Traffic in Iquitos
Scripture Union Peru also has many different ministries in and around Iquitos. I have mentioned some of them in my previous blog posts. We operate a Casa Girasoles for abandoned boys on the Itaya River just 20 minutes by boat from the city. We have a number of programs for children at risk or in the streets of Iquitos including a night shelter. We also have two medical ships the move up and down the Amazon River providing medical care to local indigenous communities that have little or no access to standard government health care. What I really want to focus on, though, is the ministry that Scripture Union has in a small neighborhood of Iquitos called Belen.
If you translate the word "Belen" into English, then you get "Bethlehem." Obviously it is far from the Bethlehem that you had in your mind. This neighborhood is actually one of the poorest neighborhoods among all of the urban centers in Peru. It sits right at the edge of the river, and during rainy season most of the area floods. Some of the homes and businesses are built on stilts in order to stay above the flood waters, but many of the houses just float. They are called balsas because they are built on top of large buoyant logs. The river in this area is used for everything--swimming, fishing, defecating, washing clothes, showering, and dumping garbage. Belen actually lies right in the area where one of Iquitos' main sewage drains empties out into the river. When the river is low, the sewage runs through the muddy streets of the town, and when the river is high, it empties directly into the water that the community depends on. The community is constantly dealing with many different infirmities including malaria and constant infections from different parasites. There are many single parent homes and many other cases of domestic violence and child abuse. No wonder that about half of all of the boys that end up in our home have come from this one specific neighborhood.
At one point the government of Peru tried to create a program that would help the people of Belen relocate so that they wouldn't have to deal with the filth and sewage any longer. The problem, though, is that many of the people in the community decided to stay. A great number of people make a living by rowing people around the town in small dugout canoes. If they were relocated away from the river, then they would have no income.
Overlooking the town of Belen
On my way into Belen
The sewage and garbage that pours into the water
Children walking through the river
Scripture Union's clinic in Belen (The yellow building in the center)
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