May Prayer Letter

April 15, 2009

“There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven…”  Ecclesiastes 3:1

Hello dear family & friends,

We have just come to the end of holy week here in South America which is always a highly celebrated and beautiful experience.  This year was no exception.  I hope it was the same for you.  I had the privilege of traveling to El Alto, Bolivia to spend the holidays with our friends & co-laborers of Word Made Flesh Bolivia.  It was an amazing time of rest, renewal as well as a wonderful time of enjoying community, mourning the cross and celebrating the resurrection.  A recurring theme for me this Easter season has been the necessity to recognize Jesus’ death in order to truly celebrate his resurrection.  It is easy for me to skip over the pain and the suffering and the reality of that Saturday that Jesus spent in the tomb because I know that the resurrection comes on Sunday morning.  This year I feel like I have been challenged over and over to put myself in the place of Mary and of the disciples.  For them the reality of Jesus’ death was overwhelming and probably all consuming.  They lived the full pain of it, so of course when their Jesus stood before them again, alive and well, the miracle was anything but lost on them, the joy that sent the women running from the tomb to tell the disciples was anything but half-hearted.  I have surprised myself as I hear my prayer changing to help me to embrace the pain of death to be able to celebrate more completely the joy of life where before my prayer was often help this pain to go away so that I can appreciate the joy of life. 

The joys of life that merit celebrating in these days include our move into the office portion of our new ministry center.  Since making the transition I mentioned in my previous letter we have definitely felt the difference.  We all feel much more productive and are so thankful for a space in which we can all work comfortably.  At one point last week there were four different meetings going on at the same time, none of which were affecting the others!  This is a huge improvement from our old office where everyone could hear everything and personal space felt like a far off dream.  This transition also signifies that we can move back into more time on the streets & with our friends.  We couldn’t be more ready!  We are very aware that there is a time and season for everything and the work we had to do to prepare the office and make the move was necessary, but we are also thankful to be able to get back to the stuff that makes our hearts beat.

This month I would specifically ask for your prayers over the new Youth Development program.  Sebastian, Erick and I are dedicating a month and a half (April 1- May 15) to research and program development specifically for our friends who are on the street but have shown a desire to leave street life.  We would like to offer a sort of transitionary program that would help equip them and empower them to make healthy life choices as they search for better alternatives.  We really desire to  make this program worthwhile and meaningful for the youth who participate and of course, above all, we want it to reflect God’s dreams for them.  We pray for wisdom & discernment as we look at a lot of different materials and meet with many different people in our field.  We also pray for wisdom as we determine which of the youth will be among the 5-10 to participate in the first round of the program.  We pray that God would be preparing their hearts and minds and giving us all the strength and the courage to dive into this new initiative.  On May 15^th we will be presenting the final draft of our program proposal and we hope to officially start the program on June 15^th.  There is a lot to be done before now and then so we also ask for focus, diligence, perseverance, and prophetic imagination.  Thank you for joining us in prayer and in the search for the heart of God.  

So much love, peace & respcet to you all,

Monica N. Ghali