Some kids, like this cute little girl, are so easy to love. Then there are the hard to love kind of kids, someone like a kid they call 'Lemon.' Many in our world have nicknames; his is 'Lemon'. We've known him since he was about ten years old. He has spent most of his life in incarcerated. He is greedy, loud and belligerent. Un-loveable. Un-lovely. Un-loved!
'Lemon' is now sixteen and on his way to a life in the penitentiary. He reached his hand and arm out of his cell bars yesterday to say hi and shake my hand. I gave him a smile and shook his hand and twisted it (as I often do) to see his wrist. I noted about eight scars along his wrist. 'Lemon' is a cutter. It's apparent that he has attempted eight times to end his life, and if you look a little closer you can see where each scar is deeper than the last. Unfortunately 'Lemon' isn't the only cutter in the CMI.
Why is it so hard to express God's love to a rather ugly kid who doesn't even love himself? We have worked for years in Tijuana's children's jail called the CMI. We call it kindergarten . . .because the next step is the penitentiary. At any time there are two or three hundred kids in this CMI. Believe me when I say it's as secure as any maximum-security prison can be.
It's seems only right that Spectrum would follow these kids from the streets and tough barrios to this jail. The kids respect us and they willingly listen to us as we plant seeds that will hopefully develop in their future, wherever it may be. Most of these kids have a father problem. Many have a father that is in the penitentiary.
The Tijuana penitentiaries are really bad. These kids pay their time in the CMI until they are eighteen, then it's penitentiary time.
How bad?
On occasion an older looking kid will be placed into the penitentiary if he can't prove his age, (they strip him and if he looks eighteen, he's in.) I remember, in the CMI, talking with one of these teens that spent a short time in the penitentiary and was returned to the CMI because he could prove he was sixteen. He was calmly telling me of a 'mock' soccer game he witnessed; the men in the penitentiary were playing using a human head as the ball.
Life in our world is dirty and hard. We make it a point to be where the need is.
