Los Pinos is a place where no outsiders
are welcome, it’s a place where violence reins supreme, and drugs
rule the streets. Los Pinos is a place where you have no choice but
to form a hard exterior and are constantly in survival mode. You
can’t really blame the kids that grow up in such a hard environment
when they begin to reflect the people around them, or when they start
to act out in ways that we would consider delinquent. They haven’t
had any opportunity to see anything else and even when they have seen
an example the hopelessness that is instilled inside them will surely
squash any dreams or aspirations above the norm of this place. The
few that are able to have and hold onto hope long enough to choose a
different direction and a different life and escape are few and far
in between.
The boys we have had the privilege of
knowing and living with the past 2 weeks are from this place I’ve
described above and they are the few that have been given the
opportunity and the ability to escape and become something different,
something new. They have been given the great gift of redefinition.
Redemption is really a redefinition of who we are, a new start, a new
life. Praise God for redemption! Not all of the boys have decided to
follow Jesus but I know that God is using Zion’s Gates and Tony and
Nidia to show them what following Jesus really means and what real
love really means. A lot of these boys were abandoned by their
parents and left to fend for themselves and don’t know the real love
of a father or mother, and Tony and Nidia work really hard to restore
that to these boys. My prayer is that they will have their notion of
what a father is redefined so that they can fully receive and
understand the love of their heavenly Father and come into a full
relationship with their Lord and Savior.
This past week we were working in Los
Pinos on one of the boys houses that lives here at Zion’s Gates. 5
months ago this community wanted this boy taken out, in other words murdered, and now this boy is leading teams into his community to better the community and improve his house. Redemption story for sure! Praise God! I hope to share photos soon, so until then I love you!
The house we worked on is now painted!
His mom and neice
Another view of the house
Los Pinos
