A look at the Youth Center: Background information

I am going to be writing over the next few days a few blog posts about the youth center.  Hopefully these will give you a better idea of the ministry, some of our frustrations, and our prayers and hopes for the future. 

Youth for Christ (YFC) was "given" a plot of land 20 years ago by the government of Quilpué to use as an outreach center for youth.  Years ago, it functioned as that.  It was a successful youth center and many youth came to know the Lord and were discipled into strong believers.  When the director of the center had to leave for family reasons, they had a man take over that came to know the Lord at the center.  His name is Cristian.

Cristian has been living at the youth center for about 7 years now and due to lack of training and support for him, the youth center stopped functioning.  He started a church that meets at the youth center and that has been his focus for the past 5 years or so.

Since we have been here the government has told YFC that if they want to continue to keep the land, then the youth center must be opened back up.  (And the reason we are here.)  In order to do that, there is a lot of work to be done.  The land has not been well taken care of over the years.  Jeff and our teammates have been working hard in hopes of getting it back into working condition.  I (Lisa) haven't been able to go to the site much.  Due to safety issues, it isn't safe for our small children to be there.  So for now Jeff has been busy with the ministry and I have been the caretaker of our home.  Stayed tuned for more blog posts about what they have been doing.  Below are two pictures of the site before any work has been done.

A picture of the site - looking at the multi-use classroom

Soccer field on the site

We pray that one day soon this field will be filled with children and youth laughing and playing and hearing the good news of the gospel.