Cartagena, Colombia 2015
We pull up in a taxi and sit waiting for some direction on where exactly our destination lies only to hear the taxi driver say, "Necesitamos movernos, es peligroso." My stomach feels a little uneasy as hearing "It's dangerous" from a local driver can be a little unnerving.
We inch up to the Alex Rocha Youth Center where big man Alex himself saunters into the street, wrapping each of us in that fatherly kind of hug that makes you feel overwhelmingly safe and protected. Immediately my heartbeat slows and I begin to look around at the barrio we are plopped into. People are everywhere, that distinct Latin bass beat bumping from across the street, kids running around playing soccer, and their parents absentmindedly parked outside their concrete dwelling places. 'It's 10 o' clock at night!' I think to myself. But these people seem to have something to celebrate.
All I want to do after our fifteen hour bus ride across Colombia is crash on the floor of the youth center, now our home. Whether or not I will inflate my sleeping pad is still up for debate between my tired body and my exhausted mind.
However, Alex, or Holy Flow as we learned to call him, has other ideas. He pulls chairs into a circle and we begin to get to know each other and chat about life. We are finally in Colombia, and that in and of itself is worth getting excited about.
From that first night on I began to catch a hold of this Colombian celebration vibe. "We don't need an excuse to celebrate!" Alex would tell us. "We celebrate everything!" And he was surely right. Our celebrations ranged from winning baseball, soccer, and kickball games to dancing down the street to the constant beat of the music, to cheering over the correct pronunciation of the word "world" in English class, to screaming praise songs at the top of our lungs on Sunday mornings.
In a barrio marked by drugs and violence as a part of their daily reality, I was constantly impressed by these people's conscious choice to celebrate life. We lived in a part of town where the noises in the distance were indistinguishable between fireworks and gunshots, yet I felt such a sense of acceptance and love from the people from the very first night Jhon Carlos and Rosalva and Pablito plopped into our laps on the front porch.
Alex and his family are a huge part of the reason this barrio has so much to celebrate. Alex grew up in this community and lived a rough lifestyle involved in gangs and violence until the Lord completely changed his life over twenty years ago. He made a conscious decision to pour into the community he grew up in and to change the norms for the kids crowding the streets of Barrio San Francisco. He was involved in starting a hip hop ministry years ago to help show kids that they can praise Jesus with their talent. He pushes back against legalism and fights for the love and acceptance of Jesus Christ to be truly known by the youth of his community. His passion lead him to start a youth center several years ago with programs that teach kids Biblical values, sports, and English in order to help them change their own reality. I think that's something worth celebrating.
How fitting it was that I got to celebrate my birthday in beautiful Colombia. On June 25th, 2015, I woke up to a birthday breakfast of crepes, complete with a plastic 2-liter bottle turned vase full of sunflowers (my favorite!) in the middle of the table. Our friend JJ gave me the nickname, "La Reina" and it just so happened that there was a "Happy Birthday Queen" sign right behind my breakfast throne. And that was just the beginning of the festivities. The boys from the neighborhood spent the afternoon scouring the rocky earth for flowers and by the end of the day I had a surprisingly large bouquet to show for it. Fiesta round two came with English class when we shared some snacks and played musical chairs and took lots of fotos. The final fiesta came that evening when Alex's wife Merci made her famous coconut rice, chicken, and ensalada…delicioso! They sang me at least four different birthday songs in both Spanish and English and I even had my own personalized Spanglish birthday song that was quite catchy. We sang, laughed, and ate creamy cake. I felt so loved and celebrated, cheers to the beautiful people of Cartagena for teaching us to celebrate so well.
This spirit of celebration is something I want to continue to carry with me throughout the rest of my journey. Jesus' timing is so funny sometimes. He is teaching me how to celebrate in the midst of being sicker than I've been this whole year on bus rides and travel days, in the midst of changing teams and doing dailiness with different people, in the midst of learning to communicate and coordinate with new ministries. Yet He has given me so much to celebrate, a beautiful oasis overlooking Quito with a brilliant view of the stars every night, new ministry opportunities, the sweet couple we are staying with who love us so well, toilets and soap and occasionally heated showers…it doesn't get much better than this!
So in the spirit of celebration, please continue to pray for my team and the opportunity we have to serve with Pan de Vida in Ecuador this month. Please pray we would celebrate the good things and the hard things. Please pray for Alex and all our friends in the Barrio San Francisco in Colombia, that they would continue to celebrate well and to envelop others in their contagious celebrations along the way.
