Been wondering why I have not written in so long??? Well, this thing called school has been consuming my time! I am writing my final papers for my master's degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and its been an amazing learning experience! I thought I would share a recent writing from an excercise of "exegeting the city" for a class on urban leadership development!

Living in Lima, Peru has brought me to an incredible diversity of places.  I have lived in 3 homes in three different districts.  Although I love living in Magdalena with more order, green areas, near enough to walk to the cliffs along the coast, I often return to the barrio where I first lived and where I will return to live when Christian and I get married.  As I read Ray Bakke’s book, I was reminded of this idea that God loves the city, not just the people who dwell there.  Where many people dwell, difficulty exists, cycles that war against the Kingdom thrive and signs of hope break through to establish the Kingdom that is, yet is to come… it is there that I must learn to find the hope and passion of God! 

San Martin de Porres

 San Martin de Porres was an “invasion” about 50 years ago… unclaimed land was taken over by families lead by a land trafficker and small, temporary homes were set up.  As time has gone on, wood construction and eventually cement and brick buildings replaced these homes.  A community of nearly 1 million people, in itself is very diverse.  I took an afternoon though to go with a different set of eyes, this time not as Christen who lived on cuadra 38 de Jr. Ancash, but as an observer.  I started on the bus at about 3pm on a Saturday, it appeared to be on of the worst possible hours.  People seemed to have chosen this as the day to do all of their shopping near the center of Lima and since my bus stop was on the way back to SMP, I shared very small amount of space with big bags of vegetables, used clothes bought downtown to be sold, some strange collection of metal rebar shaped into something I do not know how to explain, and countless other bundles.  There was standing room only, so I crammed along the aisle with the other 25 people shoved in body to body and held on for dear life and the adventure that buses usually are in Lima! I arrived at a dear friends’ house where people from the ministry often gather and took a stroll through the local market where I first learned to bargain for fruits and vegetables; this time with ears, eyes, and nose looking for things I had not seen before. I ate at a small sandwich stand and listened to the woman’s story.  I grabbed some seasonal fruit and wandered through areas I usually avoid. I walked back to where the teenagers from Young Life in the barrio tend to hang our and just observed their joy, their pain, the sharing of stories, all on the corner of Avenida Lima and Jr. Huancayo.  As I rode back on the bus that evening, this time with much more space and even a seat, I reflected on the following.

Buses in Lima are always an adventure!

The bus ride there, the situation of people cramming into unsafe rides where a person could easily fall out of the open door with a sudden stop and the packages, bundles, bags that each person carried seemed like their hope, their investments for the week at times felt hopeless. The man in his mid twenties who got on the bus to tell his sad story of being a father and needing to provide for his kids and proceeding to try to sell his small plastic needle threaders seems somewhere between sad and pathetic.  Just as I thought “are you kidding me? Needle threaders!? No one will buy those,” I watched at least 5 people reach in their pockets to pull out a sol (equivalent of about  $0.37)… and some of them I was sure had no intent of threading a needle.  It happened again when a woman with a baby tied onto her back came on with small candies.  This was not a hopeless; it was a people who cared for their neighbor… even if all they could offer was a sol or a few cents.  The candy and the needle threader were not the draw, it was the “colaborar” that was called out in these Peruvian men and women.  I also saw great hope when an older man and woman boarded this too-full bus and all of the bags, people, and boxes shifted to make space and to give them seats to sit in.  A kid in his mid teens jumped up and grabbed his girlfriend so that their seats could be given to the couple.  A woman with 3 small children boarded and I watched another woman reach down to pick up one of the smaller ones; she held this stranger’s child while the woman found a place and settled in the other two kids. A sign of hope; respect and honor for elders, for women and small children.

Chicken.... fresh and ready to go, heads, necks, feet, flies and all... But seriously, its FRESH and I do buy it!

The market yielded sights and smells, not all of which I enjoyed. Fresh meat hanging in the open air in sweltering heat with flies and bees all over them tends to turn my stomach. Perhaps the fact that this does not phase the shoppers as they go about purchasing it shocks me more.  The luxury of refrigerated and pre-packaged meat is not a reality for most of these Peruvians, and for the older generation it has never even been a consideration.  I enjoyed the bartering back and forth for prices with veggies and fruit as I always do, but walked away asking myself “Does my getting the rock bottom price feed my ego more than it feeds the sellers’ family?” 

The markets are busy, crowded, but so much fun to peruse!

I saw some familiar faces where I used to shop and stopped by to greet my favorite seamstress.  The sense of community as I sat on a small wooden bar stool at a make shift table to eat a sandwich and a glass of orange juice was beautiful, another sign of hope. Amidst the filth of the streets, the crowds, the danger of gangs or theft, there was community.  Another sense of God’s Kingdom breaking through as people gather and belong to one another and break bread together.

Veggies and fruits in this country are some of my favorite things. God's art, great prices, straight from the farms!

Returning to the corner of Avenida Lima and Huancayo I found a group of kids and young leaders. Some I knew, many were new faces.  The streets were dirty, stained by trash, paint, even the oil and waste from car repairs.  Graffiti covered the wall of a school that looked pretty freshly painted.  Homeless dogs wandered around digging through the bags of trash that sat waiting for the daily 7pm pickup, which was to happen in a few minutes.  The sound of the triangle being struck and a bell being rung had mothers running down the stairs and even tossing out the windows their last bag of trash from the day to catch the truck before it turned the corner.  Men ran behind the truck grabbing and tossing bags into the trash bin.  A couple of kids kicked back and forth a soccer ball, the loud laughter, sarcasm, cutting humor and competition tends to make me edgy, but this time I sat back as an observer with Christian by my side.  My heart breaks for the insults, jokes, sarcasm and harshness that they use with one another. It points to the lack of security in many of their homes and lives, but its their communication style. The silence would be more painful, more offensive. I was reminded again of the love of God for these kids, but also for their city.  I was reminded of the hope found in gathering, in belonging. I watched a leader who sat on the edge of a wall engrossed in a deep conversation with a kid who looked to be asking hard questions.  Hope.  Relationships bring hope.  This was no ministry meeting or event, it was the impromptu gathering of people who belong to one another.

A leader and a student sharing life!

Conclusion

Though I prefer cleanliness, order, established rules and the safety it all brings, I was able to “find God in the city.”  I could see my own prejudices towards the orderly life that rarely affords the same sense of community that barrios like San Martin and urban areas around the world often do.  The clashing of cultures of the more educated and economically stable neighborhoods with the more traditional barrio is incredibly diverse, but the beauty is to be appreciated. I sensed that regardless of weather or not these people knew Christ, their entering into community, gathering together, offering their seat for an older couple… were all acts of God’s Kingdom being established.  The city is restored and redeemed on some level when this happens. I was refreshed by a different perspective and want to continue to look through these eyes and this perspective as I leave a very green, clean and orderly area of Lima to head back to the barrio in a few months!

In San Martin there are tons of these moto-taxis. Cheaper than a taxi to get a kid to school and groceries home!