Probably the place that touched me the most with its story while we were in Quito was COVI. "Centro Opcion de Vida". It is the shelter for the street children. We were able to see the new addition to this street ministry at COVI 2 on Monday July 18 while we were there. It is a beautiful new house where 7 teenage boys live currently. It will hold up to 10 teen boys. Everything was new. Mendy had brought sheet sets for the boys too for their rooms. The last team from Visiting Orphans had helped at COVI 2 and had requested we bring down sheet sets if we could. When we walked into COVI it was so clean and new. Fresh paint on the wall, floors redone it looked like. A new kitchen. Everything new. The government has given this house to Tamarita to lease for 2 years for her ministry. Every two years it comes up for evaluation. She is praying that her church will be able to buy it from the government and she will be able to continue her ministry without government intervention every two years. She of course is thrilled the government even gave her this house in the first place. That in itself is an answer to prayer. They are seeing what she is doing works in helping get kids off the street and giving them a temporary home. The boys were playing Twister in what was like a sun room type area, laughing so loud and in one big tangled mess. Three other boys were playing an UNO card game at a table in the same room. Tamarita gave us a tour of the house and then shared her story..... I'll try to do my best to tell it as I remember it.
Tamarita's Story
First and foremost I must say that Tamarita loves the Lord. She views the COVI houses as God's house and these children who have come off the street as God's children. This is God's work and nothing that she does with this ministry is for anything other than for the Lord and the good of the children. She views herself as the vessel God is using to do His work in the lives of these boys. These boys have literally been rescued from the streets of Quito. Tamarita says they have been rescued by God. I believe she is completely right.
What was so touching about this place is how it all started. Tamarita began this ministry over 10 years ago. It all started with Tamarita going to the street with food and feeding the hungry in one area of Quito. She'd drive her little Volkswagon down there often times with her two daughters and just serve meals to whomever was there. She began by meeting a physical need, just as the Lord asks us to do. And who are living on the streets in this area of town? Gangs, gang leaders, criminals, and the homeless. Homeless children, homeless teens and I'm sure adults too. Her heart was for the children there.
This continued for some time, just she and her daughters, until a small group from a church started getting involved. Who was in that group about 7 years ago? Our guide Oswaldo and two of our translators, Carla and Carol. Every week they started going down to the streets with Tamarita to feed the homeless and street children. Oswaldo told us there were about 10 of them that went diligently.
Eventually Tamarita was told by the government that they did not like what she was doing on the street. She needed a "place" for these people to be fed. People were committing crimes and then coming to eat. They wanted the folks she was feeding off the street. So COVI started. If I'm not mistaken, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, the government gave Tamarita a place where she could feed the street children. This grew. Eventually it became a hang out for kids after school who lived on the streets, and then it became a place where teen boys could actually live and call "home". It took Tamarita 10 years to build this ministry from just serving a bowl of soup to the hungry.
One of the most incredible parts of this story is that a gang leader decided he wanted to leave the streets because of what Tamarita was doing. She was able to get him into a drug rehab program for about a year and a half Oswaldo told us. When he got clean from drugs, he went back to the streets to try to convince others to leave and try a better way of life. The gang murdered him. And the new COVI house, COVI 2 is named after him. "Daniel" is his first name. I saw a newspaper article on the wall in COVI 1 with Tamarita, Daniel and the President of Ecuador. Wow!
Leaving the street is difficult for these boys. Many have run away from home, even from other countries in South America at young ages because of abuse from their fathers. Many were on drugs but are no more. There is always a temptation to go back to the streets because there you can live however you want. Tamarita has rules they must abide by or they cannot live there. Overall it is a trying situation at times when you have so many personalities that are hurt by life and used to the way of the streets. What we saw were well adjusted teens of 17, with many smiles on their faces. Most of the 7 we spent time with had been living at COVI for over a year, some for 3 years.
We sat around the dining room table as Tamarita told us her story about COVI. Then about 4 of the boys got up in front of us and told their stories of where they came from and how thankful they were for COVI and Tamarita. There was hardly a dry eye in the room. To share their testimony of how Tamarita's ministry and even the Lord had changed their life in front of a bunch of American strangers was just incredible. I was so humbled. Of course when one of them said how thankful he was to Tamarita, she was pointing her finger up at the ceiling showing us all it was not her but God who needed to get the credit for it all.
Tamarita inspires me. She truly does. I'm so blessed to have met her. I was able to give her a gift from our team. A Spanish devotional, a bracelet a lady at the church hand made for her and one of the pens my dad made. When I told her my dad had dementia. She said her father passed away from Alzheimers at 87. Small world. My prayer is that her work continues and that when she is no longer able to continue the work that God will provide someone who will carry it on in His name. It is a beautiful ministry.
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| Tamarita, Jason doing his "pose" and I |
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