prison; his "American dream" was quickly shattered. The worst part was that he ran to a church for safety when people were chasing him one day - the church closed its doors and he was severely beaten. He said that he had always hated Americans - until the day we showed up. Healing was taking place on a really deep level for Miguel, and I'm grateful to have seen with my own eyes the work of Jesus.

Many other things happened in those few days, too many to tell.

Thank you, God, that you hear the cries of the poor and the oppressed, and that you use our lives to answer them. Don't ever stop. Amen.

I first met Bom Bon last March while cleaning some bathrooms behind La Paloma with a team of college students. She was about 7 months pregnant and asked if she could have our cleaning supplies when we were done. She was very sweet and loved to be hugged. She said she was planning to name the baby "Junior." Bom Bon found me again one night when I was in La Paloma with the Kansas City team about a month later. She was clearly upset, and her belly was flat. "My baby fell out. I fell down and my baby fell out! I'm so sad, Kelly! I'm so sad!" Exactly what happened to her baby is still unclear to me. Bom Bon and I became friends over the next 11 months. She lived in a room right next door to where Kilo lived. Sometimes when I saw her in BT, she would tell me, "I was friends with Kilo, too. He gave me a room when I used to just work from the street. I miss him." I brought her some pink fuzzy gloves for Christmas, and she would always give me big hugs.

Bom Bon was murdered last Thursday night by two clients who were policemen. They were arguing over price of services when one of the men picked up a piece of rock and began to beat her in the face and killed her just outside the walls of BT. It was front page news for two days here in Reynosa. One of the men was arrested, though the other got away.

People knew Bom Bon in many different ways, but I'd like to remember her as my friend. She was a good friend to those around her. Bom Bon, whose real name was Alma, had a beautiful smile, lovely dark eyes and long, gorgeous curly hair. She would have been a loving mother to Junior. She was laid to rest in Vera Cruz earlier this week. She is deeply missed.

She was tiny and frail. I first met her just over a year and a half ago. When I walked in BT, she was wandering near the front gate, seemingly disoriented and with a bloodied bandage on her forehead. She said a dog had bitten her, but I knew better. We prayed, then she left. I saw Lorena a lot over the next 18 months. She lived behind the crack bar in one of the worst rooms I've ever seen. Her hair was always a rat's nest, her teeth were all gone, she had a horrible cough. Most people were not very kind to her, and it was clear that sometimes she was a punching bag for some. I learned that her father is a prominent businessman here in Reynosa. Though he offered her a home, she chose to stay in BT and feed her addictions. We washed her hair and styled it beautifully last summer. While she waited in our "salon," I discovered that chicken, corn tortillas, and pineapple soda are her favorites. So, she enjoyed those while waiting to have her hair done. Her smile was beautiful, but her eyes seemed distant. Maybe she was dreaming of a heavenly home. I learned on Wednesday that Lorena died recently. She had been dead for three days before Luisa found her. Luisa carried her body out of BT. It's not right that she died alone and wasn't even missed for so long. I'm going to miss Lorena on my visits to BT. Rest in peace, Lorena.

Yay for the people of the UK sending me the fabulous, the one, the only...JO WELLS!! It's the dawning of a new era here in Reynosa, as our community has just doubled! After more than 2 long years of praying and believing God to send a team, He has answered beyond anything that I could dream up. Jo arrived on Monday night after we were commissioned as a team from a 24-7 USA gathering in the frozen tundra called Madison, WI.

It's great having a friend and co-conspirator to dream with here in Boys Town. We took our little show on the road on Valentine's Day as we delivered homemade cupcakes (see picture of Jo in action) and 10 dozen beautiful Gerbera daisies in all colors to the men and women of BT. (Those daisies are courtesy of Church of the Harvest in S. Carolina - thank you!!)

I was blown away by Jo’s courage on her first trip in BT. We went in Nora’s bar to find Nora, Lucia, Vicki, and several others. Nora had just been beaten by someone, and she told everyone to leave. Lucia and I were the only ones who stayed – Lucia because she’s Nora’s best friend, and me because I’m slow to understand Spanish sometimes. I stayed for a while and talked with Nora, who was crying and really hurting. My heart was breaking for her and I didn’t know what to do. (Though cupcakes seemed to help a bit.) When I came out of Nora’s place, I couldn’t even see Jo or our friend Tiffany who had joined us. I have to admit that I was a little nervous at first thinking I had lost my two little blonde friends in BT in such a short amount of time. But, alas, they were just loving on some people in the Oh Mi Nina cantina across the street! It was great. Jo just unabashedly loved on and took in each of my friends (and even some new friends) in there. She never allowed language to be a barrier – true courage!

The scene in BT was beautiful on Valentine's Day. BT may not seem like much to look at, but Jesus is there. We saw a painting of Him as the Good Shepherd on the wall of a bar as we walked that day. What's that story about Jesus leaving the 99 to search for the one lost sheep? It's beautiful like that in BT - like Jesus gone out carefully searching for the one who walked away.

You might remember Vicki, the little lady who had a prophetic dream as well as saw Jesus a few weeks ago. I saw her again on V-Day. She took us to a wall where someone had painted a scene of a forest and a river that flows out, seemingly onto the street. Vicki told me how she loves the picture, then began singing a song about the living waters of life. I was reminded of a scripture in Psalms that says, "the river of God never runs dry." Please pray that the living waters of Jesus Christ would flow through BT, clearing a pathway for Jesus to change lives and work miracles.

Many thanks to all of you who have whispered and/or shouted prayers for a team here - God has heard us. This is really starting to get fun.

I am beyond happy to tell you that I got the property! As of Friday afternoon, I have a verbal agreement with the current owner, and she has agreed to sell me the pictured piece of land. (The house in the background is not included.) It is 853 sq meters (about 7700 sq feet) of perfectly placed land, about 2 blocks from BT. As soon as a whole lot of paperwork is completed -hopefully in the next 4-6 weeks- it will be official. Then, the clearing out of land and building projects will begin.

THANK YOU to everyone who has prayed a little or a lot for this whole process! Please continue to pray as I am utterly clueless when it comes to construction projects (as well as anything else that needs to be done in the near future).

By God's grace, this will soon be home to a community center where we have everything from prayer rooms to medical clinics to hair salons to art classes and much more. It will also be home to myself and the long-term team that God is building here.

More to come...