I suppose it’s time to write my heart out.
There is but a week left at Ciudad Refugio for team Wild Abouts and I sit in awe, scribbling and scrambling to describe the bigger picture of what month one has been like, looked like, felt like.
We’ve laughed and cried, prayed and sang, worked in the kitchens and with food donations, done evangelism and ministry programs with the youth and homeless – but I’ll admit it seems to have sped by.
Our first week we were a bit caught off guard by the division of men and women ; coming into month one, we knew community would be crucial for every kind of health on the team. And so finding out our days would be full, but separate, was a hard fact to face.
Ciudad Refugio is a church, but is home to many different ministries. Situated in the mountains, relatively close to the center of Medellín, Colombia, it is also home to a rehabilitation program where men and women willingly enter in to a year long track. Once joined into the program, they make their home in the second or third floor of the main building and begin to enter a Christ-centered community.
Our first week, we were fully immersed in the program and started each day before six a.m. for quiet time with the Lord before group devotion from 6h30 – 7h30 – hereafter we would head to the kitchen.
Each week, the men and women swap duties hat make up the majority of each day. When serving in the kitchen, it involves a LOT of peeling potatoes and cleaning the fourth floor. We quickly grew accustomed to shoveling down our super sized portions (grateful for them, merely surprised) and squeezing onto the small balcony so the men could enter the kitchen to eat.
While the division between men and women, as well as the seemingly strict rules, baffled us in the beginning, making us feel unwelcome and trapped at the same time, the Lord spoke truth over the situation. We were enlightened to see the necessity to remove such a distraction from the interns in the program.
Through classes and devotions we barely understood, we still began to see the program and the girls in a bigger way, every day growing closer to them as they opened up and we returned the favor. To help with the language barrier, we were blessed to spend some time with German volunteers, but generally left to fend for ourselves with the help of Alice*, who speaks some English.
On Tuesday we traded duties and the men went to work in the kitchens while we assisted with the fruit and vegetable donations the church receives three times a week. If you want to read more about sorting through half rotten goods, I implore you to read Waste Not, Want Not and find out what God taught me through hundreds of strawberries.
Our first week was full of spiritual warfare, with the enemy using our separation to drive wedges in between us and using each of our own insecurities against us. I was so exhausted from the war inside of me, constantly trying to quiet the lies that seemed enforced by actions and words directed toward me. Sleep was also difficult, with circumstances that truly pushed me to dependency on the Lord for sustenance.
During a feedback session, I broke. I spilled my guts about my heart and admitting that I was struggling and I was terrified, because it seemed too early on to “not be okay.” As I breathed in ragged breaths between sobs, the night music of Medellín in the background, Morgan scooted closer to me and put her arm around my shoulders. Alli came from across the terrace to join my other side and team lifted our prayers to our Father, where I could not. I realized in those moments, I am so blessed with this team, this family, who didn’t consider me weak for struggling, but instead strong for being real and vulnerable.
We decided that night we would not continue being immersed in the program, but would move into the house next door to provide more space for team time, a bit more freedom and increased privacy. I’ll repeat again though, how truly grateful I am for the five souls with which I’m blessed to serve.
Aside from our day to day ministry, we’re also split into two groups on the weekend for youth ; Fabian, Neal, Alli and Morgan are a drama team creating skits to teach kids the Word and Madison and I serve a bit earlier in the day at a feeding program, Manantiales.
Each Friday night we meet at seven p.m. to help prepare food for approximately 120 children. We fit as much sleep as possible in after finishing and rise at four thirty to cook the food, then clean up and are ready to leave by eight thirty. We pile in, pots and volunteers and supplies in the back of a truck and try to make the most of a bumpy and crammed forty five minute trip to the ministry site.
The first week we served, Madison and I trailed some veteran volunteers up the steep and winding stairs and trails in the barrios of Medellín, one of the poorest areas of he city. Everywhere you look there are barefoot children racing around or poised on the roof of their tin one or two room huts. There are a multitude of noises swimming about ; children laughing and shouting, motos and cars and trucks revving and honking. I was so stimulated by my surroundings, but lack of sure footing begged for downward attention on the muddy slopes and sandbag staircases
As children slowly began to join us, I was alive again. Two hours of sleep ? No problem. Anyone who knows me knows I have a deep love for children’s ministry and just making them smile and forget any worries they may be having, even if only for a short time. The little ones would go from volunteer to volunteer, grabbing for a hand or looking for a back to ride on.
One little girl, Eve*, stole my heart. Six years old, the biggest smile ever, she lit up my world just like my niece does. My heart was full and breaking all at once as we jumped from rock to rock along the side of he road. Even in my inability to communicate with words, I have to believe she saw my heart by the way she looked at me and held my hand so tightly.
When we all arrived at Manantiales, Peggy* gathered the children and volunteers together in active worship songs and we danced and tried to sing along and praised God. I am constantly blown away by the way in which followed worship here ; without thinking of anything else, only Jesus. No matter if we’re stinky or tone deaf or don’t know every word – people are shouting and sobbing, dancing and praying with all of their being. Even at youth ministry, I saw such authenticity in faith and love as I watched one young boy raise his hands in praise. Wow. Even thinking of it gives me chills
After worship and lessons, we serve the kids food we’d prepared and enjoy our last bit of leg freedom before climbing back into the truck a few hours later. While the pots and pans can be consolidated to smaller space, we bring many of the children back with us for youth group that evening and Sunday school the next morning. The kids sit up in the back seat of the cab and the ten that began in the bed turns into 12 – 16 adults, squished and sprawled and cringing at every bump along the way.
And even though I can’t feel the lower half of my body as we fall out of the truck once arrived at Ciudad Refugio, it’s worth it. All of this is worth it.
We are blessed to serve. Blessed to be a blessing. Blessed to be surrounded by this family in Christ spanning across every nation.
I KNOW there are things I’ve left out. I invite you in to ask more questions for more specifics on this ministry and month. Comment, email me on here or at [email protected] ; I’d love to pray for you and with you and share mor of what Jesus has been activating in and around me.
#praise #month1 #colombia #medellin #wrexpedition #wildabouts #ciudadrefugio #11n11 #welcometheseason
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