October:Medellin, Colombia
Ciudad Refugio
I have officially been in Colombia for a week now! It has felt longer than a week, time passes by differently and that is good. The first day we arrived they gave us a day to rest before jumping into ministry. This month we have all squad month which means that all 25 of us are serving at the same Ministry, Cuidad Refugio (There is a link above if you would like to learn more about it!).
The ministry has many programs to help people at risk. Our first opportunity for ministry, this past week, was working with the children of Medellin. The schools were out for holiday so Ciudad Refugio put on two different camps. One was here at the foundation, but the other took place in the mountains. The camp in the mountains was geared towards teens and the camp here was focused on the younger children. Our squad leaders asked us to pray and ask God for which camp we should attend.
I did not feel at peace going up to the mountains; older kids are not in my area of expertise. I felt led to volunteer with the kids camp. The next day we jumped into planning for the camp we signed up for. For the kids camp we planned and practiced for a three day camp. We learned a lot of Spanish songs and got to experience what the lessons would be like for the kids. The first day of camp, they learned about creation, made a craft, and our team led different games for the kids. The second day they walked through Moses’ time with the Israelites and how we needed a savior. Then they made another craft related to the 10 commandments, and we played some more games with them. The last day, the kids learned about the life of Jesus and salvation. For the craft, they made a cross that reflected the colors of the salvation bracelet, and then ended the camp with a water day! They really enjoyed the water as you can see below: 🙂
I was nervous about the language barrier; I took 6 years of Spanish, but never became verbally fluent so I was unsure of how easy I would be able to interact. But God is so so good; conversation with the kids was fun and confusing…it was great!
The children reminded me a lot of my students back home. I was curious heading out on the race if the kids would be different or similar. I have found that kids are kids no matter where they are in the world. The broken families are the same, and the desire to be loved is the same. God has given me a heart to love on kids and I love that I can do it anywhere!
Photos from the Camp:
Adventure Day: Guatape!
We get two days off this month. We have dedicated one day to explore the area we are living in for the month and the other day we set aside for Sabbath (another blog for this day!). So for most of the Squad we chose to go to the city of Guatape, a two hour bus ride away. It was a beautiful drive to get there!
The city is known as the city of color. The buildings are bright and cheerful. So beautiful, I unfortunately am not the greatest at capturing the moments, I get lost in them :). Hopefully the picture above does it some justice. It is also known for the lakes around it and a big rock you get to climb via stairs…lots of stairs. It was so beautiful and worth the climb up to see the area. Below is a picture of the lake from the top of the rock…the rock however, I forgot to get a picture of! The second picture is a photo of my teammate Katlyn and I.
Adventure day was great. I loved spending time with my squad, exploring a new area, and figuring out the transportation! But what I loved more is that the group I spent time with allowed our time to be interrupted, in a good way. As we walked the beautiful streets of Guatape, we encountered many people. We stopped and had conversations, we gave our food to people who needed it and learned about their story. One of our team leaders loves so well in this way. I LOVED seeing it and being a part of it. It gave me insight of how I would love to spend my days off.
Yes, I love to travel and explore, and this is an amazing way to do it; but I do not want to lose sight of why I am here on the World Race. God has given me the opportunity to love on His people around the world this year! This so awesome and it is still coming into reality that I am doing that right now and for the next 11 months.
As our day went on we met many Venezuelans. I knew that their country had hardship, but I did not realize the extent of it. The value of their money is at ZERO. There were men walking around yesterday with wads of money that had no value. What they had worked hard to earn for their families became of no value. It is hard to put myself in their shoes. Once having a job, a house, and then losing it because their money is lost its’ value. The men yesterday were selling their money, that had no value, to provide for their family. They also were bringing awareness to what is going on in their own country. Some of the people we met had strong faith in God, despite their circumstances. It was beautiful to see, and it made me ask myself, if I was in their position right now, would I be pressing into God, believing in His faithfulness or would I lose sight of His faithfulness to me?
How about you? If the US dollar became zero value where would you put your hope?
I hope that I would fall in to the arms of our Loving Father, and trust in His faithfulness.
Prayer Requests:
Please join me in praying for the country of Venezuela and the people who are living there now and for the ones who have tried to start over somewhere new. I would also appreciate prayer here on how we can love the people of Colombia well and the people of Venezuela who are here as well.
I have my house still on the market. I am hoping that it will go under contract soon. Please join me in praying for it to sell soon! God has brought me here and I am believing that He will show me the right way to go with my house. It thankfully has not become a distraction, and I am trusting Him with the timing.
I would love for my family to be prayed over. We are facing some hard trials in our family. It has been a little hard being far, and not being able to walk with them through it at home.
God has been so faithful in my funding, I am around 2,500 from being fully funded! 🙂
Thank you for taking time to read my blog!
Courtney
