At the beginning of this year, I was able to go to Latin America for six months. Now I'm living here in Ñemby - a suburb of the Paraguayan capital Asunción - in a large house together with Germans and Paraguayans. At first, everything was new to me: the continent, the country, the language, the people, the tasks and the tropical weather. Despite all this, I immediately felt at home. The people I have met are very welcoming and spend a lot of time together.

In our project in Ñemby, we offer leisure activities for children every week. They come from the surrounding poor neighborhoods and their parents are mostly impoverished casual workers. They have no time or money to look after their children. During the long summer break from school, we therefore organized sports, music and games workshops for the children almost every day. One of my tasks is to prepare and support these workshops. But I also take care of practical things in the house and garden, or help with household chores such as cleaning, shopping and cooking. Of course, there are also opportunities for excursions to explore the country. But what I like best here are simply the children and spending time with them - whether it's eating lunch together, going on trips to the playground or taking part in the various workshops. It's very special for me to get to know them and to invest my creativity in them. You can't tell at first glance that most of the children come from broken homes.

I'm excited to see what awaits me in the coming months and I'm already looking forward to hopefully being able to speak Spanish with the children soon.

Interested in volunteering? Click here https://tos-ministries.org/en/volunteer/south-america