God makes them and His call brings them together

It is official, fifty children have been set up for sponsorship at the new Mission Life child center in Cartago, Colombia.

In one of the toughest communities in Cartago, Colombia, a group of volunteers began working with children and women. Twelve years ago, Claudia initiated this project, "Voy a Cambiar el Mundo" (I'm Going to Change the World), in Comuna 7. Her goal was to create a space for children and their mothers twice per month to engage in activities that teach transformational values and principles.

Claudia, a native of Cartago, recently connected with me (Angel) through this shared mission. Although I have known her sister since my teenage years in Colombia, Claudia and I only recently met as God brought us together for the project of establishing a child development center in Cartago. We realized we shared the same vision of providing children and families with a safe space where children can learn, grow, and become world-changing citizens.

Together with Claudia and her team, Mission Life is launching the child sponsorship program. We are providing guidelines and tools to complement the existing work and evolve it into a comprehensive social development program. This program will offer daily activities, school assistance, meals, devotionals, and scripture learning for the children.

For the past eight years, Mission Life has been dedicated to creating a revolutionary model for child sponsorship. Our approach integrates local initiatives from the church and the Mission Life Child Center to promote the social development of the community. Through this journey, we have gained valuable insights into what works and what doesn't. Now, we are ready to build something from the ground up, test and evaluate its effectiveness, and make adjustments as needed.

The new child center in Cartago represents this vision—a chance to prove a model that can be adopted by other ministries, centers, and organizations. This model aims to transform child sponsorship by enhancing the impact on both the children and the community, as well as on the sponsors and their families.

Another crucial aspect of this project is the opportunity to plant a new church in the community. Normally, Mission Life integrates its social initiatives with existing local Christian churches. However, since there is no church in this community, we feel called to establish one ourselves. This new church will support the center, the team, the children and their families, and the community as a whole.

Mission Life has been working to acquire an abandoned building to remodel and operate our program on a full-time basis. This building used to serve as the community’s church but has been vacant for ten years. After presenting our program to the community and its leaders, it was agreed that establishing a child center and a church would greatly benefit the area. We collected signatures in support of this endeavor.

We are now in the process of purchasing the building to begin construction. The plan is to create a church on the first floor, which will initially serve as a meeting place for the children until we can build second-floor classrooms.

There is a long road ahead, but step by step, we will bring hope and the Good News of Jesus to this community that so desperately needs it.