One month in Colombia! Wow has time flown by. Life has been incredibly slow and steady down here, full of great quality time with the Lord and ministering to the community here. I absolutely love the ministry we are working with, Ciudad Refugio, and have had some really great opportunities to serve the people here in Medellin. I really do see the Lord’s light shining more everyday over this city and I cannot wait to share more about my experience thus far with you all!
A little history about Medellin and Ciudad Refugio..
Medellin is a beautiful city than has undergone a tragic amount of hardship. Beginning in the 1980s, it became a hub for drug trafficking and was entirely under the control of notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar. During this time, Medellin was recognized as having the largest homicide rate in the world and 80% of the world’s cocaine came from Escobar’s cartel. After Escobar was killed in 1993, the city underwent transformation efforts by opening up a metro system and creating Comuna 13- once one of the most violent neighborhoods in Medellin but now one of the safest parts of the city (it is full of art, music, food, and culture)!
However, the city is still in the midst of recovery from the years lived in darkness. With the highest amount of internally displaced peoples in the world and #1 cocaine production site in the world, this area is still full of broken homes and lost souls. NOT TO FEAR, CIUDAD REFUGIO IS HERE! Ciudad Refugio acts as a refuge to people in the area, serving as a homeless shelter, church, rehabilitation program, and home. “Through feeding, housing, restoration, education and microenterprise initiatives, we help provide short and long term assistance for those interested in restoring their lives and creating lasting change for their futures.” -Ciudad Refugio’s website 🙂 Here are some of the ways that the foundation is transforming the city:
- Ciudad de Los Ninos– every Saturday the foundation serves as an educational and feeding program for children in the area. They feed the children while introducing them to church and God in a fun, entertaining way (kind of like a Sunday school type experience). Every week we chose a different book in the Bible to teach to the children and us missionaries typically help out by creating a craft, skit, song, and just playing with the kids involved in the program. It is a blast getting to love on the kiddos and tell them just how much Jesus loves them. Ciudad de Los Ninos really gives the kids a great foundation and community while bringing Christ into their lives. In addition to Ciudad de Los Ninos, I am one of four girls who teaches English to adults and children every Saturday. This has probably been my favorite part of ministry here. I have connected with some really incredible locals through this and have discovered that teaching English as a second language is something I would really enjoy doing permanently, even just as a hobby.
- Restoration Program– “The Ciudad Refugio restoration program offers men and women opportunity to experience freedom from life – controlling problems. Patterned after Teen Challenge, the program philosophy is to identify and treat root issues behind addiction and other disorders. Program participants work individually with a mentor receiving a variety of teaching and training through daily bible study, mentoring time, and life skills development. Through this holistic process, individuals are encouraged to relearn their God-given identity and to restore damaged relationships with God, self and others.” Wow do I have a lot to write about here. Okay so men and women in the program learn different life skills (cooking, cleaning, construction, etc.) and are taught about management, coping, work ethic, and healing skills. The rehabilitation program is also centered around building an authentic relationship with God because a persons faith plays a great role in their recovery process. A firm foundation in Christ also contributes to remaining clean from drugs and alcohol after the program is over. Discipline, goal setting skills, healing, work ethics, mentoring, and community are all taught and introduced to participants in the program. Anyways, us World Race girls were given the opportunity to actually participate in the program with the women for 3 days. This meant we would be living in their quarters with them, doing all of the work they were doing, abide by their rules, eat with them, study with them, etc. A huge commitment to say the least, especially since the women don’t speak English very well at all and my Spanish is truly a ~work in progress~. However, a huge thing that the Lord has been teaching me since getting to Colombia is learning to obey Him and glorify Him in every second of everyday. When my leaders presented this opportunity to me and my team I immediately thought that there was no way I would be interested in doing the program. Honestly I just assumed it was too far out of my comfort zone and I didn’t want to disturb my everyday routine that I have developed since being here. Oh silly Patti, I should’ve known that this mindset just doesn’t benefit me or my relationship with the Lord! About five-ish minutes later God placed it on my heart to volunteer for the program.. so there ya have it. I volunteered to be one of three girls to do the program. This was a huge test that the Lord placed before me- either recognize His voice and obey His command by volunteering for the program or disobey Him and continue about my usual routine and ministry.
What did life in the program look like?
