By Michelle A. | Staff & Local Missionary 

My professor had shared with me about the work of Ciudad Refugio but I believe it was God through him guiding me towards this place.  I was working in a restaurant in Bello and I always found myself on breaks and after work sitting with homeless people or drug addicts sharing with them. I was always telling God that I wanted to serve in a foundation where I could learn more how to work with this population with whom God had burdened my heart. 

I started looking for a foundation that I could serve with.  I thought it would be a schedule of certain hours or days during the week.  When I had the interview in Ciudad Refugio, to my surprise Rebekah offered me the opportunity to live and serve in the foundation full-time. I left surprised and full of thoughts of how it would even be possible given the schedule that I maintained studying and working.  But three weeks later after much prayer and what I believed to be repeated confirmations from the Lord, I quit my job and arrived at the foundation with my suitcase and I have been here ever since.

Here in Ciudad Refugio there is a lot of work to do.  It can be tiring because you need to be prepared to give of yourself and to give in abundance at every moment.  I feel like I came here as one type of vessel and here God has let me fall and be broken.  He is now remaking me into the vessel that He wants me to be.  He is working with my character.  I am learning how to love and how to hug.  Working with the children has taught me so much about the love of God. And working in the kitchen for me has been a school, a form of training.  For example when I work for the donation of fruits and vegetables that we receive from local supermarkets I see how the donation arrives dirty, bruised and damaged.  Then we do the work of cleaning it, peeling it and packaging it.  By the time we finish we have a nice, clean product, useful in the service of feeding the people here.  I see it as an image of the process that the men and women are in in the programs of Ciudad Refugio and the work of transformation that God is doing in their lives.

Here God is also teaching me how to be obedient.  How to submit to my authorities.  It has not been easy but I am learning that obedience brings much blessing. God has taken away my pride… well really, He is still working on my pride. I am now continuing my studies at the Presbyterian Seminary.  My heart and my calling is for the people here in Medellin, there is no other place that I would want to be.  I am blessed to be a missionary to my own people.