So this month has been a month of drama workshops and visitors. Our work in the youth rehabilitation centre has continued to be fun and to be well received by the young people. Our sessions always involve a game, a drama and an interactive activity. We have had many great conversations and questions from the boys. It feels encouraging to be able to communicate a bit better each week, as our Spanish improves and they gain confidence in us.
This month we had a ‘friend of a friend’s niece’ stay for a week and also two girls, Lauren and Jessie, from UK who were backpacking around South America. We took the girls with us to Camino and were able to take a few photos of the boys playing with the parachute and getting involved in our activity.
It was the 10th Anniversary of our mission organisation, ‘Serve Abroad’. We joined with Mauge in celebrating how much has been accomplished by having a party with all the mission partners here in Cochabamba. We presented a drama to everyone there. Our first contact with the mission was through the language school back in 2007. We have lots of happy memories of our first visit, staying with a lady called Dona Carmen – eating green soup! and walking past the smelly bins on the walk to school everyday. Dean designed the original logo for Serve Abroad and we were there to encourage Mauge in the very beginning to set up a volunteer program for her language students. This blog has all the old photos archived from those days… we look so young!
We have also had a number of training sessions for the team of volunteers who work in the youth rehabilitation centre on Saturday afternoons. We have been trying to show them that an alternative to preaching is to teach with interactive activities to encourage the youth to think and talk about their ideas. This is quite different to how school operates here, where the emphasis is on rote memorisation.
Many pastors who are keen to receive young people when they are released from the centre, also came to a training session this month. The first church is preparing to start their transition visits this month and are ready to begin their discipleship with ‘E’ who will be leaving soon.
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Dean and Ruth's Diary 