| "It is for freedom that Chist has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" Galations 5 : 1 |
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| Prayer Update - August 2006 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15 |
| ¡Hola Amigos! There’s your Spanish for the day! I hope you’re all doing well at the moment. This month has been busy, with visitors, trips and the start of various activities. We went to Santa Cruz at the beginning of the month and met up with 7 of the ex-prison kids there. We had a great afternoon with them, ate pizza and ice cream, chatted with them and their parents and did some crafts. We managed to get in touch with them all so we could all meet up together instead of searching all over town to find each family. It also meant there were enough of us to eat the "impossible to finish" pizza with a diameter of 72cm - it was great....and we ate every last bite! Unfortunately, it was the 2nd anniversary of the cinema and they had cancelled all the films for that day, so we couldn't go to the cinema, but we hope to get everyone together again for a special cinema trip in a couple of months time. |
| We also managed to find materials for the classes in the Bible Society Bookshop and brought back bible study books and bible story colouring books that will keep us going for the next 3 months with the classes with the prison children. We’ve split the groups in two and Chicho is working with the older kids with a bible study book on the theme of the birth and life of Jesus, and also going through "The Wonder Book" by CEF. I’m working with the little ones, going through a colouring book with bible stories starting with the story of creation. After colouring in, we learn the story and have time to sing. The children have now learnt lots of new songs at church and are always asking for their favourites when it comes time to sing in class. It's great to see their enthusiasm and even the 4 year olds now know the actions and want to join in. We had been praying for another person to come and help us with the children. There are more than 20 children in the afternoon, and if we could split it into 3 age groups and have someone working with each group, it would be a big help and would let us spend quality time with each group and help them learn and not have 4 year olds running around wild interrupting the older kids. Our prayers have been answered in the form of a young girl from the church, Gabriela, who just started working with us yesterday. We can now split the group and we hope that this will enable deeper conversations with the children and the opportunity to share the gospel message with them on an age-appropriate basis. Please pray for Gabriela as she starts working with us and that we will be able to help her out and encourage her and that she will really feel part of a team, and that we will work together to give God the glory through our work with these children. |
| 19 smiling faces - it only took 20 minutes to get the photo!! |
| Playtime with the 3-5 year olds |
| Snack time |
| OANSA started up on the 19th August with a team of 12 leaders and 4 assistant leaders from the church at “El Jireh” to work alongside the children. We’ve had between 30 and 40 children each Saturday for the bible club and it’s been very positive so far. Almost all of us are new to the club and are learning as we go along, but there's a good team spirit and we're enjoying serving the Lord together in this ministry. OANSA is part of the international organization AWANA, which stands for “Approved Workers Are Not Ashamed” (from 2 Timothy 2:15) The club runs from 4:00 – 6:00 on Saturday afternoons and has 3 parts – games, small group time and big group time. The children have a time of outdoor games, and then split up into 4 groups, depending on their age, to learn bible verses. Each child has a manual and wins prizes for attendance, bible verses learned and activities that they've completed. The final part is a time all together, with a short talk, and singing. |
| We’ve been really encouraged as a group of leaders to see the children’s enthusiasm and how even the "ositos" (little bears) who are 4-5 years old are starting to memorize their bible verses and actively get involved in the club. The children from the prison, the children's home, church and the local neighbourhood are all involved in the club. Please pray for this new club, for wisdom for the leaders, and for continued enthusiasm from the children as they come along to learn week by week. |
| We had a second trip to Santa Cruz last week with Chepi, the little boy with a heart murmour. We took him for an echo-cardiogram in a clinic in Santa Cruz since advanced tests like that are not available here in Trinidad. We now have a study and the results that the cardiologist here asked for and we will be going back to see him in the next few days to see what he recommends. The doctor in Santa Cruz thought that heart surgery was going to be necessary, so if that’s the case, we will need to talk everything through with the doctor and his parents and look for grants for the operation. There is no free health service here and all operations and treatment have to be payed for by the patient. There are different organizations here that help with children who need operations, so please pray that we find somewhere that is willing to help in this case. |
| Chepi, with his mum, Nikki |
