Angry Youth

Hello lovely people

So here in Colombia we continue in the dust and disorder, however we now have a first floor on the extension and are waiting for the cement to come on Friday or Sat this week to complete the floor, then the walls will start to be built. The builders really are doing a great job of the work, but we are all looking forward to it being done now. 

In other news, we were really happy to have a team from the DTS here in Cartagena with us on Thursday as part of their mini-outreach.  In the morning 2 of the team came up to Loma Fresca with Johanna and I to visit some of the families to see how they were going with getting the school uniforms and books the kids need. Every 4 years the schools change the design of the school uniforms, and the cost of new one costs £30 with the Daily and PE uniforms, far beyond the ability of our families to pay, especially those with several children. As a result many are struggling and have been told that their children cannot go to school unless they have the new uniforms. Unfortunately we do not have the financial resources to purchase uniforms for everyone, and therefore have to be selective in who we do help with them. 

After hearing the Story of 2 brothers who were in this situation and the bullying they, esp the youngest, were experiencing as a result of being allowed back into school with the old uniforms, Larissa and I offered to buy their uniforms out of our own money. So last week we went to the marked with Eider and his mum to order the uniforms (all made to order) and are now waiting to head back to collect them, which we hope will be this week. I was unable to pay for the PE uniform too, so instead gave little Keiver a Man Utd shirt donated by one of the children at Swan Bank so that he at least has a bit of Kudos in PE!

Praying with the boys

In the afternoon on Thursday the team joined us for the Youth Group, where we were teaching on the theme of Do Not Kill - we are working through the 10 commandments. We focused on what Jesus said about Anger towards someone is as bad as killing them in God's eyes. The team spoke about how anger can turn to hate which can turn to fights which can lead to someone killing someone. So we then prayed with them that God would help them to control their anger and so not lead to them to taking things further.

With our youth being from a very violent neighbourhood and the boys especially being at risk of joining one of the gangs this was a very important topic to cover and the ministry time was very powerful. Deisy one of our girls was also touched by the fact that 2 of the girls on the team were the same age as her, 16yrs. I really hope and pray that this will have been an experience which will stay with them, especially when they are tempted or provoked to react in anger.

If you would like to make a donation towards a uniform please use the donate button and leave a comment or contact me by email/FB or Twitter

Thanks

Petra