 In 2001, Jeony Ordoñez took his 5-year-old daughter with him to the dump (El Basural) as they had quite a bit of wastes from a medical brigade. While there, his daughter was touched by what she saw and asked her dad to pray for the dump kids. This happened every day for a week. The second week, she asked him to start a ministry for the dump kids. Jeony would pray for the kids while there, but he would forget about them later. Finally, early one morning, Kris asked her dad if he had talked to his boss to start the dump ministry. “Are you going to do it or not?” Kris had to know. The next day, Jeony talked to Michael Miller of Miqueas Project, and they decided to start the ministry. Jeony recruited Danilo, Tino, and several other ex-street kids from the Project to help him. Jeony, Danilo, Tino and others started to build relationships with the kids from the dump. At the beginning, just being present in the dump was dangerous; they kept visiting. Sometimes they played soccer with the kids; other times they just chatted; the boys taught the kids to break dance. They took clothing, food, and medicines to the families for nearly a year. After about six months, the dump kids finally began to accept Jeony and the boys. However, it was well over a year before they could speak about Jesus without the kids becoming defensive and tuning them out. 2003 brought a new dimension to the ministry. To develop better relationships with the kids and try to start a relationship with the parents, they began to offer art and craft classes. They hosted small groups of children, youth, and adults as their students. These classes helped build relationships with the families of the dump. Seeing a real need for educational opportunities, 2004 was met with great anticipation and expectations as they began formal education with kindergarten and primary school. Thirty students attended in 2004; fifty students attended in 2005; and more growth has come year after year. Currently AFE has 170 students from nursery to high school along with adult education in the afternoons. The greatest miracle is that 9 of the original students Jeony met in 2001 will be graduating high school in 2011 and beginning the university in 2012. AFE’s vision is that within a few years there would be no more children living in the dump, helping them to get out through alternatives provided by integrated developmental initiatives. AFE’s mission is to equip children in a wholistic way with God as the foundation to form agents of change who can change their community, their city, their country, and the world. |
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