Exciting Ministry

Hey everyone! Quick update for the week. This week of ministry has been centered around working with orphans and street kids. The YWAM Medellin base has 2 houses (girls´ house and boys´ house) that are for orphaned kids. The YWAM staff have a rotating schedule and take turns working at the girls´ and boys´ house and sleeping there. Earlier in the week we did a lot of cleaning of the houses and the rest of the time we have been playing games with them in the afternoon and helping with various projects around the houses.

We also have had opportunities to work with street kids. There are three levels for street kids here in Colombia. Level 1 is where kids go to a facility (to be honest it looks like a prison with all the gates and fences around it, but they are very nice facilities once inside) to stay if they want to get off the street and have a place to sleep and food to eat. The first few nights there the kids have 24 hour supervision as many of them are ¨high¨ from either sniffing glue or doing drugs. There are also several girls that come that have been on the street doing prostitution. If the kids stay at the facility long enough (the sad part is that they can come and go as they want) they have opportunities for good health care, food and shelter are provided for, and they get an education, and they can then move to the next level. Level 2 is where the kids have been rehabilitated long enough that they can move to another facility, which is usually a finca, and there they are taught to continue with education by being integrated into local schools and they have more responsibilities. Level 3 is basically where they try to integrate the kids back into society, either with family (that are not on drugs or alcohol or in prostitution) or if they are 18 or older into a place of their own and help them get a job. We worked with a level 1 yesterday and it was a great opportunity, but a sad experience too, in seeing the girls that were selling their bodies at such a young age (ages 10 and up), and the rest of them being ¨high.¨ They are all looking for love, but just in the wrong places.

Well, tonight we are going to a crack hotel for kids. It is called a crack hotel because the kids that come to the hotel are there when their parents are out on the streets doing drugs, alcohol, or prostitution, and the kids don´t have anyone to look after them. So, we are going tonight to do some dramas and puppets, and then we will pass out bread and hot chocolate afterwards to people around the hotel. I am looking forward to loving these kids tonight, since it may be the only time that these kids ever feel loved.

Gotta close for now, but I pray God´s blessings for you all. Please continue to keep our team in your prayers as well as the people of Colombia.