African Safaris in South America - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

Hey sweet friends!
We have now been doing ministry here in Planeta Rica for over a week. So it’s time to give you guys another update on what’s going on with me! I’ll give you guys a play by play of our past week.

Ministry here looks different from day to day. We spend most mornings and days spending time together as a team and individually with God. I mentioned in my last post that it gets too hot during the day here to do manual labor or even venture very far so most Planeta Ricans spend the hours of 12-4 indoors. It’s called “siesta””. We do as well. Our nights are usually spent doing ministry. We are working with a church here and they have put us in charge of the children during most of the church services. That usually looks like reading them a bible story, asking reflection questions, and then playing games. One of the interns from Germany is here in Planeta Rica and he has been our translator for almost all of ministry. We also get to spend a lot of time with people here. They have also been having us prepare short sermons and have had us share our testimonies for the youth group that meets here twice a week. They have also had us go with them to their various feeding programs.

Tuesday, we went to the beach. It was about an 2.5 hour drive but was so beautiful. We spent the whole day there in the sun or hanging out reading in our hammocks. We enjoyed the day very much. Even though something in the ocean bit me on the leg, I had a lot of fun. (Still not sure what bit me but the irritation went away after a day or so).

Wednesday we did some ministry with the children here at church.

Thursday, we went to a small outlying neighborhood, known as a barrio. There some of us played games with children while the others stayed back while Olivia gave a short sermon and then they spent time in some powerful prayer. Their time ran long so we actually ran out of things to do with the kids and had to make things up on the spot. We ended up playing a game with them where we just imitated a bunch of animals. It was actually really fun. On the drive back, our driver, Ever, kept wanting me to the impressions of the animals. At one point he even pulled over to show me a picture of an animal he wanted me to imitate. He just laughed and laughed and especially loved my elephant impression which I know have to do every time I see him. Alissa commented, “We’re on an African safari… IN South America!”

On Friday, we went to a place called Fortuna and spent time helping prepare the food, play with the children, and serve them their dinner. On Saturday our squad leader Alissa departed back to Medellin to go join up with another team. We enjoyed having her here so much. She is a self-dubbed “equal opportunity lollipop enthusiast” and passionate about water-bottles being people too. We loved our time with her.

Sunday, half of the team stayed back and attended church and the other half went to a place called Luma de Piedras (Mountain of Stones). They had a church service there but sent us out to teach the children. We then played games and passed out their lunch. We enjoyed it very much and there were around 60 children in all. They are so playful and fun and mischievous. They found that they loved to tickle us and spent much of their time trying to sneak up on us to tickle us. Also, Candyea, Olivia, and I got to move out of the back of the church and into a local house. I finally got to whip out my air mattress and move out of my hammock. I do miss sleeping in it though. It’s a house that is still being built but is very nice. We have no host family living there because they haven’t moved in yet. We wake up every morning to construction happening on the first floor. It’s going to be a very nice house. The bathroom is our favorite part. That night we also spent some time at the house of some church members. They fixed us pancakes. Here they fill their pancakes raisins and then top them with cheese and chocolate. They are actually really good. We spent a lot of time just hanging out with them outside on their sidewalk. People here spend a lot of time on their porches or sitting outside when it’s cooling down for the day and in the mornings you will find the women sweeping and mopping their stoops.

Yesterday, Monday was our day of rest. We went into town and looked around shops, walked into a local Cathedral, and visited a bakery to taste some local sweets.

Today is our adventure day. There isn’t much extreme adventuring to do, besides it all being one big adventure, so we are going to stick around the church, hangout with the locals, write our blogs, have quiet times, etc. The pace of life here is much slower than in America. We are finding it difficult at times when we feel as if we’re not doing enough but also finding a lot of rest in the Lord, getting to know each other a lot better, and time to prepare for the ministry we do have.

Ministry isn’t always planned, it sometimes just happens. For example:
Yesterday another girl on my team and I gave English lessons to a few young adults. We met them at church and offered to spend time with them practicing English for them and Spanish for us. It went really well. They already have some basic knowledge of English and are pretty good at it. We worked on vocabulary, conversational phrases, and they spent a lot of time asking about American culture. They are coming back tomorrow for another lesson. Then, this morning we spent some time with some of the little girls whose homes we are staying in. We all got manicures and pedicures and had fun spending time together.

Prayer Requests:
-Some of my team is having no trouble with the language barrier, while for others it’s causing a lot of frustration. About half of us, including myself, have a pretty solid knowledge of Spanish from our years of learning. While we are here in South America, it’s great for those of us who can speak it. When we move over to Africa, we will all be on the same page again. Just please pray for understanding and against frustrations and feelings of isolation. We know that love has no language and God can break down those barriers that He originally created for our good.
–Pray for opportunities for unplanned ministry. We are having so much fun with impromptu ministry and want to soak it up while we are here.
-We only have about 1.5 weeks left in Planeta Rica. Pray for us to spend our time here wisely and intentionally.
-Our next financial deadline is quickly approaching. Pray for peace in that and for people to be prompted to give. Olivia is fully funded but no one else on the team currently is.
-That we would be a beautiful picture of the gospel for each other and for Planeta Rica.
-Health. There is a ton of fruit here, but there aren’t a lot of veggies. We rely on what they cook for us ad while we are so thankful, we know there are some nutritional gaps. Pray against illnesses and maybe even for some more veggies to start randomly start growing in Colombia. 😉

Muchas Gracias amigos. Thanks so much for spending time reading this. I love that you’re here with me by investing your time praying for me, reading our blogs, looking at pictures, and investing with me financially as I can’t do this without your help so far and your help in the future.

-Emma