What Do You Really Think of Us?

AJ Westendorp • Aug 15, 2016

“What do you really think of us, drug-addicts and homeless people?” Angel asked me. I paused.

He, like many of the “ jovenes de la calle “ (street kids), has been living in the streets since he was a kid.

Now, at 22, he’s seen it all, lived it all. He’s used drugs as a regular escape. He’s found ways to survive with barely any income. He’s been pushed out of churches and restaurants because he’s asking people for money, because he’s high or just because he doesn’t look presentable. He’s seen ministries come and go, do their good deed, pass out a meal and some clothes, have a conversation and preach the Bible to him. He knows the verses as well as I do.

He’s seen people assaulted in the street. He’s been assaulted in the street. He’s gone without food, without bathing, without shelter. He’s slept on cardboard, plastic or the hard-packed earth. This is Angel’s normal .

A “Homeless,” Homeless Ministry

When a seminary student started building relationships with the jovenes de la calle, he couldn’t ignore the needs he encountered. Photo courtesy of Alaina Westendorp

Sigo Vivo (I’m Still Alive) started in 2013 when a student at SETECA , a seminary in Guatemala City, started building relationships with folks like Angel. They started going to church together, but the jovenes de la calle were often smelly, high and so disruptive that the church eventually asked them not to attend on Sundays.

This prompted Pastor Rudy Hernandez and his family to officially start Sigo Vivo on Saturdays. It was a group just for jovenes de la calle , with a hot meal, a place to shower, an activity to engage the group with the Bible and a group of volunteers to share life with.

Sigo Vivo built relationships with the homeless, pointing them toward Christ and a life of freedom from drugs and the other woes in the street. They connected those who wanted leave the street with rehab houses to get them on the road to recovery.

In 2015, lightning struck Sigo Vivo again. The church elders (against the wishes of many in the church body) asked Pastor Rudy to leave because they didn’t like the Sigo Vivo folks bringing their mess, physical and spiritual, into the space of the church. Sigo Vivo was now a “homeless” homeless ministry, but it carried on, true to the ministry’s name.

For three months, the group met in a small park in front of the National Cemetery, meanwhile looking for a meeting space that could give shelter as the rainy season approached. Rudy was (and still is) without a salary, but he was (and still is) confident in God’s call on his life to preach Christ and preach freedom to those held captive by addiction and by systems of poverty.

Broken Systems, Unbroken Hope

My wife, Alaina, and I started volunteering at Sigo Vivo at the end of 2015. It was (and still is) really hard to be there sometimes. It’s difficult to understand street Spanish, when our Spanish still isn’t the strongest. But it teaches us to listen intently. It teaches us to rely on God, not on our own words. It allows us to learn from them.

It’s hard to see some of our friends walk away after Sigo Vivo and back to their old escapes. It’s hard to see them enabled to live in addiction through handouts from well-meaning, misguided ministries. It’s hard when they hurt and hunger. It’s hard to look at the potential in our friends in the street and then recognize how long the road is to any kind of stability, given the systems in Guatemala.

After rehab, where do they go? How will they receive and pay for education? Who will support them? If they finish their education, will anybody hire them? Will they be able to resist relapse?

Sigo Vivo and some fellow ministry dreamers have hopes for pathways through these deserts — halfway houses and job training — but those things require funds, staff and available property and materials.

It’s hard to look at myself and realize how much more I’ve been given than our friends in the street — opportunities, money, privilege, family, friends, education, resources. It makes honest conversation a challenge as our realities, our normals, are so different.

Despite these challenges, I remember that Jesus said people like the jovenes de la calle would receive the kingdom of heaven. The Bible says God has chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom. So I have to believe that as God’s already done the heavy lifting, I ought to be around to see the metaphorical clay pots take shape.

However “hard” it may be, however incapable I feel to help, however backward the systems, it gives God more to be glorified for in the end. When someone is awarded their official Sigo Vivo T-shirt for going one year without drugs, it warms us all up and keeps us believing.

Learning How to Be a Family

So, Angel asked me, “What do you really think of us, drug-addicts and homeless people?” I paused. I was glad he felt like he could ask me this question. It felt like we were finally seeing eye-to-eye.

I said in broken Spanish, “It makes me sad. I really believe you all have a lot of potential and a lot of faith, but you’re stuck because of where you were born, who raised you or some decisions that you or someone else made. I want desperately for the gospel and for society to work for you. It’s frustrating when they don’t. Either way, I like being around you guys, for the most part, and I think I have a lot to learn from you.”

Through consistency and intentional conversations, the volunteers and youth at Sigo Vivo are building community. Photo courtesy of Sigo Vivo

Sigo Vivo now has a building to meet in which we can eat around a table together, do crafts, explore a Bible study and share life. It’s not a perfect ministry model, and it can feel pretty disorganized sometimes, but we’re learning how to be a family. On a good day, you might even catch us grooving to a catchy song, learning a choreographed dance (or resorting to circle dance battles).

And on June 5, 2016, Iglesia Sigo Vivo was founded, starting its own Sunday church services — in that same small park in front of a cemetery.

