Between Margaret and I, we had two packed weekends of psycho- therapeutic workshops with children in Talcahuano and along the coast of Tubul and  Llico (which were both totally destroyed in the tidal wave).

It’s amazing how the Lord uses these workshops. We are able to zero in on their emotional needs, show them the source of some of their pain and anxiety; and then give them Jesus in a much more personal way.   We prayed with 50 children to receive Jesus into their hearts.

Here’s one example of the kind of thing that happens in the workshops.  In one of the workshops there was a 14 yr. old boy who was very obnoxious and disruptive.

Margaret finally confronted him and said: “ I know you’re hurting inside and that’s why you’re trying to get all of this negative attention. But you don’t need to go down a negative road. It only brings you more hurt because of all the negative energy it generates from those around you”.

Then she went on to demonstrate to everyone  about different  tools for handling negative pent up hurt. Carlos settled down and listened attentively.

After Carlos prayed to receive Jesus into his heart (along with the rest of the group), the children were outside playing and the “tias” thanked us profusely for getting Carlos to pray. They explained that when Carlos was 11 he went into his house after school and found his father and older brother hanging from a rafter. ..apparently a  double suicide.  Then his mother remarried a very young man, only a few years older than Carlos.  The new step father has been making life “hell” for Carlos since then.

No one before took the time with Carlos to confront his pain, teach him skills to work through it all…..and most of all give him Jesus, One who will be with him, when it seems all others have abandoned him.

I took the questionnaires on trauma to the director of Education of the  Bio Bio Region. He used to be a teacher himself, and said he understood the difficult social problems of the rural areas of Chile, now coupled with the extra burdens from the earthquake/ tidal wave.

He was quite impressed with the fact that I had managed to interview 1,000 children in 32 schools, plus give the teachers in all of those schools encouragement through motivational seminars.  Added to that have been the 22 workshops that we’ve given to the children in the most traumatized sectors.

He proposed that I write up a project and present it to the Ministry of Education Bio Bio. If they accept it, the project would be included  in the school curriculum in all of the public schools in the region. The program would be geared toward resilience training, education in values, and teaching life skills (“habilidades”) in self motivation toward personal progress.  Of course such a project represents an awesome amount of work to prepare!

Please help me pray all of this through, as well as the funds to help me keep going until I can get financing for psycho-therapeutic programs established and running.