Let me tell you about Giermo. First, I love him. He´s nine, and he´s a little bit in love with me. I don’t mind. His dad comes to Bible study at El Puente twice a week, so he´s around a good bit. He cracks me up – he starts out sitting three chairs away from me and spends the next five to ten minutes moving closer and closer until he’s holding my hand and laying his head in my lap.
Giermo lives in the barrio. I don´t know the actual name of the street he lives on; the guys call it no-no street because going down it is not a good idea. I haven’t been to his house, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that he lives in a shack, like most everyone else in the barrio. He´s one of nine kids. I am pretty sure his dad doesn’t work. He seems to just wander around town alot. Point being, they don’t have enough money to send the kids to school. Giermo can’t read and most likely won’t learn. He’s a smart kid, a good kid. He´s sweet and funny and mischevious and he always jumps at chances to help out. And I can´t help but look at him and think, where are you gonna be in 10 years? Illiterate, jobless, drug addicted? Cause that’s what he’s being set up for. You wanna talk about at-risk kids, there’s an at-risk kid for you. And the barrio is full of kids just like him. I wish people didn’t have to start life with the odds stacked against them.That’s why we’re here, to help beat those odds!
Why do you say, O Jacob
and complain, O Israel,
My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God´?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.´
-Isaiah 40: 27-39