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Bridging Dissonance: Finding Connection in Music and the Gospel

By Emily Sheddan • 18 Jul, 2024

TEAM worker Luke Standridge and his fellow musicians use music to build connections to faith in Japan. In music terms, dissonance creates movement or even suspense in a song. It invites tension. That tension is what helps grab our ear’s attention and the interchanging of these notes with pleasant melodious parts is what makes music such a delight. In a similar way, God is using music to grab people’s attention and catalyze Gospel impact in the largely unreached nation of Japan. TEAM Global Worker, Luke Standridge moved to Japan in 2019 with no clear direction on how he was going to use his passion for composing music while doing ministry. However, after Luke got involved with a local church and began developing deep friendships, the Lord opened unimaginable doors for Luke that in time, coordinating his creative skills with sharing the Word. “People Need to Come to Japan!” Growing up as one of ten kids in a family that was heavily involved in ministry and missions, Luke never considered that it would one day be a part of his own journey. In 2016, via a Japanese language learning class in Indiana, Luke and his brother had the opportunity to travel to Japan. Hearing, learning, and using the language in the context of Japanese culture was the goal. While it was Luke’s first international trip – even his first trip on a plane - it was also his first time hearing about the spiritual condition of the Japanese people. “And just through that, God did a huge 180 change on my heart,” says Luke. “More people should come here as global workers. People need to come to Japan!” The call God was laying on Luke’s heart is echoed when looking at the spiritual landscape of Japan. The nation is home to the second largest unreached people group in the world. It is one of the most difficult places for the Gospel to take hold and grow. Japan is also home to a deep and rich culture that prizes creative arts from pottery to ink to music to anime – a fact that would help Luke find his niche in life and ministry. God’s Guiding Hand In the short three-month timespan of that first trip, Luke found that opportunities came naturally to share about life, and people’s curiosity for Christianity grew. “I left Japan knowing I just had to come back,” Luke shares. “Even if I didn’t get back to the same area, I knew Japan was where God wanted me to be.” The Lord is good all the time and all the time the Lord is good. His plans do not fail. Luke returned to Japan in 2019, and less than a week after arriving, he was put in touch with a renowned composer in Japan. The composer saw some of Luke’s music and invited him to help write the music for a beloved in-country animated show. But God wasn’t finished yet! Fast forward a year, and more connections and opportunities allowed Luke to help with music for Pokémon - a franchise that has brand recognition around the world and was being developed into a TV series in Japan. Luke recalls how the Lord began using these connections in the production world to open doors for Gospel conversations. One night while having dinner in downtown Tokyo with famous artists and composers from all around the country, Luke was asked about his ministry-focused visa. This was a rare opportunity in a setting with people otherwise uninterested in Christianity. Luke shares, “The whole time I could see God’s hand in guiding the entire thing.”

Connecting in a New Kind of “Neighborhood”

By Lorena de la Rosa and Suzanne Pearson • 13 Jun, 2024

Through creative arts and other forms of innovative outreach, “The Neighborhood” is creating connections to the Gospel and the love of Jesus. CONNECTION. It’s a common word with powerful implications. Dictionary.com defines connection as a joining or linking together; a relationship between people or objects that unites or binds them together. God has created each of us with a deep need for connection with Him as well as connection with others. Hebrews 10:24-25 speaks to this, as the writer exhorts, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” This God-given need for connection lies at the heart of a creative and innovative ministry in Japan known as “The Neighborhood.” TEAM Japan global worker, Kelly and her family created The Neighborhood as a place where connections are formed through creative arts, educational opportunities, and simply just providing a space for people to be together. A Family Calling The journey to the creation of The Neighborhood began over 5,000 miles away from Tokyo, in California where Kelly, her husband Jeff, and their five children were living. The kids were the first to sense God’s calling to missions, and asked why their family wasn’t serving in this way. How Kelly and her family came to TEAM is a God-story in and of itself. “God placed a TEAM Japan worker at our lunch table the same week that the kids posed that question to us,” Kelly recalls. “We had never heard of TEAM and so we thought, ‘let’s check this out.’ After that, God just kept confirming that we were supposed to be here.” After a period of fundraising and with much excitement, the family of seven moved to Japan in 2014. For the first five years, Kelly and Jeff served as a part of other TEAM ministry initiatives, but they began to sense a stirring for something new. Creating The Neighborhood Kelly and her family truly have a deep gift for hospitality, and regularly opened up their home to others they met in Tokyo. They saw a great need for people to have a place to gather and connect, and they wondered what doors the Lord might be opening for them to meet that need. “About a year before we were to return the States on home assignment, we were just really thinking about our future in Japan,” Kelly says. “We saw a need for people to have a ‘third place’ – a place that’s not home and it’s not work. They didn’t have a church community or any other place where they could meet people and just connect.” Kelly goes on to explain that in Japan, the culture is such that people don’t generally invite each other into their homes, but as her family did so, people embraced that opportunity. “This idea formed in all of our hearts of a student ministry center – a place where we can create community and learning,” says Kelly. “It was born out of what we were already doing in our home, but seeing how we could expand it and have better space.” God’s Provision What happened next is a true testament to God’s provision. Kelly, Jeff, and the kids returned to the States and began sharing their vision for The Neighborhood with their supporters and churches who responded generously. Upon returning to Japan, the search was on for the right space. “We had a Christian realtor that we told our dream to, and he just went looking for it,” Kelly recalls. When the realtor found a 5-story apartment building, he said, “It’s kind of out of your budget but it has what you need and want.” The Lord provided the funds and the family moved into the space in November 2019. They now occupy all but the ground floor, with living space for their family as well as classrooms, areas to study or hang out, and guest rooms for exchange students or others who need a place to stay overnight. The first floor is occupied by a pizza shop – a welcome amenity for the many groups and students who visit The Neighborhood. “It’s very convenient!” Kelly says with a laugh. The Neighborhood began to see lots of activity right away until the pandemic hit in early 2020. During the height of the quarantine, Kelly and Jeff used the time to redecorate the space and plant gardens outside the building. Then as the restrictions eased, they invited individual students or families over for meals and fellowship. It wasn’t until March 2023 that The Neighborhood was able to fully open again as intended. Kelly shares that despite the setbacks of COVID, the Lord continued to provide the funds to pay the rent.