Bethlehem in the Jungle

Twice so far this month (soon to be three times) I have had to opportunity to travel to Peru's largest city in the jungle--Iquitos. With a population somewhere between 350,000 and 400,000 Iquitos is also the largest city in the world that is inaccessible by road. It is so isolated that the only way to reach the city is by air or by a VERY long boat ride down the Amazon River. The city is completely different from the rest of Peru. The people are different, the culture is different, the Spanish accent is different, and there are many other indigenous languages spoken in and around Iquitos as well. Rather than the usual taxis that one expects to see on the streets, the town of Iquitos is dominated by three wheeled moto-taxis and motorcycles. Cars are much heavier and more expensive to ship into such an isolated place. Even I found myself buzzing around the city on the back of a friend's motorcycle (I will save the story of getting stopped by the police for another time)!

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 work in Belen is mainly preventative. We work with children in the local schools and their families to educate them, provide for their basic needs, and share the Gospel with them. We actually own and operate a medical clinic in the town. The idea is not to compete with the government health system, but to help provide care to the community where the government programs fall short--especially right now in the area of dentistry. We work hard to use the clinic as a home base for community education programs. Many people do not know the importance of drinking clean, potable water. Mothers don't know how or why they should brush their babies' teeth. Malaria, Dengue Fever, and other diseases are existent in part because of a lack of education. I have enjoyed becoming familiar with a different aspect of Scripture Union's ministry here that I had never gotten to see before. This ministry is growing in exciting ways. Scripture Union has just hired new directors of the medical programs in Iquitos. Oscar and his wife Rosana are both great people who love God. They are well qualified doctors, and I wait anxiously to see what God will do through them. Pray for them as they adjust to life in Iquitos, and as they seek God's will for the ministry there.

 Scripture Union's clinic in Belen (The yellow building in the center)