Sorry I haven't blogged for a long time!! I have no valid excuse!! The highlight of the last couple of weeks was finally visiting El Refugios other house on the nearby Island of Tierrabomba. When the ministry started it worked with kids who lived on the streets, the vast majority of whom were addicted to drugs, mostly solvents, therefore it was necessary to have a rehab centre away from the city, where better than on an island? so lad was purchased and a house built to accommodate several boys while they recover from their drug addiction and grow up in a safe environment. Since the number of children living on the streets of Cartagena reduced dramatically the ministry changed it's focus to prevention, working with children in Loma Fresca who are at high risk of becoming street children therefore the immediate need for the home now doesn't exist therefore we are praying about what we are going to do with it.
Since half of the staff and volunteers had never seen the house we decided to have our prayer night at the house on the island weekend before last. So after the youth group on Saturday we headed off with provisions and air mattresses to get a very small boat for the 20min journey across the Caribbean where we were dropped off on a beach where we walked another 5 minutes to the house. This part of the Island is very un developed and reminded me a bit of Africa in the landscape and the lack of paved roads. The house is lovely and in a really nice setting the only noise being the birds in the trees and the lapping of the waves. however due to several years of not being lived in it is quite run down and smells musty. We were greeted by Manuel, the man who watches the house for us, who opened up for us and told us he had filled the water tank for us from his own supply of water, there is no mains water or gas in this part of the Island.
Once we had dropped off our bags and looked around the house we headed into the "town" to get some drinks and matches which we had forgotten to bring with us. The town was just a collection of houses with a couple of house front stalls selling just the basics, along with the usual HUGE sound systems blaring out, I was grateful that even though just 15mins walk away we could not hear the music at the house! On the way back we collected fire wood to take with us to the beach that night where we were going to have a camp-fire and BBQ to start our night of prayer. Manuel took us to another beach which was in front of a house and asked the owners of the house to keep an eye on us for safety and we settled down to worship and pray for the ministry and the city. From this beach we had a great view of Bocagrande, the main tourist area of the city. Since this is the area where much of the sex tourism also takes place we prayed over the area against this too.
While we were on the beach Manuels wife brought us the meat and potatoes we had taken that she had offered to cook for us as having a BBQ on the beach was a bit tricky. It was great to spend time with the team sat on a beach at night around a camp fire eating, drinking and worshipping.After this when it got too late for it to be sensible to be sat on the beach we went back to the house and carried on there, praying for all of the kids and the house. The next day after breakfast we went back to the beach to hang out and swim for a few hours before heading back to the mainland.
The other main event of the week this week was the arrival of our new gap year student Julia. Julia is from near Frankfurt in Germany and is on a Gap year after finishing school before the summer, she will be with us until next sept when she hopes to go back to go to Uni. Although she has only been here a few days and has spent most of her time with Larissa, as her Spanish isnt very good yet so communication is better with her, she seems really nice. I am looking forward to getting to know her better. My challenge will be to talk to her in Spanish and not English, even though she can speak English and it is easier for her at the moment, as she needs to improve her Spanish more than her English!!
Well that is about all for now
Take care and God Bless
Petra
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