Living in the Refuge

The director of Centro Shama, Frances Davinson, reports about the first months of the living in the house of refugees.

In August 22th 2004 the doors of the refuge have opened for the children who are living in the streets of Lima. Since then we've learnt and suffered a lot. But we've also seen how God is working at the hearts of the boys. Each of them has his own story of life. Most of them have a sad past and a very painful life. Some of them have been sexualy abused for years and because of this they suffer of sexual problems. Others seek violence because they are forced to detox of drugs. So they are arguing all the time with the other boys. Others have in them selves such a big sadness because they are thinking about their bad situation of their families. The big challenge for us is to find out these complicated problems and to heal them with the help of God. We have to work with a lot of wisdom of God. We can't do it alone, because the hearts of these children are very deformed and corrupted.



The day begins normaly at six o'clock in the morning with a short devotion-time. Everybody is singing and praying together. Every day the boys have to learn by heart a verse from the Bible wich is giving by a leader of the refuge. After this the boys take a shower and at seven thirty we have breakfast all together. At eight o'clock eight boys go to school very close to the refuge and three of the boys stay at the refuge. They have been here not a very long time, so first they have to acclimatise to a regular daily routine. At the refuge they work with the leaders to get them prepared for school.



The refuge is quite open so if they want the boys can escape. There are boys who took a flight but they turned back. Now these boxs are tho steadyest.



The boys have the possibility to do differen things in their free time:

Games, amusements, sports and music. We organise as well many excursions to other locations for relaxing times and to preach them the word of God. For us as leader the relevance of preaching the gospel is very strong. Every day we have a time with the boys to study the bible or they hear a biblical story. Kind of sunday school.



We treat them like our own sons. And we love them like they'd be our own sons. At the moment we have one permanent employee, one volonteer from Switzerland, two volonteers from Peru and me. We are very happy to be an instrument for God to help restore children who have suffered that much. The challenge is very big but to see the change in the childrens hearts delights our heart. When we can manage that the boys go to school, when they live friendly wich each other, when they wear clean cloths and when they obey, all this is a big victory for us. And we see that it can only be God who can do this miracle in his mercy.



Every week we led enter a new boy. This is a part of the strategy of our work. Like this we get to know the boy in a better way and the children of the refuge can influence well the new one. We did better experience like this than to take two or three boys at the same time.



We thank God for all the persons who have helped a lot and still are supporting us in this precious work.



Glory to our Lord Jesus Christ



Frances Davinson, Lima, May 2005