Andando Por Las Calles (Walking the Streets)

I spent last Tuesday in one of the poorest neighborhoods of San José, Costa Rica. As soon as we arrived I began talking with a pastor who works in the neighborhood on a regular basis. He turned to us and said:  

 ¿Ve a estos dos niños? Su padre los abandonó y su madre trabaja de cinco en la mañana a siete cada día. Los vi andando y andando por las calles cada dia. 

Translation: Do you see these two children? Their father abandoned them and their mother works from five in the morning to seven each day. I see them walking and walking the streets every day. 

As I looked at these two children, a 5 year-old girl and a 3 year-old boy. my heart was broken. I couldn’t believe it. These two little children, fending for themselves on the street every day from 5am-7pm!?! Could it be true? How could a father and mother be in such a desperate situation that they let their children wander through such a neighborhood all day?

Sure enough, the entire time we were in the neighborhood these two children would wander past us on a regular basis, showing up for a meal the pastor offers to children of the neighborhood every Tuesday and sticking around for the afternoon bible club. I never did get the opportunity to talk directly to these children as they often shirked from attention and kept to themselves. But the image of those two children will always be with me. This little girl and her brother are the type of children for whom Casa Viva is offering hope. 

It is children like these who are sleeping in a bed, loved by a family, eating three meals a day, and attending school. When I think about these two children who continue to wander the streets of a very dangerous neighborhood, my prayer is that God would intervene on their behalf and cause the local government and local churches to act on their behalf.

Costa Rica Here We Come

On March 26th we leave for Costa Rica.

We (Kristin, Joshua, and I) will be there primarily to lead a week long mission trip from Wheaton Bible Church. We have 11 participants coming down to work on the Casa Viva offices, repair some Casa Viva families, and to throw an Easter Family Fun Night for al the Casa Viva staff and families.

During this Easter Fun Night, families will wonder between 5 stations learning about the importance of Easter, playing games, eating dinner, and learning about American traditions associated with Easter.

Additionally each family will walk away with a tree that they have decorated to teach their children about Easter during Holy Week. There are 12 items that hang from the tree based on the resurrection eggs by Family Life today.

In addition to being in country for this trip, we will be around a few extra days to do planning, work, and to be with the Casa Viva staff in Costa Rica. While in country we'll be staying with Phil and Jill Aspegren just a block or so from the team house.

We'll also spend some time with Tito and his family.

You were once an orphan too

Despite whether your father and mother played a significant role in your life, you came into this world a sinful human. Not only did you do sinful things, but you were sin simply because you were born of a sinful race. This sinfulness left you as an orphan: no inheritance in the kingdom, abandoned to rely on your own ability to advance and grow, without a Heavenly Father.

From the very first day of your life you needed a Heavenly Father to reach down out of heaven, to scrub you clean and to adopt you into His heavenly family. At some point, you realized that you were a sinful child, living in a sinful world, in need of a heavenly Father and you asked God to forgive you. You stood at the gates of Heaven and asked to be welcomed in.

God, your new Heavenly Father, adopted you into His family where you now experience love, have an eternal inheritance, and are forgiven forever through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Gal 4v1-7 (NLT)
1 Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had.2 They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set.3 And that's the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world.
4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a virgin, subject to the law.5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father."7 Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.

Rom 9v15-17 (NLT)
15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, "Abba, Father."16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children.17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Excerpt from Father to the Fatherless Study by Casa Viva

All-church Initiative // Father to the Fatherless

Casa Viva is launching a new center this year in Grecia, Costa Rica! We have already begun laying the foundations to this new center. There is a coordinator working in Grecia to recruit churches who have a heart for the fatherless in their community.

In order to launch this new center we are looking for sister churches in America.

A sister church in the United States would launch an all-church initiative to teach church members about God's heart for the fatherless. Over 5 years they would:
-send mission trips
-build relationships
-educate their congregation through week long missions conference
-provide seed monies
-teach about the father less on Sunday mornings, in small groups, children's ministry etc.

At the end of 5 years the Casa Viva center will be self-sustaining relying primarily on in-country funds to maintain it's operation.

Check out more information on Casa Viva's website:
http://casaviva.org/all_church_initiative.asp

Casa Viva // Autumn Newsletter

The latest Casa Viva newsletter should be hitting your mailbox this week! If you want a sneak peak of the newsletter you can download the Autumn 2008 Welcome Home.

In it you'll find a great article by Jill Aspegren on the importance of connecting children to families and communities. Lack of connection is one of the biggest faults of orphanages and institutions.

When Children turn 18 they are shown the door in institutional settings, whereas at Casa Viva children develop connections with extended family members, church communities, brothers and sisters. They have a place to go home to celebrate Christmas the rest of their life, they have an uncle who owns a tienda down the street that might give them a job.