A young adult hanging out at a park and making friends among the bike ramps might have seemed a trifle odd in the pandemic year of 2021.
But that’s what Amanda Seyer did. She had moved from Missouri to Guadalajara in 2008 to join her husband Issac Hernandez and reunite their growing family. As their three daughters grew and the couple’s careers advanced, they started to feel “we were being called” to do something about all the “disconnected youth who have homes but are always out on the street” in their neighborhood of El Colli, Zapopan, on the west edge of Guadalajara.
“Throughout Mexico there are teenagers all over the place,” Seyer explained, adding that her neighborhood has mixed levels of prosperity and many teens are essentially on their own, living on Cheetos and Cokes they buy at convenience stores.
So Seyer and Hernandez, “after a year of talking and thinking about it” and visiting a friend in Puerto Vallarta who mentioned working with a U.S.-based group called Young Life, decided to get training from Young Life and reach out to local teens.
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