Colombia surprised me with its beauty. I had heard that all of South America was beautiful but I had no context for what that meant. Now I know what people were talking about. This Land is so lush and even the cities are colorful. I think part of what makes this country so beautiful is the people I have encountered so far. People here are warm, loving and open. They have a true desire to know every person they meet.
We are staying in San Pedro, Colombia which is about an hour north of Medellín. We are staying with Pastor Willy and Mama Christina. They are are the shepherds of a small Assemblies of God church up in the hills above Medellín. They also commute to the surrounding barrios (neighborhoods) to evangelize. Pastor Willy has lived here all his life and is a man who came to faith late in life. He has lived a lot of life where he was not following God which I now believe God is using by giving him a fervent passion for the people in this barrio. When Pastor Willy prays, you can feel in the depths of your soul the words he is proclaiming. His voice fills the room and you can hear how much he loves every person. Even though my Spanish is poor my soul feels the weight of every word he speaks. Mama Christina is a woman who lives to serve. Her hospitality is truly a gift from the Lord. She works hard to feed 14 of us for 3 meals a day and does it with a beaming smile on her face. She is patient with us as we try and communicate through broken Spanish and she enjoys taking us under her wing to teach us the correct pronunciation of words. I can see Jesus so clearly in her because of the way she loves us. Even though their congregation is small, they are powerhouses for the kingdom.
One day Mama Christina led our group through Medellín to teach us how to get around. She helped us buy our public transport tickets and showed us what to look out for and where to go in the city. While we were down town, some of us had to go to the bathroom, but here in Medellín there are not many public bathrooms if any at all. So she called her sister in law who lived nearby. All 15 of us were welcomed with open arms into a small apartment to use the bathroom. While we were waiting we were served cold soda and told to go into the kitchen to talk to their parrot. We had a wonderful time conversing with Pastor Willy’s sister. Her husband was cracking us all up with the parrot getting her to say all kinds of funny phrases. My personal favorite part about this pitstop was the fact that all we were expecting to do was go in and use the bathroom but instead we were welcomed into their home and felt like part of their family. Isn’t it funny how the Lord blows away our expectations. I love that in a place that feels so unfamiliar that he has provided me with people who feel like family.
I am looking forward to seeing who else is put in front of me, hearing their story and learning how to love them well. I am reading Bob Goff’s, Everybody Always and his words shattered my perspective on who I am to love and how I am to love them. He said,
“It’s easy to love the kind, lovely, humble people. I mean, who wouldn’t? These are the ones I’ve spent much of my life loving. Loving the people who are easy made me feel like I was really good at it. Because the people I loved were kind and wonderful, they made sure they told me what a great job I was doing loving them. What I’ve come to realize, through, is that I was avoiding the people I didn’t understand and the ones who live differently than me. Here’s why: some of them creeped me out. Sure, I was polite to them, but sadly, I’ve spent my whole life avoiding the people Jesus spent His whole life engaging. God’s idea isn’t that we would just give and receive love but that we could actually become love. People who are becoming love see the beauty in others even when their off-putting behavior makes for a pretty weird mask. What Jesus told His friends can be summed up in this way: He wants us to love everybody, always— and start with the people who creep us out. The truth is, we probably creep them out as much as they do us.”
I want to be the kind of woman who can look past any circumstance a person is in to show them that they are loved. I think that is something the Lord is going to teach me throughout this 11 month journey. Hopeful and expectant for him to move in me!
