Not the real Paradise

Alex and Simon flying a kite

The number of children attending the drop-in center and the school continues to increase. Most of the new children at the school are from a very poor area called [Paraíso] “Paradise”. There is nothing paradisiacal about the place, though it does have a nice view over the city. A small church has been planted in the area by some of our ministries past volunteers and the kids are coming as a result of their work.

At the drop-in centre the majority of the kids are coming from the surrounding neighbourhood. This is a prostitute area and most of the children's parents are involved in this or their earnings come from other illegal activities.

Some kids that go to the drop-in centre

The project of purchasing the drop-in centre house and auditorium had been going slowly. The sellers are a church and they believe, as we do ,that it is in God's plan that we become the owners. They have been very gracious as we were not able to meet a major payment. We are starting to see God's hand in the lateness of the donations coming in. That sounds strange but there is a possibility of a matching grant fund for all that is given from now on. For every $1.00 given, we will receive $2.00. We won't find out the final answer for another month but things look positive. Last week we spent most of our time just working on the proposal for this grant.

The week before a friend who is an architect agreed to help us with the plans for the remodeling of the drop-in center. She is donating a lot of her time and is even willing to do some costing for us. She had just finished working on a Christian camp that sleeps 600, so she has lots of experience in all that we need.

We are going ahead with the planning as it takes a few months for the building license to be given. We hope to have tradesmen join a missions building team to start the renovations in January. It is quite a bit of work getting things organized but it will be worth it to see 30 kids at a time enjoying a safe and healthy environment.

To write projects and apply for grants for the different areas of the ministry is just one of our tasks. Another is to make sure the houses are in a physical condition to meet government regulations. This is often a big challenge as frequently there is not the funds for the necessary maintenance. There are a lot of different regulations. Around 3 hundred pages worth. We have seen God's grace as time after time we have had favor with authorities. We have set a goal to have at least two of the houses meeting all of the regulations before the year ends.

Family wise.

The two biggest happenings have been the return of Simon and Alex to school and Gabriela's second birthday.

The boys are enjoying being back in school. Simon is very happy with his new teacher Ms Rodgers. She only speaks English which means the children have to speak in English to her. The teacher aid is bilingual so that helps some. Ms Rodgers told me the other day that Simon was telling her a story in Spanish and she told him to repeat what he was saying in English. She could see him think for a minute and then he said the whole story again but still in Spanish . At least he is trying.

Alex had a home room teacher who is very understanding of him, but at the same time pushes him to do his best. The amount of homework and the type of work he is doing is a big jump for him. He is enjoying the challenge most of the time and likes his class. He especially enjoys science class.

He has started soccer practice which he is enjoying. The first day he asked Katrina what an auto or self goal was. She explained but decided not to tell him that a Colombian player who did that in a national game a few years ago was shot for doing so.

Gabriela turned 2 on the 18th of the month. She had a nice party with all of her cousins . She was spoiled with presents of a tricycle, a doll and a pram. Thanks to Simon's perseverance in bugging his parents, she also had a piñata to enjoy.

Gaby and one of her cousins

We would like to update you on previous months prayer requests.

• Gabrielas gum from where her tooth was removed has healed and she has not had any more health problems.
• The owners of the apartment we rent have decided not to sell it at this time.
• Carlos translation of the book “Things You Don't Know About Heaven”, by Judson Cornwall has taken longer than expected. He hopefully will have time to finish it in the next few days.
• The exchange rate from New Zealand dollars to Colombian pesos continues to fall. This obviously affects our budget. We are greatful for our faithful supporters, we still need a few more to be able to meet our living costs.
  

Our prayer requests for this month are

• That the proposal for the grant for the purchase and remoldeling of the drop-in-centre would be approved.
• That more people would partner with us and support us financailly.
• That we would continue to have good health and God's protection over us.

Thank you for your friendship.

With love,

Carlos and Katrina