Our Barrio Internship!

When we left the La Vega barrio to move into our big house called “Luz y Esperanza,” I asked Wanda to take care of the girls who were not moving with us. I asked her to pour into them, encourage them, and advocate for them if anyone needed refuge. Since then, she has consistently been so faithful in making sure that each girl knows she has a safe place where she will be received with loving arms and a message declaring her infinite value and worth.

Wanda asked me if she could grow the program to include more girls. 

“Absolutely! May it be as big as God wants it to be.” I asked her if she would need help or additional workers as the organization grew in number. 

"No" she said.  

We began to dream of a day when we wouldn’t be desperate for workers because we would have raised them up—it makes me tear up to type this.

I watched Wanda faithfully serve alongside her children for eight years. I watched her do amazing things with NO funding. I watched the quality of care and mentorship grow as we went from welcoming 15 girls to over 200.

Each year, as the girls grew, so did our dreams for them. But one dream that has been ever-present is to have a barrio internship: an intense discipleship and residential program that takes mentoring to deeper levels and challenges each girl to dig into their unique and holy purpose set aside for them long, long ago. 

Schedules and menus hung on the walls. Beds and drawers were labeled with each intern’s name, and as we walked through the house, all the memories of our first days and the faces of those who once filled these beds poured in like a flood.

I touched each bed, as I was accustomed to doing, and prayed for each girl to find rest and hope and healing and purpose there. I promised not to leave her alone on her journey, even if I would only be able to walk with her in prayer.

We invite you to join us in prayer for each girl participating in this powerful opportunity to step into MORE.

We are so FULL of HOPE for each life, each leader, each woman breaking a cycle of abuse and exploitation and determined to walk as a generation of light blazing a trail for others to follow.