The Village

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It takes a village to raise a child. 
- African proverb

I've always liked this proverb, but never really thought much about it, until today.
Because I can't decide if it's more or less true for the hogar kids.
The village is supposed to be in addition to your parents, I'm pretty sure.
But that's not how it is for them.
For them, their village is all they have.
There's no consistant parent figures, just a lot of tios and tias.
And they know that.

One of my biggest fears, always, is to attach to kids without parents.
Not for my sake, at all.
But for theirs.
I've read all those studies that say it's better to attach and lose someone than to never attach.
I'm sure that's true.
But it's better again to attach and not lose it.

Some of the kids have attached to their parents and been torn away.
Or their parents have passed away.
Some of the parents chose not to attach at all.
The kids have attached to volunteers, to the tias who work there, and then they've had to leave.
I'm attached to the kids, and vice versa.
One day I'll leave too.

So for me, a big thing is attaching to people who live here.
To other Bolivians, to very long-term missionaries, to ministries that will remain.
Which brings me full circle back to the village.

Last week, I brought baby S. to Carachipampa, the school I work at, where she got the attention she deserved.

Julie and Rolo

Claudia, who calls her "her baby" (along with at least five other people) and Sharon

I also took baby Isaac (I'm still not sold on his name, so I'll continue using my choice...) to Lifegroup with me on Wednesday night, where he got doted on too.

Little and Large (no offence Matt, obvs!)

He got grumpy, and so I went to take him back.
She swatted my hand away.

The centre of attention, as he should be.



And honestly, no one loves our kids quite like our church. I've told everyone who'll listen how great Belen is. We brought 11 kids (two newborns, the travieso 2 year old, two 2.5 year olds, four 3 year olds, and 9 year old "tia" S.) to church this morning, and they were far from on their best behaviour, and then another tia took three more, and we all ate lunch together at a different nearby church. As we tried to juggle them all our favourite pastor Fernando, his daughter, and all number of other people from church came in to serve them, help us feed them, bring them food, buy them food. This is the best picture I got, but seriously: life savers.

Yes, I tied #danieleltravieso to a chair.
Don't judge me, you don't know my life.

So yeah, maybe these kids don't have the "village" we might imagine for them, and pray for, and hope for, but for right now, they have a lot of pretty awesome people in their life.

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