Things in BT have been a bit helter skelter lately. For reasons unknown to me, or apparently to anyone else, the police have been carting away a lot of my friends to jail. Many of my friends in there tend to be the ones who have seen better days, even better days in BT. The police have been arresting anyone who isn't officially "working" inside the walls. Some have boldly returned, only to find themselves being taken away again. It feels more like a ghost town than ever inside those walls.
One of those taken away to jail was little Vicky, who I wrote about earlier in the year. (Vicky had a dream from God and then actually saw Jesus one night on her way home.) Apparently Vicky, or "La Vicky" as she's known in BT, has a bad habit of stealing. The headlines of yesterday's paper read, "La Vicky Caught Stealing, Now in Jail" or something to that effect. She stole all the clothes of two of the women I know, and was promptly taken away after she returned their items. Crazy, isn't it? Here is this 53-year old woman who steals for a living in BT, yet Jesus physically shows Himself to her, in addition to giving her prophetic dreams. God is out of His mind, and I love Him for it.
As I was standing on the street, talking to Gabriela today, a familiar face was walking towards me. I last saw Shakira (not her real name) nearly a year ago. I had been thinking about her a lot the last few days, really wondering where she had gone. No one knew, or claimed to know, what had happened to her. I felt like I had found my long-lost family when I saw her in BT today. I hugged her so hard I thought she might break in two. Luckily, she didn't, and we had a great time catching up. She is living outside of BT now, and I'm pretty sure she was there today to buy drugs. Either way, I'm glad to know she's alive, and that I might see her again soon. She told me where she lives, which is the same neighborhood where my land is. I told her that very soon we'll be neighbors. She promised to visit me every day.
The prayer room inside the bar is a seeming distant hope at the moment. The guy who was opening the bar disappeared in all the upheaval inside BT. (In addition to several arrests, the police shut down a major crack bar. I'm fairly certain he had ties to this bar, and is nowhere to be found as a result.) There are loads of empty buildings and old broke-down cantinas that I think would make such great prayer rooms. Not really sure how to approach it, but I'd really love to be given an abandoned place there. It's on my list of things to obsess about, running a prayer room in a bar in BT; it must be done.
A couple of friends - Molly Blackwell and Mandy Siebold - visited from the Kansas City Boiler Room last week. It was so great to have friends here to pray with, laugh with, laugh with, and laugh with. We went to BT, ate meals inside BT (Lucia made us mole that was delicious!), hung out at the house - it was loads of fun! Reynosa isn't exactly know for its extracurricular activities, so it was fun to have friends here to "just be" with. Thanks Molly & Mandy!
Lots of things are happening here that I can't possibly fit into one post - thank you everyone who whispers and/or shouts prayers for us here in Mexico! It feels good to know we're not alone in this.
Well, it appears that a whole month has come and gone, and I'm finally posting. I hesitate to apologize for this, as though to assume you (whoever you might be) have suffered because you haven't read from my diary lately. :) But I am sorry if I've annoyed you at all by being negligient in the blogging world.
Lots of things have happened since I last posted...not sure I can remember them all, but I'll hit some highlights.
We got Lucia out of BT and into an apartment just two streets over from us, where she stayed for about five days. Jo and I left for Tulsa for a friend's wedding, and Lucia marched herself right back to BT two days later. I've gone through a lot of different emotion through it, and have come to realize that, no matter how much you might love someone, you can never force them to make good choices. (And all the mothers of the world said a big "amen!") Lucia is very angry with me at the moment, for a variety of reasons, and refuses to speak to me. We took flowers to her yesterday because it was Mother's Day in Mexico. She wouldn't speak to me or take our flowers. It makes me feel sad and hurt, but I have to trust that this is not the end, but is only part of a journey that Jesus has her on.
Earlier this week we also found Blanca back in BT. She had been off of drugs for a long time, but, for some reason, decided to go right back. "Will God forgive me, Kelly? Will I get to heaven?" was her question for me. There is a lot of talk of death in Mexican culture, and even more so in BT, as you can imagine. I just wished, with everything in me, that we were having that conversation in English instead of Spanish. I began to feel really frustrated that I couldn't use my words to walk with her down that road. I wanted to talk about the unfailing mercy of God, and that it's not all about some place you go when you die. I wanted to talk about heaven crashing with earth in the here and now, and quote Rob Bell sermons I had listened to that week. (ha ha) But I couldn't. And, again, I found myself unable to make someone choose what is right.
I found myself dragging my feet to go into BT over the next few days, feeling frustrated by people who continually choose their addictions over freedom, frustrated by the oppressive heat that has set in for the next several months, frustrated by the language barrier, and frustrated by how easily I become frustrated! (Not even sure if that makes sense...)
Yesterday morning, Jo and I met to pray before heading to BT. During our prayer time, I found God changing my heart. Instead of feeling frustrated by my lack of language skills, or even clever ideas on how to help people transition out of BT into something else, I found myself feeling really grateful that I'm not "smart enough" for the task at hand. I remembered Paul's words when he speaks of how God sent him to preach the Good News, "...and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power." (I Cor 1:17b) It was beautiful to think that Jesus might have asked me to do something I'm essentially no good at, so that the real salvation, the cross of Christ, wouldn't be set aside in the shadow of my "clever speech" or clever ideas.
I have heard myself say a thousand times that I didn't come to BT to shut it down or "get people saved." I simply came to love the ones Jesus loves; the changing of lives part is up to Him. I'm constantly forgetting what it is that Jesus has asked of me in there, which is to love people, to love Him in His most distressing disguises. And this journey is working something in me as much as it's working something in the lives of people who live in BT.
Have you ever thought you should open a prayer room in a bar? Or a prayer room in a brothel? Or a prayer room in a bar that's in a brothel? Well, I have. But I knew I couldn't just waltz in and set it up. However, there's an American guy who regularly is in BT. I had seen him around, but we had never actually spoken before. After a very interesting exchange, he mentioned to me that he's getting ready to open a bar in BT. He is hoping to open an "upscale" bar, and offer a variety of services. He said to me, "I woke up this morning, and I thought, ya know, we're gonna have a bar, and a boutique, and a salon...what we need in there is a prayer room!" I nodded my head in agreement, as though it were the most normal suggestion anyone would have as to what might be missing from a bar in BT. In the spirit of entrepeneurship, I offered to run the prayer room for him. "If you open your bar, I'll run the prayer room for you for free." Incredulously he said to me, "You got yourself a deal!" We shook on it right there on the corner, just like any good business partners in Texas would. Please pray that this prayer room will be a reality - right inside the walls of BT! 24-7 Prayer, Mission, Justice, Bars & Brothels...has a nice ring to it.
