You live, you learn

What do you do when you think you've helped someone leave a life on the streets for a life that seemed better, and then that someone (or in this case group of someones) left the life that seemed better for the life that was more familiar?

What I am doing now is learning from the mistakes that were made. Let's say a family, with a small child of around 2 years old is living on the streets, and is at time being assaulted from time to time and being robbed of the few worldly possessions they do have. One day, when your church is showing a movie for the purpose of having a deep discussion afterward, this family walks in the doors. Really only the husband/father walks all the way in because the wife/mother is so embarrassed about her appearance, she will not come in to be around all the people who sleep under roofs and take showers at least once a day (for Brazilians this shower thing could reach in the double digits).

So, say you help this family have the means to make money enough to rent a small house, and you find them a place, with the help of some other members of your church. And for a while they are happy and content and are moving in and enjoying being able to provide for themselves and their baby. They work on getting the child into a nursery school. It takes a long time, but the child is eventually able to stay at the school a whole day without pitching a fit (remember, the child has not been away from her parents on the street at all her whole life). So, things seem to be going well.

Then, you hear they want to switch jobs. They can make more money doing something else. They switch. It isn't successful. They don't want to go back to the old job. They find another job and are doing pretty well. Then all of a sudden they move out. You hear lots of stories, two or three from the couple themselves. The house was leaky; rain got in. There were ticks crawling all over the place and were biting our daughter. They kicked us out. We had medical expenses and could not afford rent. You never really hear the same story twice in a row, and you hear from the owner that they just packed up and left. Nevertheless, they are back living on the street. They find another place to rent, but it is more expensive. They ask for help again. They quit working for a couple of weeks. They ask for help again. Knowing that it will probably end up the same way do you give them a months rent for the new place? Do you tell them no and encourage them to work to get into the new place on their own, knowing that they can't manage money well enough to do that?

This is really just a tip of the iceburg kind of story telling. It is really happening, though. This man is very open to studying scripture with anyone who will open a Bible and sit down for some time with him. Pretty interesting. What I hope is that enough time can be given to this family to teach them to take care of a rented house and maybe help train them to be able to manage their lives well enough to get off the street for good. Living on the street can be just as much an adiction as drugs and alcohol, or so it seems.