Another long ride through the dusty outskirts of Lima, Peru. I was on my way to visit one of our oldest and biggest church partners there. They’ve done a lot of good work and the church has grown tremendously over the years. They’ve already started seven daughter churches and now are working with us to start daughter child development centers.

When I arrived, the church staff told me about a very creative project they had begun — they had just opened a rotisserie chicken restaurant. This was a new one on me!

They submitted a proposal through our Complementary Interventions Program to help the youth start up a chicken restaurant as an income-generation activity. They had professional adults guiding and teaching the adolescents, and there were five youths actively working in this capacity.

I looked out onto the church courtyard where the restaurant was located and saw a nice-looking young man wearing a bright white uniform with a lime-green apron and visor. He looked like he had walked right out of a well-run fast food joint.

When I stepped outside I caught the eye of this young man and his intense concentration changed into a bright smile. You know the kind. The kind that lights up the room.

When some people smile, it seems their face hardly changes. Then there are others who smile and it changes the world. Job’s is a smile that changes the world.

That’s his name, Job. Who names their child Job? I think only a Christian mother who is familiar with suffering — but also believes in a gracious God.

I felt an immediate connection with Job and, partly through my broken Spanish and partly through an interpreter, I started to get to know a bit about him.

Given that Job was working the “chicken stand,” I assumed he was one of the youth likely not on a highly academic track and was instead being prepared with a valuable vocational skill.

I asked him enthusiastically if he hoped one day to run a rotisserie chicken shop of his own. He abruptly told me no.

So I asked what he hoped to do. He told me he wanted to run a juice shop. I guess Lima now has juice shops popping up, kind of like Jamba Juice in the U.S. So, I thought that was very entrepreneurial of him. And I thought I had this kid pegged as a young entrepreneur.

To broaden our conversation I asked Job what else he likes to do.

His face lit up (remember he has one of those faces that really lights up!) and he said that he loves to read. Not many 14-year-old boys say their first passion is reading!

I encouraged him that I too like to read. Then he said that what he really wants to do is to be a journalist. Wow! Not who I had pegged this kid to be.

As God would have it (and God does have it!), we were planning to do a home visit that day, and out of all the homes that I could have visited, my small group was set to visit Job’s home.

Now isn’t that an interesting little coincidence? Out of all the kids that I could have connected with, I connected with Job, and then I happened to be given the opportunity to visit his home.

Job joyfully took us to visit his house and welcomed us into his home with pride. Job loves his family and they work together to do the best they can with what they have.

Job has a deadbeat dad who is seldom around and doesn’t provide for the family. So his paternal grandmother has taken them in. Awkward, but real.

Job’s family of five (not including the dad) live in one room in Grandma’s complex. Four other related families live there as well.

Now they feel safe because there is always a family member around to provide protection. Where they lived before, the mom never felt that her kids were safe.

We met Job’s sweet mother who has three other children and no regular income. But she is a devoted follower of Jesus and has raised her children to be involved in church.

In fact, her three adolescent kids all lead cell groups for the youth group. Grandma has even set aside a special room for youth group gatherings.

Job showed us his family’s room (no, not the family room, his family’s room!) and the simple little desk (set up on blocks because it has broken legs) where he studies.

His books are all neatly organized and highly valued. In fact, their room was fastidiously organized. I asked if just he was organized and he said that they all needed to be organized in order to live together.

We walked up two flights of open stairs (no railings, no wall) to a makeshift kitchen and a place where his dad comes to sleep once in a while. The dad has basically abandoned the family, but is still a constant presence because they see his empty bed in the kitchen of his mother’s house.

I asked how we could pray for the family, Job started to cry.

Sylvia, our wonderful Program Communications Manager, nudged me and said,

“Job needs to experience a father’s love right now.”

So I slid over and hugged Job. He collapsed into my arms. He just leaned back into me and rested in my arms. He had no desire to break free. He simply rested there, just like we need to do into the Father’s arms. Let go. Cry. Lean in. Breathe deep. Feel loved.

Job let me love him and express to him how much he is loved.

In that one simple act of wrapping my arms around Job’s small frame and letting him experience a father’s love, I felt like my purpose on earth had been realized. Why I was alive that day was evident.

One of God’s precious little ones needed to feel the Father’s love. One of Compassion’s 1.2 million children needed to know tangibly and physically and emotionally and spiritually that he was known and loved and protected.

This precious, godly, responsible, smart 14-year-old has all the potential in the world. The world will be a poorer place if he is not able to use his sensitivity, his courage, his heart and his mind to bless those around him.

And we are there for Job — through the reality of the local church and his sponsor. We are all making love real, offering hope, providing a way.

We must keep on. We must keep getting better. Job is counting on us. We have the great privilege of helping to restore to Job all that God promises. He has had the trials of Job and he is being faithful.

