I was recently reminded of a piece of advice from Seth Barnes, the founder of the World Race: “Live a good story, and tell a few things about it.“
I have been blessed with such a unique opportunity over these past six and a half months (since training camp) to live a phenomenal story. And while it has been far from easy or comfortable, it has been such an incredible experience.
I now find myself having traveled to Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Spain, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and now Uganda. And the journey isn’t even half way over yet!
I realized recently that I am very behind on sharing stories, and I honestly wish I had time/ internet connection to catch you up on everything! And while I have been using Instagram to post current updates of where I am at/ some fun photos, what I don’t share there is the depths of the stories of what I experience in those cities. I guess I will just have to have a lot of coffee dates when I return to the States to tell you all stories. 😉
And I wish I could tell you more than just a few stories per country. I wish you could be here to see the absolute beauty that covers the earth. I wish you could be here to taste the foods. I wish you could see the incredible diversity of people, and how we are all strangely the same.
But, anyways. For now I have another story to share. Taylor and Rob, wonderful guys on my squad, wrote out what we encountered beautifully, so I am going to share a bit of their writing, along with a bit of mine. Absolutely check out their whole posts at:
https://taylorflickinger.theworldrace.org/post/aguapanela-drops-of-grace
https://robames.theworldrace.org/post/aquapanala-con-pan
So, the setting is Medellin, Colombia. We are partnered for the month with an organization called Ciudad Refugio. It is located in this crazy six-story building on an incredibly busy street corner on a hill that overlooks only a sliver of this giant city. This ministry does SO MANY THINGS. They operate on the first floor as a homeless shelter and a church, on the second floor as a rehabilitation center for men, on the third floor as a refuge and rehabilitation center for women and as a host for missionary teams, on the fourth floor as a children’s school, an adult English class host, and a donation kitchen, on the fifth floor as homes for the displaced and a soccer terrace for children’s ministries, and on the sixth floor as more homes. Oh, and they partner with El Pomar, Manantiales, Pa’ Mi Barrio (see my $0.70 blog), and a plethora of other organizations to bring the Kingdom to the rougher parts of Medellin. They even have their own park outreaches, and community outreaches to tell people about the organization/ the hope of Jesus. We volunteered in ALL of those things. The month was nothing short of absolutely crazy.
But. Today, I want to tell you about a ministry that absolutely resonated with my heart. It is called Agua Panela Con Pan.
“The ministry leader, Rebekah, likes to call the ministry drops of grace. She says that you never know what drop may land on someone and open their heart, and sometimes it takes many drops.
Every Wednesday night Ciudad Refugio goes out to one of the more dangerous streets of Medellin to continue the ministry of the roots of the foundation. They bring bread and Agua Panela, a popular South American sweet drink made from hardened sugar cane, to hand out to the people of the streets. We also hand out tracts that have the ministry’s information to those who want them. Part of the intention is to get people off the streets and bring them into a better community (i.e. the foundation).
Over the past few weeks our squad has had the privilege to experience this more intense ministry. Last week was my first time, and here is a little bit about my experience doing Agua Panela.
Throughout most of the day I was showering myself and the rest of the group that would be going in prayer. The people that had went the week before had mentioned how dark the area was and how clear the spiritual warfare was. I prayed for protection, for the power of the 72 in Luke 10, for God‘s light to penetrate the darkness, and I prayed for hearts to be opened to receive the love of Christ. I specifically and earnestly asked that there would be one person who would receive Christ that night.
Later that night, we pulled up to the street and got out of the van. I was immediately taken aback by the what I could see and smell. There were about 150-200 people all along this little street at about 9pm. They were all living amongst trash. As I walked down the street I saw people using every drug imaginable: marijuana, cocaine, heroine… People were rolling their own concoctions, sharing with others, using pipes, injecting with needles, and drinking alcohol. It was a dark place and my heart hurts for those people. But God answered my prayers.
There were many people I talked to that night. I shook a lot of hands I normally wouldn’t have. But during that time I only saw these people as children of God, and I had to ask myself what Jesus would be doing if he were here. I know He wouldn’t hold back any love. I prayed for many people and I certainly felt like walking light in the darkness.”
–Taylor Flickinger
The streets were wet and covered in goop. The trash stench was nothing compared to the overwhelming fumes of smoke. I watched SO many people trapped in what they assumed was the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY FOR THEM TO LIVE. And while the scene was hard to take in, the absolute most heart-breaking part was looking into their eyes. The flicker of hope and life that fills so many people was completely eradicated in them. I wanted to grab them and SCREAM “THERE IS ANOTHER WAY TO LIVE!” but none of them wanted to hear that. They wanted more drugs.
