How Do You Recover a Childhood That Has Been Lost?
We generally think of “being a kid” as a time of learning, discovery and growth. It is a time of developing skills and understanding, but also the joy of simple pleasures like spending time outdoors, playing with toys, and having fun with friends.
Yesterday, I met Rashano at the LifeCenter. He seems like just a regular kid. But he comes from a reality that I can’t even imagine. You can see it in his face and eyes.
Rashano
The outdoors that Rashano perceives is not a place where kids play happily in the streets. It is a place of fierce shoot-outs between rival drug cartels, leaving lifeless bodies slumped on the ground in pools of their own blood.
Arturo and I sat down, and we discussed his situation
Rashano’s dad was connected with one of the gangs that has been selling drugs right here at the entrance to the slum. In the past 2 months, two gangs have been at war, killing each other to take control. And his dad was shot twice and was stabbed multiple times.
This was during daylight hours around 2 PM, and our team was still here at the LifeCenter, but, thank God, the kids were not. And we thought his dad was dead. We called the police. We thought he was deceased. But, thank God, the Lord saved his life, but he and Rashano had to flee.
And, Larry, you got to see Rashano when he came back to the LifeCenter from that experience. Rashano is 5-years old. He is like the other kids who want to play, who want to learn, who want to go to school. But his reality is this – he faces violence every single day because of the way he grows in a family that is connected to drug dealers.
“My birthday is in three days, and my birthday has to be here.”
This is where the LifeCenter becomes key. What he told us today is, “My birthday is in three days, and my birthday has to be here.” He sees this place as his house, his home.
But Rashano had to leave with his dad and go see his mom in Limón, another conflicted area. This is Holy Week, and he's going to be there, we don't know how long. We don't know if he's coming back. His dad has already been threatened, to be killed. So that is the reality.
So how do you recover a from a life like that?
Only God can do it. And that’s why the work that we do at the LifeCenter is focused on the Gospel. We want Rashano to know that he’s loved. We want Rashano to know that God has a purpose for him. That he is smart. That he is beautiful. That God doesn’t make mistakes. He’s not a mistake! That God loves him so much that He sent Jesus to die for him.
Every child wants to be loved. And so every day we show them love in a real way, taking care of a tooth that hurts, serving a meal, providing glasses so a child can see again, teaching them to read, providing a scholarship to school.
But our main focus is to teach them that God loves them, and that he can understand that love and live according to the amazing love that God gives him. That's our challenge -- to show them that God’s love is real. They'll never forget that.
God is the only one who can recover a childhood that has been lost!
Postscript: You might ask, “Why aren’t kids like Rashano referred to child services as they would be in the U.S.?” The short answer is that the child services system in Costa Rica (PANI) is broken. Their network of shelters is plagued by disorder, neglect, internal violence, and even the risk of drug addiction and sexual abuse to the detriment of the children who are sent there.
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