Alex and Simon at the ministry farm
We are all doing very well, a few upset stomachs lately but nothing major. It has rained nearly contenously since we returned in February. Flooding is happening all over the country and it hit Bogota and surrounding areas really hard. The house where we live is located in between two main rivers (about 1 Km from one river and 2 Km from the other). Both rivers flooded and houses, schools, one major university, farmlands, recreational clubs and highways have been under water for over two weeks. We had to start leaving our house at 6AM since then so that the kids will be on time for school at 7:30AM (it normally takes 15 minutes to get to the school), but due to the flooding on the road you crawl or turn your engine off and wait.
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| The road we take to Bogota, |
Ministry wise, Carlos has been very involved in meetings and legal stuff with YWAM Bogota. Last month he was in the city of Cartagena for the National YWAM leaders meeting. He is Bogota's interim leader for 2011. Bogota itself has 9 different ministries. Formando Vidas (Street Kids ministry) is just one of those.
Carlos was busy with the organisation of a church team from Texas that came in March. This church has taken on the outfitting of all of the recreational equipment for the Jungle Club. This time they did roof repairs and painting the jungle with life size animals etc. They also evangelized with a puppet show and crafts to about 300 kids.
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| Puppet show |
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| A visiting team member with her craft group |
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| Painting of the Jungle walls |
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| Alex enjoys helping at the Jungle club |
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| The visiting team invited staff out to dinner - yummm |
The school has opened different classes as teachers are available. Still one class needs a teacher, there are 15 kids enrolled and there are a lot of part time volunteers for the school but we need fulltime trained teachers also. One of the teachers has had to pull out due to health issues so the team is really under pressure right now. In the continued educational program we have 18 kids and the majority of them are receiving weekly discipleship.
There have been a couple of cases of families in crisis. Two brothers spent a month living in emergency care. The other case was a family with 10 kids that were evicted; they lived in one of the Other Way houses for a week.
In the residential care area, one of the girls who grew up in foster care homes got married to a British missionary.
In the residential care area, one of the girls who grew up in foster care homes got married to a British missionary.
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| The bride with her family |
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| Bride and groom with ministry family |
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| The glow in the backgound is from the jackets of police cadets on parade. |
Last month we ran a seminar on transforming pre street children. Mostly our 25 staff attended but we have also had 5 people from other programs come which has been good. The first week was about addictions and recovery, the speakers were a couple who lived in Colombia when Katrina first came and are Spiritual parents for her. It was great to spend time with them.
Family wise, we are thankful that Carlos has been given some translating to do in the last few weeks.
The school year is nearly over and the kids will have a 2 month break. We are looking into the possibility of homeschooling Simon and Gabirela next year. School fees is one of our main expenses at around NZ $ 1300 a month. We would appreciate prayer for this decision.
Bye for now!
With lots of love,
The Paez Family
