I know, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog. Part of it is being busy, and the other part is not having the desire to or knowing what to write about.
Well I want to tell you about my experience in Bogota, Colombia.
It starts with arriving at our host home for the month. After having travelled for almost a week, we arrived late at night and the family we stayed with had a hot meal already waiting for us. That was just the beginning of them showing love to us.
We spent every day with this family and they did everything to make us feel at home. They prepared all of our meals (and every one seemed to be better than the last!), we ate those meals with them, they took us to the store when we wanted something, they made sure we had everything we needed, they made sure we were safe, and they even made dresses for the girls on my team.
Our family for the month.
And even though we couldn’t communicate without Abbie’s help translating, I still felt their love for me and my team.
They even went out of their way to trying to get us setup with the wifi within the first 2 days simply so I could Skype my girlfriend Kayla and wish her a Happy Birthday.
And the same goes for everyone we met in the church. They all wanted to meet us, get to know us, and take lots, and lots of pictures with us. 😛
And again, even though we couldn’t communicate with all of them without translation, I could just tell they all genuinely loved us and wanted to befriend us. They wanted us to go everywhere with them and hangout with them. And a few families from the church even invited us over for lunch on multiple occasions.
The church congregation.
Between the family and the church community there, I felt like I was at home. Not in the sense that it was better than my home, and neither did it make me miss home. It was simply like a 2nd home to me.
I will surely miss all the people there. And perhaps, if it’s in God’s will, I will return one day to visit. Hopefully I’ll know more Spanish by then. 🙂
As for the ministry side of things, here is a brief description of what we did by day.
Monday: Rest Day
Tuesday: Adventure Day. We went to the mall a lot to hangout, we went and saw a movie, we went to the Botanical Gardens there, and we even got to play paintball!
Wednesday-Friday: We mostly went to a school nearby where the whole team would help teach English through playing games with them, such as a version of Family Feud, Charades, etc. And then Josh and I traded off giving a brief gospel message at the end.
Other times we would help the church either with the construction they’re doing on their building, or with decorating for the various events/themes taking place in Sunday service.
Saturday: We either helped clean the church or again helped with decorations in the morning or we had the morning off.
In the afternoon we would go help with or lead children’s ministry in a nearby neighborhood.
At night we helped with (and lead once) the youth service.
Sunday: We would all attend church at 7am, have breakfast after and then attend service again at 10am, except 3 of us would leave after worship to go help with the children’s service.
In the afternoon we would go to a park and play with the youth, either Futbol (soccer), Basketball, or Football.
The youth.
This month was favorite month of the Race so far, simply because the people showed us a love like Christ’s. I’ll never forget them.
Our team on missionary Sunday.
