We made it to Chile!!
My ministry for the month is Vision for Chile (House of hope).
It’s located in one of the poorest communities, where the average person makes 47 times less then the people of surrounding areas. It’s high in crimes, sexual harassment, drugs and abuse. The ministry we are working with is a jack of all trades, they help their community in so many ways! The main focus of the house we are staying at is to take care of girls who previously lived in hogars or orphanages ages approximately 18-23. The hogars are group homes for children who had to be taken from their homes due to abuse, rape or neglect. Where as the orphanages are for children who don’t have parents.
Our jobs for the next month are a wide range.
*We are living in community with the girls staying at house of hope, setting an example, helping them cook and clean.
*We are helping with community night on Wednesdays. Doing zumba with the girls, sharing our testimonies, performing skits and dramas for the kids ( We are a drama team! Little joke from launch)
*Helping the teachers at school, We will be split up into different class rooms helping with various classes. Our first day at the school was a celebration for teachers. All the kids prepared dance routines., we watched, smiling and laughing along…. Then one of the teachers asked us to perform to a song as well. We had not prepared anything. Also these kids are great dancers.. So what did we do? We said “Ok, we are a dance team!” And we did what any good US citizen would do. We dance to the Cha- Cha slide!
*On Saturdays, the children from the orphanage and hogars come for classes. It helps keep the kids busy and out of trouble on the weekends. We help teach where we can and we set an example in the classes we can’t teach. They offer Math, English, Guitar, Piano, Drums, Art and Football aka soccer. They listed off the classes and asked for volunteers for each class and guess which class I signed my uncoordinated self up for? Drums! They asked for a volunteer for the drum class and it was quiet for a second and my hand shot up.. I have literally NO experience with drums but the cool thing about how the community here works is if you don’t know how to do it set an example in how you learn! Let the kids see you try and fail but keep trying. Boy let me tell you I failed! The first beat I was given to learn used both hands and both feet! Thats a whole lot of coordination I don’t have! But I kept a smile on my face and kept trying! After class I practiced several times and I got it down! So basically what I’m trying to tell you is I’m going to be a professional Drummer by the time I leave but don’t worry you all can buy tickets to my concert!
Now that I’ve told you some of the things we are doing, I’ll explain my title. In the part of Chile we are in they poverty is so high that most kids drop out of school and start working because they need food. There are very few, almost none who speak any English. My team speaks very broken Spanish. Praise the Lord for google translate! But you can always use it because most of the time its not safe to have your phone out, people will literally swipe it right out of your hands. So most of the time communication looks like broken Spanish and a whole lot of charades! Sure we look kind of ridiculous most the time, and we may not know if they truly understand what we are saying but we make it work and it makes for a lot of laughs!
Fundraising update! I am still fundraising, I am currently only $6200 from being fully funded!! My next deadline is the end of November I need to have $2000 in by then to continue on with the race. Please Consider donating! Every little bit helps, no donation is too small!
So thats my little update on what I’ve been up to this first week in Chile! I’ll be updating about once a week. Bare with me though as the place I’m staying doesn’t have access to WiFi. It takes a bus ride to a subway and 45 minutes to get to the closest WiFi! I’ll keep you updated as much as possible but keep that in mind!
Be blessed, until next time!
