The video attached to this blog shares many moments from Colombia.
There are more adventure related moments here since those were the days I was able to take my phone with me.
Our ministry in Colombia was in an impoverished area and stealing was a big risk. We took off all of our jewelry before some ministry to keep from distracting the people we were talking to. It also was to keep from tempting them to steal, even our cheap $10 Walmart watches had to come off. With that being said, phones and cameras were a big no, no. That is sometimes just how things go and why I am happy I journaled very frequently in Colombia to remember all of the awesome things that God did!
Anyway, here are the events in the video, starting with Kelly saying, “Hey!”
- The picture is of the view from the roof at City of Refuge.
- There is a jump to paragliding next, pun intended!
- The pineapple picture is from a day when we were preparing food that had been donated to be used by City of Refuge.
- Then we had a room change, we went from a little room to the bigger one! I ended up leaving from there to another little room to separate myself from the down sleeping bags.
- And a small clip from what a coffee shop off day looks like, Julia wanted to make sure I remembered her!
- Of course the first time I got ice cream on the race was documented!
- After that is the gondola trip day! The guys gave us some entertainment by singing to us the whole way up in our car.
- At the top I was so pumped because we were finally in somewhat a jungle!
- We saw a very old house and after that man jumped into the water a few of us did too! I did not dive though!!
- The next clip is short but important! It’s a time-laps of some of us making work sheets. God opened a door for our squad to go teach in a local PUBLIC high school and share about why we were there, the power of words, identity, how to make plans for the future and prevention, all while slipping in a little bit of Jesus in there! This was a huge opportunity! We didn’t have a copy machine or printer or anything so we made worksheets for the students for planning for their future through the tool “There, Here, Path”.
- From there we invited all of the students to a youth day, that is what the next two scenes are from.
- And of course a little goofiness the one night we had more sugar than we had in a while!
- The pictures of Will with the bottles are because he collected them to show how much of the sparkling water/soda stuff was left around. His quote, “What is wrong with our species?”
- Oh, and God really showed off one night with the sunset!!
- Then there is a good chunk from our time in Guatape!
- We got a villa for those of us who went, climbed up and down “the rock”, found our way home, we swam in the lake, had some intentional time of community! On our way home we had to really jam pack ourselves into a bus!
- The next clip is what is also in the intro to the video: I Get Loose! It was a song/ game that I ended up adopting and became something I did with children.
- These moments are from a village of displaced people, the children were awesome and LOVED to be carried!
- The night clips are from our last night when we slept outside.
- Then we went to debrief, our squad leaders began it with a rap!
- We found some outdoor gyms in the city and 43 of us cooked in a tiny kitchen!
- At the end of debrief we went to a water park but had to wear swim caps, it was actually kind of awesome since everyone had to do it!
- Then we packed up our stuff and lived out of a bus for 34 hours on our way to…ECUADOR!
Some things that are not included in the video:
Ministry at the school in Buenos Aires, another neighborhood in Medellin. We worked to prepare the school and then lead the classrooms on our last day there.
Aguapanela ministry: ministry at a local park and a local street where we brought aguapanela and pan (sugar water and bread) to give out. We also evangelized during this and prayed for many people. The park was where a lot of homeless and drug addicts hung out at night and the street was where the police sent the drug addicted people so they would all be in one place. This ministry was something many of us, if not all of us had never done!
VBS a children’s program with local children in the area.
CHURCH! We had church three days a week at City of Refuge and members from the squad shared testimonies and preached during some of the services.
There were also times when members of our squad worked with the men and women at the drug rehabilitation programs at the foundation as well.
We also prayer walked frequently and evangelized, spreading the word about the church and children’s program.
