Living Hope!

Well, today I was oriented into my job and now I finally have some information about what I am doing. Shelby and I will have orientation for the rest of the week and start work next week but here is what I know. We are working with a part of the organization called Living Right. This part of the organization does life coaching and prevention. Prevention means not just aids prevention but it is much more broad. We are going to build relationships with children and teens and try to give them a firm foundation in Christ. The idea behind this is so that they can grow up with a faith and it gives them a chance to not follow in their parents footsteps. We will be working in a township. For those who don't know, a township is pretty much a large neighborhood made up of shacks. We went threw about five today and I will be working in one called Capricorn the whole 8.5 months. Going through these townships was extremely humbling and broke my heart. I have seen poverty all over the world but it just seems that this was far worse. Imagine a room that is maybe ten feet by ten feet with a bed in it and maybe like a small table...that is what these people are living in. Some people do live in a little better conditions but still not anywhere close to what I am used to. The one thing that hit me this morning was when I realized that a whole family is living in this one shack together making it to where children grow up seeing their family and siblings sleeping with others or being abused by others if they aren't themselves. Can you imagine if you had to sleep in the same room as your parents? People get scarred by walking in on their parents but these children have to live in it. It just broke my heart! Anyways, I will be doing two different things on a daily basis. In the mornings I will be helping with aduse and violence cases within the township. This is something Living Right just started and desperately need help in so here Shelby and I are to help in that area. Then, in the afternoons we will do a camp for teens. This will be a lot of building relationships with individual teens and just being present in their lives. I cannot wait to start doing all of this and see what God does with it! I was also very excited because within the township that I am working with their is a population of muslims. Growing up some in Saudi Arabia has put a passion in me to be able to reach Muslims so when I heard this I was very excited for the opportunity to speak truth into them! Who knows what could happen! The possibilities are endless! Well, that is all I know and I will keep you all updated as I know what is going on!