“As the shock of this new scene started to wear off, the faces of the men and women began to stand out. Humans just like me and you living in these conditions. But the reality of the situation had yet to be experienced. As we got out of the bus, we prayed first as a group. After that, we set up our station and had a few volunteers to hand out the agua panela con pan. The rest of us split up into smaller groups to walk up and down the block. As we walked, we saw these people trapped in this place because they believed there was no way out. One man stood in the middle of the street staring up at the night sky saying something unintelligible, another with crippled legs selling drugs, another with a band around his arm and a needle in the other hand we continued to walk as we watched him inject this foreign substance into his bloodstream. Another woman stood off in the distance with her shirt only half on her body, another woman was dancing, and as I watched this scene unravel before my eyes, I wanted so badly to bring hope to these people! You see, they all had something in common: pain. They were all trying to ease the pain they were experiencing via a foreign substance.
Pain is part of this life and we all choose to deal with it in the way we think is best. Unfortunately, some ways are just a temporary fix. As we learn to numb out the pain we are experiencing, we find ourselves also numb to a lot of things we want to feel; happiness, joy, love, peace, etc. I know this numbness because I’ve been there. I used lots of things to numb myself; food, sugar, pornography, the praise of man, sports, and the list goes on. But I encountered a problem with all these methods; the pain ALWAYS came back sometimes with increasing intensity! I felt trapped in this cycle of addiction to numbing. Until one day when I reached what I thought I had wanted; complete numbness. I was unfulfilled and unsatisfied. I was believing a lie: that what I was doing was going to satisfy. When I reached this point of numbness, I finally asked for help and I found it. I found hope, love, fellowship, and true freedom in community. You see, these people in Colombia are feeling alone on that extremely crowded street.”
–Rob Ames
And here’s the thing: my heart got it too. Many of the people on our squad were overwhelmed or cried. But, as I looked around, I got it. I understood what these people were searching for: to escape pain. They felt the weight of life. They got smacked down, maybe even a little harder than the rest of us do. Life had hurt them. Badly. And they just wanted to feel okay. That’s why that street filled with hundreds of people even existed… they all gathered in an attempt to feel okay, even if just for a moment.
Being fluent in Spanish was the biggest blessing on the nights I went to Agua Panela. I got to look straight into the eyes of some of the most hurting and forgotten people on the planet, and ask their name and their story. I got to hear about the children they hadn’t seen in years, and about what they wanted their future to look like. A surprising amount of them wanted to change their lifestyle, but just never wanted to pick a day to figure out how to actually do that.
I got to talk about the Lord with many of them, or about their beliefs. A lot of them believed in God, but just didn’t believe in themselves. A lot of them were too drugged out to hold a conversation. A lot of them didn’t want to talk to me at all.
I got to share about Ciudad Refugio, a place where they could go through rehabilitation programs. While few were truly interested, they did hold onto the fliers with the address.
So, I covered strangers with them: the drops of grace. And all I can hope is that one of my conversations got to be a part of someone’s heart opening, even if only just a little bit. All I can pray for is that one day, they have the courage to face the pain and then the endurance to conquer it.
I want to share one more perspective from my teammate’s blog:
https://rileymchenry.theworldrace.org/?filename=medellin-colombia
“I expected homelessness, I expected drugs, I expected brokenness. What I did not expect were the hundreds of men and women clumped together like cockroaches avoiding the light. Between two clusters of buildings, what should be an empty ally is a grotesque scene of undulating bodies mixed with trash and human waste. Each person consuming death through smoke, needles, drinking or any other form of consumption you can imagine. The smell of cocaine, weed and other fumes hang thick in the air. Everyone’s eyes, though they seem to look at you, gaze through you as if in another world. They sway with every step, scream, shake and move together in organized chaos. Their clothes are not even permissible to be called rags. Their homes are where they fall on the streets or a slab of cardboard. Openly, they share their drug of choice with one another, each fading into oblivion. I cannot explain what my eyes held, but my heart, my heart aligned with that of the Lords and I wept. Oh, how he loves them. Oh, how his heart breaks knowing they are far from him, but oh, how he loves them. I wanted to take each of them into my arms like a child, hold them close and whisper the words, “Jesus te amo,” over and over again until it pierced their souls. But I couldn’t. I could however, pray. God is going to save them. God will rescue his children.”
–Riley McHenry
And that’s all I really have to say about Agua Panela Con Pan. It was an experience that I will forever hold dear in my heart. I wouldn’t trade the few hours I spent on that street for anything. And. I will never forget to look for these people wherever I go, even if they don’t gather by the hundreds… for those that the weight of life hit a little too hard, and that don’t believe they can stand back up.
Thank you, Ciudad Refugio, for being a light there every single Wednesday night, and for showering these individuals in drops of grace, offering a hand to give them a way out. Thank you for bringing Jesus to the ends of the earth, even to drug and trash ridden streets in the most dangerous parts of Medellin, Colombia. And, thank you for letting me join you in handing out agua panela con pan… even if it was only just for a month.
