Mission Peru

By Nikki Schalk

He sat at the airport just as I was heading onto the plane. I sat and looked out the window that would take me back to my comfortable home and comfortable life. He looked at me with sad eyes, ragged clothes and a dirty face and said, "Nikki, are you really going to leave me here?"

This is the scene that repeatedly crept its way into my dreams the weeks before I got here. I, along with all of our leaders, prayed for God to break our hearts for what breaks His. After the first night of dreaming this I almost regretted this prayer. "Wait God, don't break me that much! Don't cause me so much pain that the hurt and guilt consumes my every thought!"

I have now spent the last four days surrounded by the child in my dreams. Surrounded by the painful truth of poverty that consumes the lives of millions of children here in Peru: Reality of ragged clothes and a painful cycle of hopelessness. Suffering beyond what I could have ever imagined and beyond anything I thought a loving God above handed out to any child of His.

When writing this, I think specifically of my friend Fernando in the dump. The boy who was so proud to show Lauren and I his single mattress and sheet that covered it, that he called home. In the midst of garbage, smell, disease, sickness, bugs, smoke and dirt he slept each night and played each day.

Why does such suffering exist in the life of a child? Why me, born into luxuries, and Fernando born literally into nothing? Where is the hope? Where is my God here?

My head still spins at what my eyes have seen, but despite the chaos, God lead me to 1 Peter 1: 6-9. "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

For the first time in my life this week I can finally understand "Blessed are the weak", "Blessed are the poor", "Blessed are you when you suffer grief’s in all kinds of trials." In the midst of the broken, Gods face was right before me. The kingdom of heaven is for these. The sufferings of these people is short, but the salvation of souls for their faith is forever; it is eternal.

There is a reason God allows us to suffer. There's a reason He knocks us on our knees. As hard as it was, there is a reason I forced myself to walk away from Fernando after chasing him around the dump for an hour. Because my God is Sovereign. Because I have a purpose in London, Ontario.  And because Fernando has a purpose in the dumps of Trujillo, Peru.

Jeremiah 29:11