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It is certainly a work in progress, this house across the street from the mission. Today we rip down plasterboard and plywood walls and expose cement and brick. We jump back and watch bugs run and lizards scatter. We pull and tug with crowbars and then pound out nail after nail after nail. We create piles of rubble and move them out of the way and then move them again to get out of the rain. The floors are dirty; the walls are a mess; the windows are broken. But our dreams are big.

My little 4 year old friend stops me in the street and asks me, "¿Cuando está el campamento?" She wants to know when the neighborhood Vacation Bible School will be held? "A few more weeks," I tell her and I hug her. Boys from the neighborhood look in through the gate and shout hello at us. They stop to watch and sometimes even jump in on the work for a bit. The next night we meet at the baseball fields a couple of blocks over and play a ragtag game in a field where earlier in the day, horses grazed. We wrap yarn around sticks with little kids and shout cheers for hits and outs. We laugh loudly and grin broadly. As we ready to leave, another little girl asks if she can come home with me. "No mija, lo siento, no," I must answer.

They are why we dream big. We dream about a place to gather, to teach, to learn. We dream about a place that is a refuge for these kids: a place where they find safety, a place where they find hope, and a place where they know joy, a place where they meet Jesus. So we work, and we are thankful for those who join us as pray for God's kingdom to expand, for His grace and wisdom in abundance, to be light in darkness, to be present in this place in both word and in deed.