HIV orphans

we have some friends who run an orphanage full of children with HIV. their mission: "to serve the poor, and specifically the most desperate among them." but these friends don't only serve the poor, they give their own lives away completely in order to do it.

it is a catholic orphanage. our friends are the 14 nuns that run it. they live there, eat there, they never leave. the only time they see the outside of the facility is when they are taking kids to the hospital. unfortunately, that is frequently.

almost all of the 70 or so kids they care for are HIV positive. most of them were thrown out when they were born. "they were thrown out with the garbage" the director said. a friend of mine responded "this is the most beautiful garbage dump i have ever seen."

suzie is a friend and one of the nuns working at the orphanage. when she was 11 she started going to school there (they are also a private school that accepts students without HIV). as she grew up in that school, she eventually knew she had a calling on her life to take care of these kids.

her heart broke for the HIV kids, and she admired how the nuns sacrificed their lives to care for them.

when she was 18 she changed from "evangelical christian" to catholic (two very distinct camps in guatemalan religious culture), and became a nun in order to work at the home. this change did not come easy for suzie, as her father and brother are pastors at evangelical christian churches.

she has not seen her family since she made the change. (a choice they have made, as the nuns are allowed to have visitors at the HIV home.)

the more i get to know suzie, the more i admire her. along with the other nuns, she is following a biblical model of service that i have never seen lived out with such conviction. truly giving up her life for others, she does it with a smile and with joy.

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." ~Jesus

then i look into the faces of the kids. no parents, no family. son's and daughter's of sexual abuse and prostitutes. sick and diseased, with no value to their family, they were thrown out with the garbage.

like suzie, i am compelled to do more. Jesus said when we look into the eyes of "the least of these" we are looking into His own eyes.

forgotten, betrayed and thrown out... these kids are Jesus.