Life in Colombia


Once again I sit knowing that it has been way to long since I last blogged and updated you about life in Colombia…
Well life in Colombia continues to be life in Colombia.  Truth be told I had a couple hard months.  Looking back I say it was homesickness.  It confused me a little because I love life here in Colombia and I have no doubt that I am exactly where I am suppose to be, but it has been 16 months since I have set foot on Canadian soil, and for me that is a long time and I have decided that I am allowed to love Colombia and love being here and miss home all at the same time, its allowed.  I am doing much better though.
Things at the school have been pretty tough as well.  The situations with our families just keep getting worse and at times their situations seem hopeless.  One of the continuing ed kids is being suspended, another one failed 6 of his classes and just doesn’t really show up a school and was recently expelled because he was looking at porn in school and getting the other boys involved, he is only 11.  I was talking a bit to his mom and she is having such a hard time with him and she was just in tears and not knowing what to do. 
There is one family that I worked with the first time I was here and there are 10 of them living in one small room, probably half the size of most of our bedrooms.  Their dad is drinking a lot again which often means no food on the weekends.  The water also got cut off in their place because the building next to them wasn’t paying their water so their building was bootlegging water so their water got cut off to.  And the mom in this situation is fed up to and is just ready to leave.  Also because of all this they are washing their clothes at the school.  Well Wednesday was the first day they washed them in a long time.  I was helping the girl wash them and out of one bag came a cockroach and another bag had maggots  all over the clothes and the smell was something else.
We have a girl in the school who is 12 years old, and she is very aware of her sexuality.  Anyways she is in my girls group I have on Wednesdays and one Wednesday we were talking about how old their moms were when they had there first child and what grade they completed in school.  The numbers to both those answers were very low which didn’t surprise me.  I then asked them what they wanted with their lives and how were they going to prevent following in the foot steps of their mothers.  The 12 year old replied “use a condom”. 
It situations like this that make my heart sad and  even sometimes hopeless.  But God brought each one of these precious children to us and I know His work is never ever fruitless, even if we don’t see any fruit, even if we don’t see any change, I know God is still working and I know that seed has been planted and I do have hope that one day, whether I see it or not, there will be fruit.

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