Hey guys, I wanted to tell you about another story from my last night in Colombia. As I said in my previous blog we were staying with an amazing ministry that was a bakery/ rehabilitation program/ children’s outreach/ homeless shelter/ and church. The many facets of The City of Refuge along with the vision and heart are what made it such a pleasure to be apart of. I don’t know how this idea got brought up but someone had been asking the administration if we could spend the night in the shelter with the homeless men. I thought it was amazing, I was 100% onboard. If you couldn’t tell from me coming on the World Race, I like to do these things that a “normal”, sane, western, person wouldn’t necessarily wanna do. I want to be put out of my comfort zone and out there for God use as he sees fit. I want to be like play-doh in God’s hands he can mold into different instruments and tools for building his kingdom. And I don’t want to miss an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work through me into the lives of others. So we talked to our leaders and they talked to Mr. Harry and he said how Pastor Douglas thinks everyone who stays there should experience one night in the shelter.
They told us to get a group together and we could do it on the last night we were there. We gathered 4 guys and went in to help the intake of the homeless men. We set out some mats for us in the corner alongside another guy that was in the process of getting into the program. Being allowed into the program was a vetting process of staying a week in the shelter and abiding by all the program rules of working in the bakery and daily chores. (Which is a genius way to help the foundation be self-sustainable) Anyway, after we did the pat downs and passed out the bread and sweet water we had a meeting to go to. Unfortunately, we could not hangout and talk with the men before bed like I would’ve preferred. After the meeting we went downstairs and found our spots among the men. Between the farts, laser pointers, and sleep talking, I got a great night’s rest. There was a sense of peace, that’s when it all made sense…The ground we were sleeping on was literally THE CHURCH FLOOR, where a couple hundred people came each week to sing and praise and hear about Christ. It didn’t really look like a church, more like a big garage with an office that connected to the bakery and the building had a hole in the middle to where you could see all the other 4 floors, like a courtyard. Although we really didn’t get to talk with anyone that night because of the relationships I had formed with a few of the regular guys from doing the homeless intake I was able to talk with them in the morning and share some encouragement and goodbyes before I left that day, and I think they thought it was really cool that I spent the night with them. There was a guy I had spoken to on one of the outreach nights where we go to a street filled with drugs, we talk to him, told him about the facility and he came every night after that. On the last night I noticed his eye was very swollen and his arm was cut up. I asked what had happened and he told me a car had hit him. And he still came, whenever he could’ve said “oh well, I’m just going to go back on the streets” he still came! If that is not a testimony of the Holy Spirit working inside of him and through the foundation. Again, it was an amazing month of growing close to the staff and even closer with the guys in the rehabilitation program. I am going to miss Pastor Douglas, Mr. Harry, Carlos, and Louis. Here is a video of the foundation https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TtrASyeviDfpcVm_E5YyBsae_27IpptE and if you are interested their website is http://ciudadrefugio.org/en/
Can’t wait to tell ya’ll about Ecuador!!
With Love,
Will
