6-15

I have moved to the center of town, I walk 4 blocks to get the center where I work with the kids, the surroundings are drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless people, dogs and trash,,everywhere. I am teaching some 5 and 6 year olds who have never been to school, teaching them the love of Jesus and the alphabet and numbers, they have a long way to go. The kids love going to the park across the street, the park is surrounded by gangs hustling drugs, homeless people sleeping off hangovers, and the building 20 feet from the park is being torn down after being blown up by the guerrillas a few years ago, this is all normal to our kids, but I got an ealge eye on everybody and everything. Last week we began taking care of a 4 week old baby, the parents work for a witch and don´t have the recources to take care of their child, different families in the ministry are taking turns fostering him. Most of the kids who were displaced last week still havn´t been located, so we are working with about half the amount of kids. I appreciate your prayer support in bringing the light to this darkness.

6-8

Lecture phase is over, tomorrow begins the practical. I am assigned to work in a drop off center for kids who live in a slum in the center of town. However on Thursday and Friday last week the government decided to knock the whole neighborhood down, displacing the families and putting the children in institutions. The para military came in and surrounded the shanty town made of plywood, cardboard and other recyclable materials. They brought in a tank and police in riot gear. As far as I know it was a peaceful destruction. But now thousands of people are without homes, and hundreds of kids taken away from their parents. As a ministry we are praying what we can do….

The other part of my work is on the weekends in a town on a mountainside, a poor community with lots of kids, these kids are in need of spiritual mentoring and in need of a positive male role model. Its so common in latin american countries that the dad splits and leaves the family to start another one. A pastor is planting a church among this community for the kids. I´ve been there once before and felt strongly that I would be apart of this programme in some way, so im stoked for the challenges that lie ahead this next month and im thankful for your prayers. skip

5-25

I´ve been a pretty crappy blogger the past couple of months. These past months have been pretty full on. Last week´s subject was generational curses and blessings. I´m not even sure what this week is about, I still feel like im digesting information from 3 weeks ago. We have had some great speakers who are all experts in their fields, im priviledged to be learning from people who are so passionate about kids at risk.

I was reading yesterday when I felt the building start to shake. I looked outside and saw all the powerlines swinging. It was the strongest earthquake i´ve been in yet. They say all the high rises here are built for quakes, i´m not so sure, i´ve been watching the construction across the street for the past couple of months and i haven´t even seen a level or plumb bob.

i miss you all.

Halfway done.

Last week was kids week in all of colombia. We celebrated with our kids in the ministry here on saturday night with some games and the classic piñata. The piñata is one of the coolest ideas to come out of the latino culture just behind the machete. Anytime you can let out aggression by swinging a stick at a fake donkey or clown and be rewarded with candy is good times. I bet the hard core Colombians use a machete to hit that donkey.

School is going well, last week one of our teachers, Steve Bartel the founder of the ywam street kids ministry in bogota, taught us something that really stuck out to me. I`ll sum it up real quick, basically our motivations in ministry should be to bring glory to the name of God, everything else is secondary. I think that goes with just about anything in our lives. It can be so easy for our motivations to get a little twisted along the way. So I check myself and challenge you to do the same. Its all because of Him. period.

I love and miss you all. skip

Friday

One reason I enjoy being in third world countries is that im contsantly reminded of how good I have it. I visited a school for deaf kids yesterday, as I watched these beautiful kids sign and interact with each other it brought tears to my eyes, not tears of pity but because it was so good to see how strong kids are and how they just move on even in difficulties. Then on my walk to this computer I saw an old lady who apparently was just hit by a car, her head was split wide open. It is sobering to be in a place where the value of life seems to be low because death is such reality. I am spending the next two nights in a home for streets kids, im looking forward to horsin around and probably playin some futbol, and seein what kind of skills these colombian kids have. For their sake I hope they don´t have ping pong.

Camp Niko

Last week our school went through a leadership training course set in the mountains of colombia, for five days it went something like this.

Food, water and sleep were strictly rationed,
we walked hours and hours up and down steep mountains with one liter of water per day,
slept on the rocky ground, never changed my clothes, killed a chicken for food.
had to drink dirty water out of an animal watering trough just to survive. severe leg cramps from dehydration. I think 4 people passed out from the heat and lack of water. the last leg of the climb there were times I was on all fours just trying to make progress. I lost a lot of weight and im sure i got worms again. yeah, remind me to never do that again.

20 hours of combined bus rides and im back in Bobota and in class again. I often thought of street kids and how this is their daily life. Now I truly enjoy every bite of food and drink of water I get.

In Colombia

I arrived in Bogota Colombia yesterday, the largest city with 8 million people. I have been going through orientation for the school I am doing with Youth with a Mission. It´s going to be a jam packed 4 months. Im really looking forward to the practical part of getting on the streets to minister to the street kids.

It was bitter sweet saying goodbye to everyone. I have made some great friends in the past 5 months, plus the time I was able to spend with my family (especially my niece and nephew) was the best of times. I was only able to hold my composure by not thinking about how I am going to miss everyone, maybe not the healthiest way but it was what I had to do.

I just found out that I have to prepare breakfast and lunch one day a week for all the students. If they only knew! Well, they will know soon and I am sure I will be relieved of my cooking duties.

Huge thanks

To Lifepoint church, for believing in me and giving me their blessing. A special thanks to the church for playing the street kids video that Brad Barbour made. For anyone hungry for more of Jesus, check this church out, He’s there every sunday.

Update

I’ve been back from the UK for almost two weeks and im just now bloggin, but anyway, I was able to take a ferry over to Holland for a couple of days, and visited a cool church in Amsterdam. I saw a man who was dressed like my grandma in the 60’s. He/she was standing all alone so I introduced myself, He/she spoke only dutch so my friend Maaike took over. It was kind of sad to see someone who clearly needed Jesus in church but was being neglected by the regulars.

I feel like i have kind of blown this whole blog thing. I have been back from bolivia for almost 5 months now and have blogged only a handful of times. I wish i had a super good excuse, but honestly most of the events in the past months have been a time of struggle and personal challenges. You don’t want to read about that. But what you do want to read is that in these times comes some growth, and praise be to the Lord, he is always faithful. I honestly don’t see how people can survive without knowing our savior.

In a few weeks im leaving for colombia, south america, to take part in a training course for children at risk. Its 3 months long and 1 month working in a facility for street children. This should be a time of learning and continued growth, and hopefully getting more direction in the work I will be doing with street children. man im super tired. peace.