Street kids and photos

Over the last few months I have become accustomed, and almost calloused, to the presence of very young children living in the streets. I was reminded of this when we were traveling around last week with some Mennonite church leaders from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. (You can see some photos of the trip here.) One of the participants, Nelly Rivera, commented on a little girl standing in the middle of a dirt road near Choloma. She said that if this were Puerto Rico, she would have called child protective services. I remember having those same thoughts about six months ago, when we passed a little boy in only a diaper playing with a hammer and nails that were left out on the front stoop of a house. I assume that boy's parents were around somewhere, but this little kid was in a dangerous situation, and no one took any notice.

Just yesterday we were walking to church when we caught up to a young boy -- probably 9 or 10 -- limping down the sidewalk. We stopped and asked him what happened to his foot, and he showed me where a piece of glass had imbedded itself in the middle of his foot. He had no shoes, and his ratty shorts and shirt were about falling off. Where did he come from? Where are his parents? Sadly, chances are he will look for a home, and will find it in one of the many street gangs.

I feel overwhelmed by poverty, and particularly when vulnerable small children are left on the streets to fend for themselves. I don't have any answers for this troubling reality of life in Central America. But I pray that I don't let these images of poverty harden me any more than they already have.

On a cheerier note, here are some more pictures of our trip with our most recent visitor, LaRita Craft. She just finished her master's in piano at University of Missouri at Kansas City, and celebrated with a trip around Honduras.