Some of the rules we had to abide by while participating in the restoration program with the women included:
- waking up at 4:30am every morning to take a cold bucket shower. let me tell you this was extremely hard for me considering I am so not a morning person and taking an ice cold bucket shower that early in the morning.. well I will just leave that there. this practice teaches the women discipline and I honestly had such a rewarding feeling after doing this because wow was it challenging.
- no turning the lights on in the living quarters during the day. this is more challenging than you would think it to be considering the fact that the bedrooms have no windows in them. kinda threw my mood off whenever we would have down time and I struggled to read with no lights. really gave me some perspective about the basic, little things the women have to give up while living here.
- no food or snacks in the rooms.
- can’t go in other girls rooms that aren’t your own.
- can’t change in the rooms, must use el bano.
- if you are spending time on the small balcony, you are not allowed to look out the balcony. Gabby and I were spending some time out there one evening to watch the sunset and we got snapped at for looking out…. made sure to not make that mistake again LET ME TELL YOU.
- lights out at 9pm SHARP!!!
- no sharing anything (i.e. clothes, perfume, toothpaste, etc) with anybody.
- ABSOLUTELY NO INTERACTING WITH MEN!!!!! FAT NO NO.
- no cell phones
My overall experience in the program was mediocre. I struggled with not having any down time to journal, read my Bible, etc. and felt like I was trapped in a prison cell whenever we were not working. However, I really enjoyed working in the kitchen and learning some everyday, basic skills like cooking. Side note- the food they make is AMAZING! I have definitely put on a few pounds being here because they feed us so well and seconds are a thing. I also really had to rely on the Lord throughout this experience to avoid frustration, lack of motivation, selfishness, and lack of motivation. Whenever I felt my peace weakening, I prayed and re-entered His presence. After all, I am here to glorify Him and spread His goodness to other people which means I need to be in constant communication with Him throughout the day to maintain a good attitude. My relationship with the Lord really strengthened throughout my three days in the recovery program- from following His instructions to participate in it in the first place, to seeking Him out when I felt stress and anxiety taking over, to seeing His heart in the love and compassion that I have developed for each one of the women in the program. His light is definitely shining on these women and this place and I am so blessed to be a small part of it. Here are some examples of the things/ chores I was doing:
- cutting up shrimp and picking the poop out of it (EW. just ew.)
- shredding carrots
- cutting up potatoes
- mopping and sweeping floors
- helping to prepare breakfast and lunch for the men and women in the program
Other things I have been involved in this past month include going to an elderly home where I receive lots of cheek kisses and spend lots of time dancing, doing work projects around the foundation (i.e. boxing and packing up spices), prayer walking, and Agua Panella. Agua Panella is something my team and I do every Wednesday night which consists of going to the part of Medellin that is full of people actively using drugs and offering them bread, water, and prayer. This has by far been the scariest and hardest experience throughout my time in Medellin. People are smoking crack and doing various other drugs right in front of you, the area in and of itself is very dark and quite intimidating. The first time I ever participated a man came up to me, incredibly drunk, and kissed my cheek while crying and rambling in Spanish. A guy on our team had to pull him away from me. I was on the verge of a panic attack. However, I later learned to find out that the same man accepted Christ into his life later in the evening and actually watched him dump out his beer. I know this might sound crazy but I saw so much of my dad in his eyes. There was a reason the man chose me to run up to and there is a reason why I immediately thought of my dad. The Lord really is wrecking my world in the best way possible here. I am more thankful everyday for this experience and it is only just beginning.
This blog has been incredibly lengthy so I am going to very quickly sum up what some of our adventure days and Sabbath days have entailed:
- lots of trips to the mall (if you know me then you know I felt right at home)
- a trip to Comuna 13 (so cool to see how they have turned that area around into a fun, hip tourist friendly area!)
- lots of walks and rides on the metro
- a cable car ride up to a secluded forest in the mountains (breath taking)
- Pergamino Cafe (my favorite place in all of Medellin.. the cutest, most hip coffee shop EVER with incredible chocolate croissants)
- A HIKE!!! my favorite thing to do that I haven’t gotten to do since Wyoming this summer! Was incredibly hype about that and the view was KILLER.
I’m sure there is a lot that I have left out but thats the gist of my month here in Colombia! If you read this whole thing- you’re amazing and I hope you got a good enough sense of what my life looks like here. Also I really am trying to work on my time management and blogging more so please bear with me… I’m a work in progress 🙂 Regarding blogging- I have written a list of topics that I want to write about so be on the lookout because I am on a grind!
oh P.S.- I got a tattoo and had a stye infection!
