Colombia, beautiful Colombia. I love that country so much; the people, the culture, the weather, everything. God taught me so much at Ciudad Refugio in Colombia and I am going to try to communicate that here. To do that, I am going to divide this post into three sections: what God revealed to me, the things I saw, and the people I met.
What God revealed me:
My stress levels are extremely high and never knew it before because I could control my situation at home. But now that I can’t control my little world, I find myself getting frazzled and stressed in situations that I wouldn’t think would trigger me, such as a busy bus terminal food court with street market style vendors, walking down the street in Colombia, crossing country borders, or sometimes even having team time with friends. Thank God for my friend Hayden who sees that in me and asks me how I am doing and talks me out of my stress-induced tunnel vision.
God is speaking to me in new ways through visions and words from Him. It is still so new and terrifying at times to have the Lord of the universe commune with me in ways that speak so clearly to my brain but it is so wonderful. And what is even more beautiful is the Lord’s way of redeeming what the enemy had tried to steal from me in the past. God has given me an extremely vivid imagination, and when I was a child, I used this gift as a way to escape reality and could literally disappear into the imaginations of my own mind and be completely unaware of the reality around me. To combat this, I denied this gift and turned off my hyper-imagination. But God is bringing it back! He is using my gift of being able to see so clearly the things in my mind to speak to me through visions that are so different than the imaginations I created as a child. But this is also terrifying because it means trusting God enough to let this gift be used again and to trust Him to give me the discernment to know what is the Lord speaking and what is my own mind.
I don’t know what my testimony is. There is a lot of reasons for this: too few opportunities to give my testimony, denial of things that hurt my heart, pride that I’ve always lived a ‘good life’, shame of any lack of perfection, and not having recorded how and what God is teaching me. But God wants to give me a testimony and has put it on my heart to learn my testimony, surrender the shame, and learn how to give my testimony well.
Scripture is way more amazing that I had previously thought. God put it on my heart to read through the whole book of Daniel, twice. So I did, and God opened my eyes and taught me so much, it was beautiful. (Note: I will be sharing what God taught me on the book of Daniel in another blog post, so stay tuned for that). And since then, as I read different passages of the Bible, it still speaks to me like never before, even though I have read it all many times. I am so much more in love with the Word of God, and it is amazing!
It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to not fit in. It’s okay to not appreciate pop culture. It’s okay to not care for small talk. It’s okay to be a deep thinker. It’s okay to enjoy reading huge books with long words. It’s okay be optimistic, whimsical, and filled with child-like wonder. It’s okay to be a verbal processor and talk through thoughts and emotions. It’s okay to ask hard questions and to think about the why behind everything. It’s okay to feel the ache of God deep down in my soul. It’s okay to have passionate discussions/arguments with God. It’s okay to do spontaneous things when God says to. It’s okay to laugh and be overfilled with joy. It’s okay to be at peace because of a vision from God even when everyone else is shook with the depravity of a situation. And it’s okay to be in the process of learning that it’s okay to be all these things without feeling like an outcast or not good enough. It’s okay.
The things I saw:
I saw a lot of bad things in Colombia that I had never seen before. Some shook me only a little, some wrecked me. I still don’t know why some things broke my heart more than others, God is still working on that. I also saw a lot of good things in Colombia that I had never seen before, things that filled my heart with joy and made my spirit sing within me. I will never forget all these things, and God is using everything to teach me lessons from His heart.
I saw dozens of homeless men lined up every evening to get into the homeless shelter with everything they owned in a plastic trash bag slung over their shoulder.
I saw little boys smack a cat across the head because they had no other outlet for their aggression.
I saw a sweet Colombian lady who invited us into her house and insisted that we all sit, even if that meant there was nowhere for her to sit as she brought us fruit punch to drink.
I saw the most magnificent view of Colombia while paragliding.
I saw rejected people, unwanted grandmas and grandpas and people with various forms of mental incapacitation, sitting all day in a single room with no visitors and lots of hopelessness.
