Half Way

Dear family and friends,

Halfway through many things: the year, school holidays, the ministry big foot project, our apartment's rent contract, our savings. All of these things have some implications, but nothing that our faith can't stretch to.

Stretching our faith the most at this moment is the ministry's Big Foot project. We only need about US$41,000 to meet the next payment (due now) in the purchase of the auditorium and house used by the drop in center. Between 20 to 30 kids attend the drop in center and the auditorium is used by them and other kids for recreation. The ministry has seen God provide for many daily things like food and big things like other houses. This is the first time that we have had so little funds come in. You can read about the project on our ministry website.

Other ministry happenings have been the visit of the outreach team from the YWAM base in Oxford NZ. There were no kiwis on the team but we still enjoyed their visit. Carlos was able to take them to some children's programs that were run by either the government, private or by Catholic's. The contacts made from these visits have opened up the possibility for some of these children to attend our ministry school. This has come at a crucial time as we are seeking God as to which slum is the next one to reach. You may ask what happen to Colombianita, the slum where we have been ministering to for the last few years. The answer would simply be bulldozers and the mayor's plan of cleaning up the city. The families who lived in this shanty town have dispersed to areas all over the city. There was about 10 children whose parents asked us to receive them in 24 hour care at the transition house.

Unfortunately, we still don't have the Colombian staff that we need to run this house and had to say no. It was very hard for the staff that worked with these kids on a daily basis, unfortunately not always having room is a part of the ministry life. There is a lot of new kids at the drop in centre that come from the area around it. Mostly prostitutes kids. The majority of the children are under 5 years old.

In the long term care houses there has been various young children come in, mostly for short periods (a few weeks to 2 months), while others on the team work with the families. As they are so young they don't have to go through the transition house. The youngest is only a few weeks old and spent some nights sleeping on the streets with his parents.

When we have our next staff meetings instead of Gabriela being the only preschooler there, we will have 10. As well as more kids, we also have more staff. There are 36 on staff now. There are a few Colombians applying to work with us, which is an answer to prayer.

In our work we both were involved in the orgainising of a seminar by an English social worker. The theme was foster care. This was very helpful for us as we look at having children go into foster care rather than into the ministry houses. There is a lot involved from recruiting and training families to placing children in the right home. At the moment we are in the praying and writing the project stage and then we have to get permission from the Colombian family welfare to implement the program. This could well take a year or so.

Family wise:
Alex has finished a month of summer school. He had to make up his Maths and Reading grades. He seemed to enjoy the cooking, PE classes and other fun things they did; however it is now back to real school work. Carlos is his official Maths teacher for the next school year. This means that Carlos has to teach him daily at home and grade his work. When school starts again in August, Alex will be in 5th grade and when his class has maths he will get one-on-one help in another subject. This is the plan that the school came up with so that Alex could pass the year and stay with his peer group. It will be a lot of hard work for Alex as well as his Dad, we hope it will work out well.

Simon asks everyday if the the holidays can finish. He has had some fun days visiting with his cousins but mostly he has to hang out with his parents at the office. This has made Gabriela very happy as she is Simon's shadow. His mum started to teach him to read but has not been very consistent in order for him to learn. He likes to do school work, so once his mum gets organised we should see some improvement in his reading ability. He enjoyed the swimming lessons and we hope to be able to enroll both boys in a new course soon. Nearly daily he asks if we can live in a house as he wants to have more room and especially a garden for a dog. His kiwi blood for the outdoors is coming through. Health wise he is doing better, he no longer has stomach pains and is eating a bit more.

Gabriela as expected has grown the most. She is showing her stubborn streak more and more but then most nearly two year olds do. Her favourite occupation is to dance, walk around, talking on a phone with a pen in her hand to take notes of the conversation. Her art work has caused her mum some problems with scribbles that are so thick on the page that mum can no longer read her original note. When it comes time for her to learn to write her fine motor skills look like they will be well developed.

Katrina has been very tired and finding it hard at times to keep up with the family and her ministry responsibilities. Please continue to pray that Gabriela would sleep through the night.

Carlos has gotten some translation work of a book for a Christian publishing house. Which is an wonderful answer to prayer. Our finances are eating away at the savings account. The purchase of a car is not getting any closer. We are very thankful to our faithful supporters and are praying for more to partner with us. The translation work has come at a really good time. Thank you to those who prayed for this. Please keep him in prayer as he has just a month to finish the translation and at the same time, keep working in the ministry and teach Alex maths along with the normal father duties.

Prayer requests:
- Thank God for the translation work for Carlos
- For Gods provision with the Big Foot Project and the ministries finances.
- That new staff would settle into their functions and the culture quickly.
- For continued good health and safety for us all
- For God's will in regard to our housing, it looks like the apartment we are in will be sold and our rent contract most likely will not be renewed.

With love,

Carlos, Katrina, Alex, Simon and Gabriela