Where in the World is Tatiana Going Next (A.K.A Travel Plans for 2017)

Hello my Friends.

A year ago today, almost to the minute, I was just getting home from helping in a Chinese orphanage. (Or at least I was when I started drafting this post) Now, I am in the planning stages of two or possibly three trips overseas for volunteer work in vastly different ministries in different countries. They are all countries I have never been to before, which is super cool and exciting.

I will start with the one I leave for first, South Africa. My church is planning a two and a half week trip to the Cape Town area to help Hope Prison Ministry. This is totally outside of anything I have ever done before. I have never been to the continent of Africa, or even the southern hemisphere. I have never even flown through the southern hemisphere on my way to Asia. I also have never been involved in prison ministry. However, I have applied for, and been accepted onto the team.

In the Bible, at the end of Matthew 25, Jesus describes one group of people as blessed by God and another as cursed by Him. The difference between groups is not theology, or a prayer prayed, it is concrete actions done to help "the least of these". One of the listed actions was visiting people in prison. Prison ministry is not something I feel like I am especially gifted for. I do not expect to be unusually good at it, or to come away deciding to dedicate the next twenty years of my life to prison ministry. So why go? Because visiting people in prison is something that Jesus said people who love God will do. Because there are men in South African prisons who have said that they want to learn about justice, that they want to grapple with the results of their crimes, and they want to try to mend relationships they betrayed, and they need more people to help walk them through that. I can go. I can listen. I can share. I can be vulnerable with them and help to provide a safe space for their vulnerability. I have the time, and a desire to help as much as I can. I will explain more about what my role will be in a later post.

At the end of my time in Cape Town, I do not fly home. I fly straight to Mumbai, India, where I will meet up with a friend, and get straight to work helping a local pastor. He has a number of different projects, which I will detail later. The one I am going to explain now is his fostering of education for slum children that I will be helping with. If you are friends with me, or have been following this blog, you know that children are my biggest passion. So this trip really excites me. During my time in India, I will be working with children in a new set of hard circumstances that put them at a disadvantage. Most of the kids I will be working with have loving parents. It is poverty and ideas of fate that cannot be overcome that hold these kids back. The pastor I will be working with runs a free kindergarten for children in families referred to as the rag pickers. They would more accurately be called recyclers. They go around the streets picking up scraps of paper, empty soda cans, plastic bottles, and yes, fabric rags. They then sort the reusable rubbish and sell it in bulk to recycling and manufacturing plants. These families struggle to make enough money to provide for their children, and as a result many slum kids are malnourished. The parents keep their kids home from school because the kids can add more recycling to the pile, which will mean more money for food. They also keep them back because they do not think it is possible for their children to become anything more than they are, or their parents, and grand parents were before them. Lastly, families struggling to get enough food, find it impossible to buy the uniforms and supplies required at the public schools. The pastor I am working with runs the kindergarten for a group of five and six year old kids from these families. During the two years he has the kids, he tries to increase the families' commitment to learning. Once they are finished at his school, he offers to sponsor the children in their further education by paying for their uniforms and supplies. He also uses his school to help combat the malnourishment and disease of the kids by providing one or two meals a day and hygiene classes. On weekday mornings, I will be with these kids. My main job job will be substitute English teacher. In the evenings, I will go into the slum to visit their parents.

I will fill you in more later this week, including the other possible trip. For now though, I have to get to work.

Thank you for all you care and encouragement!
All my love,
Tatiana

Please Pray:

• That my team to South Africa will do all the emotional and mental preparation we need to do to be as effective as possible in this demanding ministry.
• That the men who will come to the program will have softened hearts.
• That we will be loving towards the men even as they confess the horrors they have done.
• That the money needed to carry out this trip will come in.
• That I will have the time needed to rest and rejuvenate so I can continue to pour myself out.
• That my friend and I will have good health and stay safe in India.
• That we will show these kids how special they are and be an encouragement to their parents.

 If you would like to support me financially, you can support the trip to South Africa by going this website selecting STM South Africa and putting Tatiana Martin in the optional memo, or by putting money so designated in the offering plate at Park Street Church during Sunday service. (You would get a tax receipt for this) To support India, because it is a local doing awesome stuff and not a registered non-profit, you would just give me cash or a check letting me know what it was for. Let me know if you have any questions.