Yeah. We’re all just going to ignore the time lapse between this post and my last one, K? Thanks.
I assure you–just because I haven’t written doesn’t mean nothing is happening on the ministry front. I want to talk about two of those things tonight–possibly because they are the two most dear to my heart.
The first involves the daycare that we run at the Zambiza dump. It has been in operation since April of 2006. Two of our three wonderful caregivers have been there since we opened the doors. They have loved on those kiddos and taught them the important things in life, like thanking God for our food before we eat, and why it isn’t nice to stick your spoon in your neighbors ear. 🙂 In May of this year, INNFA, which is the government organization responsible for overseeing our work, gave us a list of things that needed to be done in order to meet their standards. We gladly made the changes, which included new cribs, a new kitchen facility, upgrades to the wiring and the plumbing…In June, right after we left Quito for our summer in the US, they dropped another bombshell on us. According to a new law that was just passed, “all daycare workers in the country must have a college degree”. Oof. We literally felt the air being sucked out of the room. We simply cannot make this happen, for a number of reasons. First, if a daycare worker has a college degree, they are not going to want to work in the city dump. Secondly, the government just went through and shut down about 2/3 of the universities operating here in the country, with the end result being that about 28,000 college students now have nowhere to go. And this doesn’t even include students who will be needing to get into college. All of that to say…please pray for us here. We were able to get them to “look at us differently”, but we really have no idea what that will mean. Please pray that they allow us to continue to function as we are, that they see the good things that have happened since we opened our doors (100% of the children who have gone through our daycare are now enrolled in school. Prior to us opening our doors, almost none of the children of the dump workers were able to go to school–they had to work to help support their family), and please pray that we can continue to be good witnesses to the government officials that we work with as we sort out this whole affair.
The other thing that has been on my heart and mind isn’t actually a ministry…yet. This past April, Dan traveled to India and Nepal, where he met with potential partners. One of the things that came to the forefront was the issue of human trafficking. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of it before–I had seen the “Kony” video, and heard things about it. For some reason, listening to him talk about meeting with the people who are there, on the front lines, trying to make a difference, struck a chord with me. I then went to the US for the summer, where one of my oldest and wisest friends began talking to me about her involvement with this very same issue. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Lord has put this before me this forcefully, so I’m doing a little digging, trying to figure out where I might fit in. As an organization, we have begun helping the people who are trying to stop this tragedy connect with each other, in order to make a larger impact. Trafficking is taking place here in Ecuador too, just as it is all over the world. I can’t help but picture God weeping over each and every person who is impacted by the evil that this represents.
This movie comes out soon. http://nottodaythemovie.com/. Even the trailer is hard to watch. Please do. One person might not be able to change anything. Together, maybe we can make a difference.
“If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention” ~Author Unknown
The View from the Mountaintop 