Local Story: pray for young men and pastors to rise up!

Carlos, is 12. He’s been hanging with us at the community center. During church he dances wildly in worship and grooves hip hop moves down the aisle when serving to collect the offering. Its hard not to just want to tip him for his good dancing.

He watches his little brother Joven who is nearly three while his mom works during the day (dad is not in the picture).

Carlos explained to us his daily routine and the struggles of keeping Joven well behaved. His day starts with joven waking him up by sitting on his head and beating it like a drum. They sleep in the same room so there is little he can do to prevent it each morning.

Next Joven runs through town getting into peoples yards, and houses taking their soda and hitting their windows with rocks. (notice the reoccurring hitting theme).

We laughed as Carlos entertained us with the long list his tiny out of control brother does. What also amazed us was how well Carlos shared about his brother. It was not overly dramatic or immature, but very calm and a matter of fact ( with a slight grin on his face ).

At one point we asked Carlos, ‘what else? What else does Joven do?’ Carlos began to say, ‘well sometimes he…’ Just then Dave looks over into the next room and yells. We all turn to look and see little Joven peeing into a trash bucket. It was hilarious and horrifying at the same time. As we laughed Carlos finished his sentence…’ sometimes he does that.’ But Carlos didn’t end there. He lovingly explained his patience with Joven was because he was so short that when he goes into bathrooms it is usually dark and he can’t reach the light switch. He said Joven did this because he was either afraid or couldn’t see. What knowledge and insight this young boy had! At that moment Dave asked, “Carlos what do you want to be when you grow up?” Carlos said, a pastor.