When Love Hurts

We are having to set boundaries with a boy that we love very much and has been in our lives for over 3 years.  This incident is just another example of the mindset of the young men in this nation.  But, not so very different from the rest of the young people in this world.  A generation that much of the world is starting to call "the entitlement" generation.

We met Kervin on our first trip to Nicaragua and immediately, God joined our hearts.  We loved him no less than our own children.  He and his younger brother live with an aunt in an over crowded home in a rural, poverty stricken village.  They had been abandoned by their mother over 12 years ago while she went to Costa Rica to work, but never returned.  When we first met Kervin, he was not attending school and his aunt was wanting him to work in the cane fields in order to provide income for the family.  We made arrangements to provide the equivalent of a salary in order for him to return to school.  The only stipulation we asked of him was to do well in school and continue to attend church.

We loved visiting with he and his brother on our trips to Nica and looked forward to the day when we would be here full time and see them on a regular basis. I have no idea what went awry.  Were we too generous?  Did we not instill in them the desire to reach for the future, that anything was possible?  Or, is the Nicaragua mindset of "life is what it is and it will never be different" too engrained in them?

Kervin was several years behind in school and he struggled, but he kept pursuing his education.   He is passionate about music.  When I say passionate, I mean music consumes him.  He is practically self taught on the piano and guitar.  There was a time his desire was to be a famous Christian recording artist so that he could make lots of money and help his family and country.  I feel that his dream of being a musician is dying.  He seems to be settling for what is available to him NOW.  Maybe the pursuit of music was too time consuming;  maybe people started snatching that dream from him; maybe there was not enough encouragement from the people he shared a home with. Maybe life was just proving to be too difficult. 

He came to us recently asking if he could live with us.  I was thrilled at the thought of being able to spend more time with him.   But it became very apparent in our conversation that he expected a lot of perks without any responsibility to us or our home.  He wanted total freedom to pursue his interests and agenda without submitting to standards that we have set for any of the other boys that we educate or allow to stay in our home.   I won't go in to the details of his change in spiritual beliefs and behavior; but I will say that this is not the same boy that I knew just 6-9 months ago.   At 19 years of age, if he chooses not to pursue his education and prepare for his future, we could not continue to support him financially or provide him with a home and meals.

One of the purposes of our being in Nicaragua is to encourage young men to strive for a better future.  We will not enable them to continue to walk in the welfare mentality that seems to exist in regards to their relationships with the missionaries that serve here.  It's ironic that we have been tested within our own "Nicarauga family" to walk out our ministry principles and purpose.

Kervin stayed with us for the night and our hearts were very heavy.  The next morning he came to me saying that he was very sad and I shared with him our pain.  It's been weeks since we said "good-by".  I worry about him and what will become of him.  He is a young man with so much ability and talent.  We talked with him all the time about making choices that would ultimately change his circumstances and thus begin changing the poverty that had been so much a part of his life and his family.

I ask myself would things have been different if we had been here years sooner; did we arrive too late? Or is the system so broken that we may never reach the young men with the idea of a life free from oppression and poverty? Maybe, it is a matter of them not being able to dream of the possibility of a life different from what they have always known.

We have experienced disappointments and hurts since our arrival in Nicaragua, but this hurt hit too close to home.  This time it was "our son" that chose to keep his life, for now, as he has always known it.