Our Team.
Creating a safe and fun place for the children of Iquitos!
Jon & Raegan
Our Story
Get to Know Us
We met here in Iquitos, both working at the local YWAM base. Jon arrived here in 2013, and Raegan in 2015. Jon worked with the Discipleship Training School and Raegan began working with women's ministry (which turned into this children's ministry!)
We got married in 2017, and both began working in this ministry, officially leaving YWAM and starting our ministry Restoring Sons & Daughters.
In 2022 we got custody of three kids from our ministry, making our family go from two to five instantly!
About Us
Restoring Sons & Daughters (RSD) has been an official nonprofit ministry since 2017. Jon and Raegan Yerty began working in Iquitos, Peru a few years before RSD became a nonprofit. This ministry started out working with young girls, Restoring Daughtership, but grew into a children and youth ministry in 2017 when RSD was officially founded.
Iquitos is a city filled with poverty and abuse, but the worst circumstance is its isolation. We are a city surrounded by rivers (the Amazon river!) and the only way to get here is by boat or plane. Because of this, most people have never left and have experienced very little. Most people drop out of school before they finish elementary or middle school. The cycles of poverty and having families too young leave people unprepared to change their situation.
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Our goal is to create an environment where the kids can come and escape the abuse, and hardship of their home lives and be kids for a moment. Not older siblings who are forced to care for their younger siblings. Not kids who have to drop out of school and work. They can just be kids, and have fun.
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We focus on learning about their purpose and identity in God, reading books (which they don't have access to), and hanging out. We have different crafts, games, and activities each week so we can hang out and chat with the kids during the weekend. We have boys group on Saturdays and girls group on Sundays.