| During our trip to Santa Cruz we were able to look for bigger vehicles, which was one of our prayer points last month. We are currently spending 6 hours every weekend in picking up children and taking them home from church and bible club!! We found a 21 seater bus, which would give us almost double the capacity that we have at the moment in the truck. It would also be a lot safer than having the children outside in the pick-up truck - it even has seatbelts which are practically unheard of here in Bolivia! It would mean that we could pick up the children from the prison and the children’s home all at once and not have to do two journeys at the weekends, which would save time, energy, diesel and also help in getting the children home earlier (keeping good relationships with parents in the prison and nannies at the children's home) and with behaviour, since the children who are waiting for the second run to go home tend to get restless and that often ends in fighting! We would love to be able to do special outings with the kids and take them to the lake, or on a jungle trip or just out for ice cream or the park, and having the means to take a big group out all at once would make this so much easier since we would be able to fit in extra big people to help look after the kids - at the moment, there's no space to squash in extra volunteers because they take up too much space!! We’re looking into the possibility of selling the truck, which would give us half the money we need to buy this bus and would ask for your prayers for guidance as to the right vehicle for the ministry, and finance to make this possible. |
| Current Children's Transport - The back of the pick-up truck |
| We would ask for prayer for relationships with parents inside the prison. As much as the bad behaviour of the children can be discouraging, the most frustrating part of the work is often the attitudes of the parents. We have a few families where the children really want to come to class and come out of the prison with us, but their parents always have some excuse for them to stay - looking after little brother or sister, taking care of the cell, looking after their kiosk, or sometimes, they just ignore us and tell the kids they can't go! There are children that don't go to school because they live in the prison and their parents haven't enrolled them on time and other kids that are brought from other towns to live in the prison and end up missing the last 2 months of classes and have to repeat the whole year. The classic response to this, is "oh well, what can you do?" which is so frustrating it makes you want to scream, since there is so little concern for their own children's wellbeing. There was also a problem in the prison yesterday. Chicho was at home with his bible study group and I went to pick up the prison kids. One of the dads started giving me a hard time and ended up with 5 of his friends backing him up, critising what we do, calling us irresponsible and telling me I should leave and not come back. He was annoyed that we had involved the child defence department to look out for his daughter and for some reason managed to get 5 guys who don't even know me and don't have children involved with us, tell me how bad I was and how I should leave them alone. It was quite upsetting, but I was encouraged by one of the dads who came over and defended me and told me not to worry because he would talk to the prison president and sort things out. And he was one of the least supportive parents that wasn´t letting his children come out very often!! Please pray for us as we plan to hold a meeting with all the parents later this week to talk to them about all the different activities their children are involved in and try to sort out the problems with the other parents. Please pray that God will give us more patience and understanding and help us to communicate with the parents. |
| My health is still not so great and I'd appreciate continued prayer for that. Chicho is doing well, and has taken on the bible studies with the 8-12 year olds in the class and is getting on well with his small groups, and is getting to know the kids better as they do worksheets together and learn about the life of Jesus. He continues to play the guitar at church, in class and at OANSA and we're hoping to be able to translate some children's songs into Spanish to teach to the children over the coming weeks. I particularly like "How did Moses cross the red sea?" (one of my childhood favourites!) but whenever I try to translate it into Spanish, Chicho just laughs at me! We hope to be able to use songs with memory verses to emphasis the stories we're teaching so the kids really remember what they're learning. |
Click on the links for an update on last month's requests for prayer, and for new prayer requests Thank you all for your prayers and please keep praying. We look forward to hearing from you. love Rachel and Chicho xxx |
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| Please pray for the stability of the country. Bolivia is very unsettled at the moment and there was a strike last week by 4 departments in protest of what the government is doing - the government wanted to change the constitution so they only needed a majority vote instead of 2/3 of the vote to pass changes to the constitution - their party has a majority of the seats so it means that they make all the decisions. There is also talk of roadblocks later in September and things are not looking good with the situation with the president and the way decisions are being made. Please pray for the country of Bolivia at this time. |
