It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog. The six months that I had at home went by extremely fast. I was trying to process my race, stay present & focused on what the Lord was doing during my time at home, and trying to prepare for squad leading. Honestly, I underestimated how hard it was going to be to try to do all three of those things. I kind of neglected processing my race and mainly focused on being present while I was at home. Then as October grew closer, I began preparing for squad leading and still trying to remain focused on what the Lord was doing at home. I’ve accepted that it’s going to take quite a while to process the eleven months from my race and I’m ok with that. Whew. That took a lot of pressure off of me and the short time that I had with family and friends.
I need to apologize for not writing blogs about stories from my race while I was at home. That’s something I said I was going to do, and then didn’t. As I process very slowly all that the Lord did, I believe the stories will begin to come to the forefront of my mind, where I’ll then be able to write about them. Until then, thank you all for understanding and for the overwhelming support. 🙂
There’s so much to write about, but it will take multiple blogs to do so. I’ll start by updating you all on what’s going on in my life currently. First off, I’m in Medellin, Colombia with S Squad! It’s all squad month, so there’s 44 of us staying at one ministry site. The ministry we’re working with is called Cuidad de Refugio (City of Refuge). There’s a lot happening at this ministry site and it has been incredible to be able to serve with them for the month. I’m going to try to paint you a picture of where we’re living and the many, many different ways we’ve been able to partner with them.
We’re living in a 5 story building. It’s a homeless shelter and they also have a men/women’s drug & alcohol rehabilitation program here where we’re staying. They’ve so graciously created space for all of us to live for the month. The ladies of S Squad are living on the third floor of the building. The guys are living in the house next door, which is where we do our laundry. TT, our squad mentor, is living in a dollhouse/tiny cabin on the 5th floor terrace. As squad leaders, Nick has joined the guys in the house next door, and us three women were on the third floor with all of the other ladies until a few nights ago when we were able to move into an apartment on the 5th floor. The first floor of the building is a multi functioning space. Every night it’s used for the homeless shelter, three days a week they hold a church service on the first floor, Pastor Douglas’ office is also in that space, and it’s also the garage for the ministries vehicles. The second floor is for the guys that are in the rehabilitation program. The third floor is for the ladies that are in the program. The fourth floor is where the kitchen and home school room is. The fifth floor is the terrace and there are two apartments off of it. There is also a ‘sixth floor’ but in reality it’s only the size of half of a floor and there are two apartments where some staff from the ministry live. Off of the first floor, they have a bakery, where some men that are in the program work. It is absolutely stunning here. Pastor Douglas designed the building in an insanely, astounding way. His vision for this place before it was ever built blows my mind.
There are multiple ministries that we have gotten to be apart of this month. We have done prayer walks in the morning. We have taught english once a week. We have gotten to be apart of the classes for the men and women that are in the program. We have done VBS two days a week. We have gotten to lead worship at the Wednesday and Saturday night church services. Some of the squad has gotten to preach and share testimonies at both of those services as well. We have gone to the park near-by to evangelize. There is a group of 10 people from the squad that have worked with a ministry called Buenos Aires every Thursday, all day. There is a ministry called Agua Panela that we have gotten to do on Wednesday and Thursday nights. It’s where we go either to a street or to a park that’s full of homeless people doing drugs and we take sugar water and bread and hand it out. It’s a way in, to be able to evangelize and pray for people. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life, but that’s for another blog. We’ve also been able to go to another city called Manantiales, which is a 0 on the scale. They rate cities here according to the poverty. The scale goes from 0-6, with 0 being the most poverty. Half of the squad would go up to Manantiales on Friday and walk through the villages handing out school supplies for the kids in the kid’s program that they have or we would hand out food supply bags to families. We would spend the night and then on the first Saturday of this month, the group evangelized in the villages before coming back to Medellin after lunch time. The second group that went up there, helped out with their kid’s program on Saturday, which is essentially like VBS. This was also super incredible and will potentially be in another blog. We’ve been able to do outreach around the ministry site, which has been so beautiful. Two blocks up the street they sell drugs. Two doors down from where we’re staying they film pornography. A short walk down from where we’re at is a university. And up the street are more areas where drugs are being sold. On Friday nights, we’ve held worship nights in the bakery where a lot of locals have come by and we’ve been able to have great conversations with some of them. This past Friday, we had the opportunity to go into one of the schools and got to go into 8 classrooms and share about the world race, identity, power of words, vision, prevention, and about the ministry we’re apart of. This was HUGE! The Lord did some incredibly powerful things and we had many students respond to the Gospel. We’ve also been having teachings two days a week and all of us as leadership (mentor and sql’s) have had the opportunity to tell our stories this month. It has been a full and fruitful month to say the least!!!
Month one is already almost over and I can’t believe it. I’m so sad to be leaving this ministry so soon. It has been a month full of growth, seeing Kingdom come, people getting saved, miracles, healings, breakthroughs, and so much more. The Lord is here in Colombia and He is moving and working in mighty ways!
I still can’t believe this is the life that I’m living. I just stand in awe of the Lord’s goodness most days. Astounded by the things I get to witness and be apart of. Amazed by His faithfulness. I am truly living by best life.
With gratitude,
Mads
