One Child at a Time — On a mission to improve the lives of Bolivian children

NAME: John and Michelle Eggen
CAUSE: The Bolivian Street Children Project
HOW TO HELP: Pray for the ministry and street children worldwide and contribute financially. It costs $30,000 annually to run Barnabas House.

It’s heartbreak and joy. It’s desperation and hope. It’s saving one child at a time with God’s help. For Thrivent Financial for Lutherans members John and Michelle Eggen, this is the daily reality while working with street children in La Paz, Bolivia.

“These children need loving, caring relationships,” says John, an Elkhorn, Nebraska, native and Lutheran minister in training. He and his wife, Michelle, are on a three-year assignment working at Barnabas House, a home for 10 street boys ages 10 to 15. “Helping a child off the streets involves more than just taking them to a home,” he says. “It’s a long, often depressing process.”

Hundreds of children live on the streets in La Paz. Fifty-six percent of them are aged 6 to 15, but some are babies and toddlers. Most are on the streets because of physical abuse at home, while more than 20 percent were simply abandoned. Life on the street is rough, rife with sexual abuse, drugs and police intimidation.

At Barnabas House, the Eggens provide constant love, a safe home and advocacy for the children.

“In the hardest times, when there seems to be no hope, I stop, pray and ask God to give me the faith to believe in His power,” says Michelle, who has put her medical training on hold. “On the worst days, you witness a suicide—the streets slowly sucking the life out of a girl…in such despair that she took her own life. That was one of the worst moments of this ministry. On the best days, you witness a child completely changed by the love of Christ.”

—Tara Perre

For more information on how to help, visit Recognition.

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