This week has shown us a lot of captivity, in a variety of forms.
I’ve already shared about our trip to the AA rehab centre, where a number of people find that their lives are held captive by drink or drugs, and where we were able to share about the freedom available in Christ with testimony dealing directly with lives transformed from backgrounds of addictions into ones of love and joy.
We have since experienced other places. On Tuesday we visited the city dump – home to upwards of 2,000 people. And when I say home I literally mean that, it is where they live. The conditions are similar to the dump that I wrote about last month (here is the link) but this one is bigger. This time, as well as going around in groups and speaking with those who live and work there and offering to pray with them, we were able to take in food for two hundred people, those in the section that we visited. Whilst it wasn’t much it clearly made a difference in the lives of all of those who queued up once it was made available, serving first the children (yes children whose lives are lived in a dump), then the women and finally the men. We handed out cups of spaghetti with a tortilla, clean drinking water and half a banana and in half an hour it was all out and gone. Whilst we hope and pray for a future where people are not expected or required to live in such conditions that was all we could do physically in the meantime. Pastor Armando preached the word to those who were there listening – both spiritual as well as the physical food was on offer to those trapped in a life of poverty.
Wednesday took us to another internment facility, this time for both males and females (although kept in different wings). There were 69 males, aged between 12 and 18 who were in two different sections because of their links to gangs making inter-group violence a high likelihood otherwise. There were also 28 girls who our girls went and met. At the end we had two of our guys share their testimonies, one particularly intense with experience of demonic attack and involvement with violence, and we shared the Lifehouse Everything Skit with them before Pastor Armando shared with them and prayed for them.
Then yesterday we returned to IHNFA. We feared (although were better prepared for) another altercation like last week’s fight, but this week went without incident. They made use of the stations again, we were able to share with them individually and then as a group more testimony was shared and opportunity for prayer given. We also performed the Lifehouse Everything Skit again.
Today we will be out on the street again, joyfully declaring the love of Christ to everyone who passes us, once we have finished our time in this mall (for the internet from which I now post :-D) – Happy Birthday to my mum and Happy Father’s Day to my dad!
