A Week In

It's Friday, and I've now completed one week and one day in Caracas. Each day continues to be full and challenging, but I am starting to develop a sense of familiarity about things.

I've now been to the city center area twice. Caracas has a great metro system. I think I expected Caracas to be very similar to Quito, but it's actually quite different. It's much cleaner, it has this great metro system, and the buses are much more user-friendly. You also don't see nearly as many guards around with machine guns, which was the norm in Quito. However, you do still sense the underlying unrest and violence, even though things appear to be nicer on the surface. We saw the police harassing a young man in the plaza the other day, for no apparent reason. One of the officers hit him on the head and later kicked him, for no apparent reason. The boy appeared terrified, and with good reason. We've heard about the senseless ways kids like him have been shot by the police. Yet, the police are in a very difficult position themselves, because they walk into incredily dangerous situations and know that if they don't shoot first, they may never have the chance. It's hard to imagine how following Jesus' model of nonviolence and peace could have any effect in such entrenched systems, but we must maintain hope.

We visited the neighborhood the other day where we will be starting a kids club. It has a long history of brutal violence, but in recent years has been calmer. The people who live there have welcomed kids clubs from this group in the past, so we are hopeful that any example of peace we can offer will be welomed again. Our first kids club will be next Tuesday, and we'll have them on Tuesdays and Thursdays until us summer folks leave at the end of July. Mostly we will be singing, playing games, and doing skits to model things like forgiveness and love. Forgiveness is not a familiar concept for people here, as most of the violence stems from people taking revenge for one thing or another. It's something I continue to learn for myself, even as I try to live it out as an example for others.

One of the things that has been surprising but encouraging to me about the way InnerCHANGE and the team work here is the way they are able to balance being present here and maintaining important relationships at home. InnerCHANGE really values sustaining its people for long term, so in addition to having a semi-relaxing schedule on Sundays, every Wednesday is a free Sabbath day for us to do gringo things, like going to a park in the city and just reading, or going to the beach. Venezuelans love to be in crowds, but we love to have space to ourselves, so it's incredibly nourishing to be able to recognize that and make space for our "gringo time". It makes it easier to be fully engaged when coming back to the barrio.

Thanks for all of your comments and thoughts. It's a huge blessing to me that I know I have family and friends who care for me and share their own insight.