Well, an official month has passed since I left the States – WOW. A month doesn’t seem like a long time, but for me it’s seemed like forever. So much has happened – it’s difficult to accurately describe the past few weeks in just a blog post.
First, when we got to Colombia, we had 2 weeks of training camp in Medellin – spiritual & logistical preparation for the rest of the month, and finding our who is in our smaller team until the squad was all together again to cross the border to Ecuador. My squad became a little family within HOURS. I love every single person so much. We joke about how it feels like we’ve all grown up together, even though we all know it’s been weeks. The little community we have is so natural, these people are going to be in my life forever (and I’ve told them that, so they know lol).
January 26th, all of our little teams took off and the reality of what my life is going to look like for the next year really set in: picking up and moving everything I own way more often than I realized.. guys, I’m already getting a little tired of living out of a backpack. BUT, y’all.. this mission is real and the Lord is so, SO good.
When we left Medellin, my team travelled to Pereira. We had a nice AirBnB reserved and waiting for us.. or so we thought. When we got there, the lady that ran it suddenly backed out and said that she wasn’t comfortable with us staying there anymore (we’re a group of 5 girls, I have no idea why..). She then put in the effort to find a different hostel for us to stay at, paid for our taxis to get there, and sent us on our way. We were SO confused…until we found out that this new hostel was in the middle of the city. We were able to build relationship with the others staying there that we wouldn’t have been able to if we had stayed in the original AirBnB by ourselves! This was definitely the Lord placing us exactly where He wanted us to be.
We spent our days in the park next to the hostel, walking up to groups of people and just talking to them. If you don’t already know this about me, youth and the next generation are my PASSION. I absolutely love teenagers and what they bring to their communities, their societies, and this world. There were a few that were taking pictures, and we got to jump into their photos and get some ourselves, haha. They were just as excited to talk to us as we were with them.
Another day, we ended up playing volleyball and cards with a larger group of about 10 teenagers, and then ended up following them to a place they recommended we eat for our last night in Pereira – a mall. Guys, we ended up at a mall. Some things are just universal!
From Pereira, our team traveled to Salento. A tiny town where we were able to camp, be surrounded by nature, and really listen to the Lord. A word our team got for the beginning of the month was “foreigners” – and that’s exactly who we were able to pour into during that time. We were surrounded by people from New Zealand, Canada, the States, Denmark… all with similar stories: quitting their jobs to travel for longer than 3 days, searching for something more.
I think back to the conversations I was able to have with people during breakfast or around the campfire that was built every single night, and I see how every single one was able to point back to Jesus. Whether it was them asking what the heck we were traveling for, or just talking about the simple life, not needing possessions, and just wanting to connect with people all over the world. Everything was able to be directed back to Christ.
Back at the very beginning of this trip, we were told that it takes an average of 7 times for someone to hear the Gospel before they officially accept Jesus. When I look back at my month in Colombia, I wonder which number my conversations were – was I number one? Number four? Maybe I was number six…
Anyway, now my team is in Ecuador and we’ve already seen the Lord work in His amazing ways! But that’s a blog post for another time 🙂
– G
