Ten years ago we started working with children who live on the streets of Sucre's
market area. Within half of a year we gathered ten children and opened a home for
them at our seminary. At the beginning our goals and methods weren't as clear as
they could have been. It was not until after two or three years that we noticed
that God had a plan for the work we were doing. We saw how the children took seriously
their relation with God and they started to talk about dedicating their lives for
Jesus and bringing out the good news about Jesus.
That time we understood that if God had a plan for the children, we should give them the best education. We took a decision to make it possible for them to be educated for not only the future leaders in the church but also in their society and their nation. Once accepting this challenge we did our program to follow these goals. However, we understood soon that the education by itself isn't enough. With a wider formation we could prepare the children to reach any kind of goal.
Man is a sum of the experiences he has had in his life. These experiences include education, family, spiritual life, relationships, social life and so on. Knowing these facts, we resulted to form the following program for the children's formation:
- EDUCATION. Our intention is to find educational units that offer a personalized education and where the children aren't discriminated. The children entering to the home have quite often problems with learning and their general knowledge is poor. To get personalized education the children attend special schools where the amount of the students in each class is only fifteen. The university students attend to private or state universities.
- HOME. The home develops a family culture with a father and a mother. The children are considered as sons and daughters.
- SPIRITUAL LIFE. An important part of the children's spiritual life is the learning the values of life. These values are for example honesty, sincerity, loyalty, love and respect. Each day in the family devotionals these themes are taken place and laid foundations of with the principles of the Bible.
- RELATIONSHIPS. Because the children need to be integrated to normal life in the society, we try to find relationships with families outside the home. An adoption program for uncles and aunts serve this goal. The uncle and the aunt are Christians, their own family life is stable and they are committed to work with children and adolescents. Once in a month the children visit their adoptive uncles and aunts. The child is considerate as a family member because the whole family adopts the child. The uncles and the aunts participate on the important days of the child, such as birthdays, Christmases and graduations.
- SOCIAL LIFE. Taking part to social events give the children an opportunity to get new experiences for life. Such social events are for example academic competitions in mathematics, history and art, or camps on the countryside. During holidays on the wintertime or in the end of the year a definite group of the children travels to some other Bolivian town to know better their country.