Lifeteen and Little Antu

So, at least a couple times a week I go and take prayer time at the Church. It is guaranteed that at some point, while praying, I hear little footsteps in the back of the Church that eventually turn into running followed by a yell. Little Antu is his name, and he’s two years old. His dad works right near the church selling bracelets and other accessories to the tourists. With his hair-do he looks like he could have come out of the jungle. The girls I live with say that he looks like he could be my own child! Antu goes to work with his dad, sometimes all day, and just runs all over the place playing with whoever he sees. After running up to me and yelling, “hello”, (usually in Spanish), he jumps on my lap and we say a prayer together. I remind him to be quiet in the Church, and he immediately starts to whisper, says goodbye, tiptoes out and then within in 10 minutes is running in again yelling, and we repeat the whole thing; prayer, whisper, tiptoe out and then run in, yelling, once again. Last Friday we were having our life night for youth ministry from 7-9 pm. Little Antu was still there, and apparently heard us in the parish hall. As we are talking with the teenagers, I hear a little yell and see his face in the door. He runs through the teenagers and over to me. We were blessed with his company for the rest of the night!

Life Teen is meeting every Friday night for 2 hours. What is Life Teen, you ask? It is a youth ministry program that started in Arizona, and their mission is, “Leading teens closer to Christ”. The biggest thing we’re trying to get across right now is that it’s no ordinary youth group. We’re trying to get the teens to think outside of the box. There are nights that are all social, nights where the focus will be prayer, other nights there will be education and discussion on doctrines of the faith, and finally nights where we discuss the most common issues that teens struggle with. Everything we do is intertwined with fun and games, skits and prizes, music and food! We have fun and do everything we can to make sure the teens are having fun as well. Right now we are trying to transition smoothly out of the social nights and into our first issue night. Please pray for us as we do. We were all surprised and overjoyed to see that many of the participants showing interest are those teenagers who struggle the most. Most of them do not have God in their lives at all and have never gone to Church. God is doing something incredible here and we are extremely excited to be able to witness it!