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“Lord, if you allowed this to happen, it’s because you will give me something better.” These were the words that Rosalva expressed when she saw her home torn apart by an earthquake that hit the town of San Lorenzo, in the department of Ahuachapan, about 100 km west of the capital city San Salvador, in El Salvador.

Earlier that day, at about 1 in the morning, the town had felt a tremor. Then, at 11 a.m. of the same day, a 4.6 earthquake hit the area; this is like detonating 1,000 tons of TNT.

Rosalva worked as a baby sitter on the other side of the town, and as soon as she could, she ran home, only to see a big hole in the roof, since most of the tiles had fallen off because of the magnitude of the quake. The walls, made of adobe (a mix of clay and straw), had cracks all over, and the danger of them falling apart was evident.

Thanks to God, her family was okay, but the damages to the house were irreversible. “All four corners of my house were completely separated” says Rosalva, trying to describe how her home, a small, one-room house, had cracks so big that the corners were not together anymore.

Civil Protection, the government agency designated to evaluate damages in these situations, reported that 90 percent of the houses in the area suffered damages, and about 70 of the 200 houses of the town were declared uninhabitable.

Rosalva lived with her parents, her husband, her two children and her niece. Suddenly, all her family had to sleep in the street because the earth kept shaking, and being inside the house was too dangerous.

According to the Seismology Investigation Department of El Salvador, what occurred in the town of San Lorenzo was labeled a seismic cluster, which indicates a series of quakes centralized on an area. This particular seismic cluster lasted from December 19, 2006, until the middle of January 2007.

According to El Diario de Hoy, one of the main newspapers in El Salvador, in just three days, there were over 800 earth movements reported, even though the magnitude and frequency of those kept descending.

“I asked my pastor if I could go to the temporary shelter at the local school, and he said it was okay,” says Luz, Rosalva’s mother and caregiver of Yaquelin, Rosalva’s niece.

“So I took my children there [the shelter] and the earth kept moving, and so did they [the church staff]… my brothers and sisters did not stop, the Lord gave them the strength to keep moving” adds Luz, taking pride in being part of such a lovely church, where everybody takes care of each other in troubled times.

“The angel of the Lord stays close around those who fear Him, and He takes them out of trouble” says Luz, convinced that she trusts a powerful God.

In fact, she trusted God, as did her daughter Rosalva and her granddaughters, Yaquelin and Laura. God answered their needs, and the Church and Compassion were the tools to deliver His blessings.

“We contacted the director and told her to raise a census of all the families with children registered at the child development center who needed assistance” says Omar, Partnership Facilitator for Compassion El Salvador.

“Then, we proceeded to make a physical inspection of the damages, so we went to San Lorenzo and made home visits and took pictures to make a Complementary Intervention (CIV) request to help those families” he adds.

Complementary Interventions is a tool used to provide additional assistance to the families of the children registered in the Compassion programs, since the money received from sponsors are strictly designated to provide each child with the four main components of the program: spiritual development, health preventive and corrective measures, school reinforcement, and socio-emotional development.

Through CIV funding, the children and the church partners can receive additional help, such as construction of houses, which is the case for the Shaddai Student Center.

When the staff from Compassion went to San Lorenzo, they took a tour with Brother Omar, the pastor. Brother Omar did not have the usual look of a pastor, with a tie and suit. He had a sweaty T-shirt and a baseball cap, and his black shoes were not black anymore, they were a mix of mud brown and green. And it’s because the pastor along with the rest of the church members were already helping.

A proposal for disaster relief was sent, and two months later, it was approved and the child development center received a total of $27,245, to benefit 29 children and their families affected by the earthquake.

The proposal included a local contribution of $3,100, which was the cost of labor. The families of the children committed to work in the construction of the houses to save the $3,000 needed. Brother Omar kept the muddy shoes on, as well as all the student center staff, and helped the families to reconstruct their homes.

“Some months before we had the blessing from God to get a little piece of land” says Rosalva. But they did not have enough money to build a house and move out of her mother’s house. After the earthquake, Rosalva had the blessing of having her own house built on that land, and her mother Luz Maria also had her house rebuilt.

Since the local government promised to provide the affected families with aluminum sheets and plastic to build provisional shelters, the disaster relief from Compassion was used to build cement walls, and the materials provided by the government were used for roofs. The money was not enough to put in floors, so the houses had dust floors.

Laura and Yaquelin were two of the children who kept receiving blessings from the Lord, through their sponsors. Laura and Yaquelin received family gifts from their sponsors, which was enough to put tile floors to both houses. Laura also got a bed, and Yaquelin got a bike as well.

They are two of the 186 children assisted at the Shaddai Student Center.

Yaquelin and Laura have not forgotten the fear they felt, but now they are two happy cousins with big dreams in their hearts. Most likely, one of them runs to the other’s house and they go to the child development center together.

Laura’s mother, Rosalva, now works at the Compassion child development center, giving school reinforcement to the children, and helping them with their homework. A total a 31 children and their families were assisted. These families trusted God, stayed close to Him, and he took them out of trouble.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates