Take Flight, by Jessica Biondo, Back2Back Mexico Staff

As you may know, the mission of Back2Back is to provide “Care for Today and Hope for Tomorrow” to the abandoned and neglected children of Monterrey, Mexico. When I write for this blog, I hope to give you tastes of what that looks like in our day-to-day activities. Every day is different depending on the needs of the various homes that we work with. However, one thing that remains constant is that we have about forty teens that live on our campus.

These teens grew up in the children’s homes that we work with, but at age fifteen they can no longer live in the homes. Due to this, many of the teens are back out on the streets and end up in the black market or prostitution because they believe that they have no other options. In order to put a stop to this cycle and provide hope for these young students, Back2Back started the Hope Program. When the students turn fifteen they are invited to come and live on our campus in one of the teen homes with house parents.

While they are here, Back2Back pays for them to complete high school and go to college to pursue the degree of their choice. They are given hope through education and opportunities for success, but more importantly, our constant prayer is that we are able to show them a greater hope. A hope that does not depend on circumstance, education or opportunity. A hope that is only found in Christ. It breaks my heart to think of the lives that many of these students have lived. They have suffered through constant abandonment, abuse, neglect, loneliness… and many more things that I cannot even imagine. Yet we know that we serve a God who can bring healing, redemption, identity and hope.

A few weekends ago, we took the teens to a youth conference of 400 students from all over Monterrey at one of the churches in the area. The theme of the event was “Alza el Vuelo”, which means “Take Flight”. It was a powerful weekend of worship and speaking. It also opened a lot of doors for great conversations with some of our teens who are really seeking right now. But the thing I am most excited to share is that one of the teens accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior!! Praise the Lord!!! My heart fills with such excitement as I see the things that God is doing on our campus. He is pursing the young people who most of the world had written off and cast aside. Yet he is pursing them, capturing their hearts and preparing them for mighty things in the future! What a loving God he is! He will not give up on them, and we must not either. Please pray for each precious teen on our campus. That each one will come to know Christ and experience joy, peace and hope!

Read more about the event from Back2Back staff member Hope Maglich here.

A few Back2Back staff members with some of the girls at the conference

During worship at the conference