I saw one of the guys on my team get mugged by a man messed up on drugs while we screamed for help and the homeless men on the street came and grabbed the man and beat him as we fled.
I saw over a hundred Colombians crammed into a small building pouring out their hearts in a language I only somewhat understood but that was perfectly understood by God.
I saw a ministry so brilliantly set-up that it was reaching people in diverse but interconnected ways and with a financial structure that was 95% self-sustainable.
I saw amazing people running children’s programs with an ingenuity that I had never seen before.
I saw prostitutes, drug sellers, and men and women so high that they hadn’t been sober in months living and working in one of the darkest places in Colombia.
I saw my life pass before my eyes a few times as buses rounded curves on the ledges of mountains and vehicles passing each other before getting back in lane split seconds before a head-on collision.
I saw hundreds of political protestors marching down the street from the inside of the barred entrance way of a mall on lock-down that I was in.
I saw the pain and compassion on the face of one of the ministry workers as he grieved over the brokenness he saw.
The people I met:
I love Colombians. They are so friendly, joyful, and hard working. Honestly, the hardest part of leaving Colombia was leaving behind the friends I made, regardless of the language barrier caused by my limited Spanish and their limited English. But I am so happy that I met them and am thankful for the technology that allows us to keep in touch and I hope and pray to one day see them again.
The WYAM (JUCUM) team: For the first week of our stay in Colombia, a WYAM team (JUCUM in Spanish) from different parts of Colombia were staying and helping out at the ministry along with us. Juan, Samuel, Kristian, Maria, Laura, and Vanessa were so energetic and passionate for God and the work they were doing. As a group they were strong and cohesive with a loving and fun atmosphere and gladly welcomed me into their friend group as I reached out to them. During that week we did ministry together, hung out, laughed a lot, shared our passion for ministry through translation apps, taught each other new words from our respective languages, and were just blessed by each other’s presence.
Brian: This fifteen-year-old kid went to the little homeschool at the ministry we partnered with in Colombia. Brian was a macho 5-foot hothead with a comically flirty style who drove a motorcycle to school every day. In spite of his awkward demeanor, I reached out to Brian and tried to initiate conversation with him, which he really appreciated. Every time after that when we saw each other, he would come over and give me a high-five and fist bump with a “Kreestee, my friend!” to which I responded “Brian, good morning!” and it was all just really sweet.
Jason: When we first arrived at Ciudad Refugio, Jason (spelled Yeyson in Spanish) gave us a tour of the building explaining to us how the ministry was set up and all the different ministries it was involved in. And throughout the month, if we needed to be taken someone to do ministry or to be shown somewhere in the city, it was usually Jason who showed us around. Jason had been through the drug rehab program and now worked at the foundation while going to school for tourism to become a tour guide. He was also working on his English which we got to help him with. Jason is an incredible young man in whose life the work of Holy Spirit it very clear. In minutes he could switch from hanging out and teasing his friends to handling situations with the homeless men or other young guys the ministry helped with such maturity and a reliance on hearing from the Lord.
Hernon: Pronounced “Air-NON” because the ‘H’ is silent in Spanish, Hernon is a traveling street performer that some of my squad met one day toward the end of the month that we were in Colombia. He spoke a lot of English and they really hit it off well with him. My squad mates invited him to one of the evening church services at Ciudad Refugio (a two hour walk for him) which he came to, which is where I met him. He came again to a church service the next Sunday morning after which some of my squad mates and I hung out with him for the day. It was so much fun. Hernon is a guy who is very thoughtful and in touch with his emotions. He knows a lot about God from things God has revealed to him, even though he had never been to church before and doesn’t have Christian friends. As we hung out, I realized that Hernon and think very similarly, in the sense that we are very deep thinkers, feel emotions, art, and music very deeply, think in terms of associations and examples, and truly love the people around us with a full heart. It was very freeing to meet someone so different from me, but at the same time so similar. God showed me that there is so much I can learn from Hernon in the way that he fearlessly loves wholeheartedly, and that there is so much he can learn from me about Jesus and the Bible.
