"Circulo Andante"

A few kids and a few hours

A few hours a week can make a big difference to a handful of kids. Circulo Andante, or Walking Circle, is a reading and math club run by the staff at YWAM Tijuana del Mar. Two afternoons a week they set up in a community and offer brief lessons on the basics - vowels, subtraction, prefixes - in three grade levels to the kids that live there. This ministry was created and is staffed by recent DTS grads (which makes us so proud!). We volunteer with them when our schedule permits.

The community where the Circle has been working for the past six weeks has received many Homes of Hope houses. It provides another connect point for us with the families and kids that were blessed with homes. Here are some recent images from an afternoon together.

Arriving early means a sticker next to your name on the attendance chart



Excited that she could find her own name on the chart


YWAM staff led the house build that gave this girl and her family a home in April. She and her older sister are regular attendees to the Circle.



"There are three rules in the Circle..."




A Canadian teaching Spanish in Mexico to kidnergartners




When you know the answer, you let EVERYONE know!




YWAM staff are great at including parents in the lessons as well




The staff to kid ratio is great




Loving story time




The Circle

For more information about Circulo Andante, or to find out how you can be involved, email Luisa at luisa.seiler@ywamsdb.org

YWAM San Diego/Baja News

Homes of Hope Launches in Jamaica

Homes of Hope, which began in 1990 in Tijuana, has now gone global.

This summer 39 teens from nations ranging from Canada to Dubai, whose parents are members of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a global group of business leaders, built three homes for the poor in the Montego Bay area of Jamaica. The Jamaican families receiving the homes have faced many challenges.

One of the recipients, Hyacinth Blackwood, a 37 year-old mother of 6, lived in a 50 year-old 3 room shelter held together with scrap tin and broken beams. The floor was covered over by a piece of tattered linoleum. Since the roof leaked, she put an old rug over the roof’s tarpaulin and deteriorating boards to slow the drips; she kept the clothes dry by piling them in two large covered drums. Recently, while her son was fixing a new hole on the roof, he fell through, further damaging the support beams and making the house even more dangerous. This lent credence to Hyacinth’s fear the roof would someday cave-in on her family. But safety was not her only concern. The dampness of their living conditions aggravated her children’s asthma problems.

Since Hyacinth’s husband is in jail for the next 9 years, (he is allegedly serving time for a crime his brother committed in order to keep the young brother out of jail) she is the sole supporter, cleaning toilets on the weekends. This job barely earns her enough money to feed her children, so she sometimes relies on the mercy of a local food bank but often doesn’t eat to make sure her children get a little more food. She proudly describes how, despite signs of anemia, her children thrive in school. Her hope is that they will stay in school and have a brighter future.

Sean Lambert, founder of Homes of Hope, describes the experience of seeing Hyacinth receive a new home. “I could see the hope fill her heart. She now had a larger house, one with a leak-proof roof, a locking door, and workable windows—one that was structurally safe. Hope for the future is our most powerful weapon against the despair that poverty brings.”

In addition to the house, the family also received two new beds, a new kitchen table with matching chairs, and a new stove and propane tank.

YWAM Jamaica to date has built 6 homes for the poor. They want to expand the number of homes they build each year, working closely with the community leaders and local churches. Because Jamaica is an area at risk for hurricanes, the team added hurricane clips to the roof and trusses to give the house extra strength against hurricane-force winds.


In the last two years the success of HOH has been replicated in other YWAM centers around the world, places like Panama, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Paraguay, and Jamaica with plans to open programs in Rwanda, the Philippines, and Haiti.

The growth of Homes of Hope internationally is a result of the interest in short-term mission trips and of the rewarding experience in giving a deserving family basic shelter. With Homes of Hope, groups own the project, generating the funds and the team to build the home. The inherent flexibility enables Homes of Hope to adapt to various cultures from around the world through established YWAM bases. What stays the same? The sharing of God’s love by giving a needy family adequate shelter.

When this YPO teen team replaces a house that most of us would consider inhabitable with a new Homes of Hope house, they faithfully follow the call to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). These volunteers do inspire us all.

By Julia Lambert Frericks

A most needed encouragement

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet a couple of guys from Vancouver, B.C. They were coming to participate in a guest build we had at all three locations. It was designed for individuals to participate without being part of a team. Over the course of a weekend I got to know these two guys (Mike and Luke), and they ended up being one of the biggest encouragements I've had in a long time.

Mike and Luke are both young (30 and 24) professionals in the business world. After hearing more about their daily lives, it began to come clear to me that what they were describing was a life I once wanted. Mike and Luke were both very modest about there status, but it was evident that they not doing too bad for themselves. Mike works for a small network of a Father and his Sons that own a conglomerate of companies including the Vancouver Canucks, and Luke just bought his father's restaurant supply and design business and a couple restaurants that came with it.

One of the night while they were here they took Elizabeth and I out to dinner just to "hang out." Over the course of our conversation, I found myself wishing that I had pursued that path, that I was on my way to a "successful" life. I starting thinking of how I could still attain that vision, how I could be a "self made man." I began to make plans in my head to continue my education, who I could contact, where I would live, and I got so wrapped up in it. I confessed this to my new friends and I got the exact response that I needed. Laying in bed this morning around 5 for some reason the words were resounding in my head, "this is what it's all about." The words are not eloquent, but none the less profound. I know that he wasn't referring to the night, or the restaurant, or the fellowship, but to what I have devoted my life to. With his simple words he edified what I know in my heart but sometimes not in my head. He was saying that "yeah, building a kingdom according to the world's system seems appealing, but building a kingdom for God as he commands us to through his word IS what it's all about."

Being here for almost a year now, and having an active thought life about the future it's easy for me to get off track quickly, to day dream about the "American Dream." It's times like this that enable me keep going with confidence, that remind me of God's promises, that re-ignite my passion for serving "a larger picture." So thank you Mike for reminding me that my world is bigger than trying to attain what I can for MYself, and that God's promise for what I'm doing is larger than anything this world has to offer.