Day 6

“And who is my neighbor?” Luke 10:29b

We began our day with morning devotions led by Chi, discussing the parable of the Good Samaritan. With this parable and the question “who is my neighbor?¨” on our minds, we headed back up to El Alto (elev. 13,000 ft), one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in Bolivia. There we met Michael, Kelly, and Santos, all from a local ministry working with street children, as well as Emma, a visiting medical student from the U.K. The streets of El Alto are filled with crowded minibuses and people, walking or selling food or small items along the roads, as well hundreds of stray dogs wandering around. Led by Michael and Chi, we went to some of the areas where street kids tend to hang out.

At our first stop, we met several kids and teens living on the streets, many of them sniffing balls of yarn soaked in paint thinner. We offered them our warm greetings, some fresh ham sandwiches, and in a few cases, minor medical care. One teenager, known to Michael and others, was recovering from an infection on his lip due to the paint thinner, and a knife wound on his neck from a recent altercation.

We also visited the place where 20 to 30 kids sleep at night: on a mattress of cardboard under a plastic tarp on the median strip of a highway beneath a bridge. The ground was littered with the small plastic bottles of paint thinner that these kids inhale to keep them warm in the frigid nights of El Alto and dull their pain from past and present traumas.

After saying goodbye to Michael, Kelly, and Santos, we headed back down into La Paz to eat lunch before heading up the side of another mountain to visit Hogar Bernabé and Hogar Betánia, the two permanent homes built by Kaya Children International. Twenty boys live there with house parents in a family style setting. These homes are in a poor semi-rural neighborhood, surrounded by spectacular mountains with a view of the city in the valley below.

We had two special activities planned for afternoon recreation. The first activity was building a hexagonal wooden structure to play the game “GaGa,” an action packed game similar to dodge ball. The boys quickly picked up the simple rules and played until the sun went down. The second activity was to introduce them to the classic American game of Wiffleball. They quickly caught on, blasting singles, doubles, triples, and home runs (perhaps aided by the thin air at that high altitude!).

After the sun set, the temperature dropped quickly and we went indoors. Kristin gave us a guided tour of one of the homes, notable for each bed being neatly made and the clean and comfortable common areas for gathering. We then rode back down the very bumpy dirt and gravel roads, crammed into a minivan, back to our hotel for dinner and evening devotions and time to reflect up the stark contrast of what we saw and experienced today in the morning and afternoon. We reflected upon the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan, and the question and admonition of Jesus: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, Go and do likewise." (Luke 10:36,37)

- John Yee