December 2010
WMF Peru: Looking back and looking forward
Greetings to all of you from Lima, Peru! We are very excited to share this community update with you as we close out 2010 and begin to focus our attention on the coming year…
Prevention & Empowerment: Throughout the year we have focused our energies on prevention and empowerment in all of the program ministries’ activities. Our vision to work on the street with young people who are already enmeshed in high-risk street contexts means that our preventative work also dovetails with specific interventions that confront destructive behaviors, trauma, and most importantly a shattered identity and view of God. We have seen that an emphasis on personal empowerment is an effective strategy in actually helping the young person leave high-risk street culture behind once and for all, because they own the process. Our Social Development ministry has begun extensive personal interviews which center on the young person creating their own “life plan.” Additionally, our Educational Assistance program is helping 40 children (children of the young adults who have left street contexts) and a handful of young adults go to school and get vocational training. This is so exciting to us, especially as we see how these emphases are actually making a difference in their lives, supporting a future completely different from that which the street offers.
Friendship & trust: We are thankful to be stewards of an incarnational vision for ministry among the poor which allows us to center our projects and activities on relationship. Relationships of course are messy, and God is continually humbling us as we recognize our inadequacies- to save others, to be present to each other, to love others as God loves us. And yet it is also this basis which bears amazing fruit of trust and friendship. Throughout the year 2010 we had the privilege of being welcomed into the shockingly poor homes of our friends and share real moments of friendship. During our Home Visits, we listened to mothers share about their struggles as victims of domestic violence; about how they are waking up early and staying up late to wash clothes, make money, and prepare food; and listen as they overflow with joy sharing about how their children are excelling in school- something they were deprived of having grown up on the streets. We celebrated birthdays and baby showers; we were present at funerals; we went to church together, played board games together, drew pictures in beach sand together, and played music together. We continued to engage the hard work of building relationships with each other because we believe that it’s worth it and that being part of a community of real friendship & trust is the foundation for bringing healing to our broken, wounded, and addicted lives.
Digging deep roots: This year WMF Peru celebrated 12 years in Lima working among children, adolescents, and young adults in street contexts! We are beginning to solidify our work in Lima: we are expanding our network of institutional contacts, we are increasingly offering trainings for newer, like minded organizations based on our experience, and we have benefitted from the continued commitment of our Peruvian staff who are creatively owning and contextualizing our vision for ministry. Our current staff team consist of 7 North Americans (6 currently on the field) and 7 Peruvians (5 full time and 2 part-time). WMF Peru operates on a $5,000 a month budget, which includes Peruvian staff salaries and all ministry programming. Please consider our financial needs and remember us as we head into 2011 as WMF Peru needs $5,000 in regular monthly support so we can honor the commitments we have made to our Peruvian staff and to the young people to whom we have committed to offer educational assistance, micro-loans, legal help, and basic services! God has been faithful to provide for us in the past through you and people like you, and we know that through your support we will be able to give thanks for having just what we need according to God’s will for us in 2011.
Love,
The community of WMF Peru