celebrating a birthday under a highway onramp…

For over a month one of the young women on the streets, who I will call “Lucia” has been reminding us that her 24th birthday was coming up. Our friends on the streets range in ages 0-30, but a majority of the kids are probably in their teens. It is often hard for me to guess their ages. Lucia is one of the young women that we see just about every time we visit with our friends on the streets. So, Rebecca made some cupcakes and all of us, including baby Ana, went downtown to celebrate Lucia’s life. It took quite a bit of searching today, as the youth were not in their regular spot. But, with the help of one of the boys, we finally found them all under a highway onramp with busy streets on either side. Everyone was there…except Lucia! This is the first day Lucia was not there, so her brother went searching for her. We hung out with our friends and thankfully Lucia eventually arrived with a smile on her face. We attempted to light the candles on the cupcakes and sang happy birthday, Brazilian-style. It was cool to see the smile on Lucia’s face as about 25 of us sang, shared cupcakes, and drank soda under a highway onramp with buses zooming by on either side of us. I hope and pray that Lucia felt loved and cared for today, in our simple gestures of celebrating her life.

I have still not seen my friend Paulo. We were told that he was at home in another part of the city for awhile. I do not know exactly what that means, but I pray home is a better situation then life on the streets. We do not know a lot about Paulo’s background and situation. It is hard to imagine the circumstances, backgrounds, and stories of these kids that makes life on the streets so much better then some of their homes. The addiction of the life of the streets is strong.