The Red Door Cafe

As you probably know our focus is Discipleship and we have been doing a lot of that with the students. But one thing we also focus on is our city. How can we reach this city, how can we help, serve, etc…?  This year we have had some crazy stories about people we have met. It seems every student and leader has not just one, but a few stories of people seeking us out. We have an instance where the group was on the beach and this man walked up to the group and said “I just feel peace with you guys. I was going to come and ask you something, but I don’t remember what is was.” And he continued to stand there. One time Aaron and the director were at a small hardware store and this man heard them talking and asked where they were from. They told him and then spoke with him about what we do here. After the conversation was over they went outside looking at some ladders and this man (also a customer) just started following them for no apparent reason and remained standing next to them. Some girls who are very young (ages 13 and 14) and are run-aways have taken an interest in one of our students and ask her questions about life and about the Lord. The oldest girl is pregnant and they are sleeping with some men (ages 18 to 20ish) who also traffick these girls to make money and are physically abusive to them as well. This of course is not a good situation, but all the more we feel that the Lord has allowed us to be in their lives to hopefully help bring truth and justice. Another is a story of a  lady who worked in the apt building that we live. One morning she was reading her bible, so we asked her about it. At first she thought we were Morman’s, but then realizing we weren’t she seemed stunned to meet other Christians. The next day Aaron said “God bless you” to her as he was passing by and she began to cry. Aaron prayed with her. I came downstairs and saw her crying and then she began to share with us how much she was in need of Christian community. That she felt alone in her faith and wanted so much to find other believers to spend time with. There are more and more of  these stories. Many of these have come about just by us passing people on our way. We haven’t even been chasing after it. The harvest is ripe here in Uruguay without us even trying. People are flocking to us and the Lord is giving us influence…

All that to lead into this. Last year we began to vision cast about opening a coffee house where we could invite the people we meet to come and just be. To open the doors to the community for us to serve them and to love them. Last year we spent a lot of time looking at different buildings and places. This year we feel like the Lord is just saying to start it with the house that the students live in now. There is a big kitchen/dining area in the house. We are not able to start a business at this point, but we would however be able to invite others to make donations and offer free coffee. Right now the idea is to make this a place for people to come, chill, study, pray and commune. We are going to have different themes within the coffee house. I will be over a section dedicated to injustices. I have a heart and vision for speaking out against injustice, so this will be a way to me to grow and expound upon these dreams within my heart. We will also have desks for studying, books to read, couches and tables.  Some of the teams that have come in have brought items to place in the coffee house.  And right now The Texas Mission team is here helping us re-model, so we can open this hopefully in the next 2 weeks.

This is a big project and needs to be covered in a lot of prayer.  For lots of reasons this will change many things about the current structure of La Mission.  But we want to see others around find Christ.  Find his love and his hope.  One thing I heard Pastor Jonathan Martin say recently on a pod cast that ministered to me in a huge way was “We cannot compromise outward mission for the sake of inward development”.  We will continue to pour into our students and lead and teach them in the wisdom that God gives us, but also one of those ways to lead them is teaching them to serve and love others outside of our “Mission” bubble.  Pray for this café that it would be a place of peace, truth and community.  The name of this café is going to be “The Red Door Café”.  We are painting the door red to represent how through Christ’s blood we now have an open door to the Father.

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