I’m sitting in a pavilion of sorts, with five hammocks strung up around me and a very little puppy asleep on my lap. It’s 8:30 in the morning, its 78 degrees out, and there’s a fan blowing right on me. It’s lovely.
Planeta Rica is an interesting little town. There is about two square miles of “city.” It’s all single or double story houses, many of which have their garages converted into stores. Everyone sells the same things – rice, icecream, water, candy, breads, and coca-cola. They love their sweet breads here, and it’s tempting having so many fresh bakeries around me at all times.
The people here are either store owners or farmers. Besides walking through the market place where all the clothing and shoe stores are, or walking the streets past all the home-stores, there is not much to do. It’s so hot from 11-3 that no one does anything, it’s designated nap time. The early mornings are some-what bearable, but it’s the evenings that are really enjoyable. Once the sun has gone down, it cools from the 90 degree weather to 70, which is perfect for enjoying friends company.
My team is working with Pastor Amouri, a local Colombian who is one of the two pastors of this church. He has a wife and four kids, the older two we don’t see much of, but the younger two girls are our little buddies. They live upstairs above the church which is where we eat all of our meals.
We have been primarily doing our ministry in the evenings, like I said, during the day it’s just too hot. During December and January, everyone takes off work, like “summer break” so there isn’t much for anyone to do. During that time my team of 7 are in this pavilion behind the church in our hammocks. We spend an hour in Tribe Time which is just intentional time spent with each other, and the rest of the time is spent journaling, in our devos or just in quiet time with Jesus. We also encourage naps.
The best part of the day is the ministry we’ve been doing. Twice a week we do a feeding program in a town nearby. Colombia is sorted into “zones”. Zone 1 being the poorest of the poor, and zone 6 being the rich. The town we are in, Planeta Rica, is a 2 or 3. La Fortuna, the town nearest, is a zone one, and that is where we do the feeding program. We feed about 30-40 kids, and play games and read them bible stories. The kids don’t look starving, but when we put their plates in front of them, it’s a different story. They’re hungry. I don’t know where they come from, but they come on foot, ready to play but even more ready to eat.
Don’t even get me started on the dogs. I am an animal lover, especially dogs, and it breaks my heart to see these kids hungry, but the dogs are worse. There were two that hung around looking for scraps that were thinner than their skeletons. It broke my heart, and they looked like they were already dead.
Colombia is so different than America. Time moves slower here, people talk longer, children play more. People work harder, sleep less, and walk more. I haven’t seen green vegetables since leaving the USA, people eat primarily bread and plantains. (similar to a banana)
The church has numerous services during the week. On Sunday, there is two 2 hour services – one in the morning and one in the evening. Wednesday evenings there’s another church service. Thursdays are the Young Adult prayer groups, which is age group 17-26-year-olds. Friday’s is the Young Adult service. We have spent some time getting to know the Young Adults and they are so fun! A few of them know a little bit of English, but not much. We’ve begun inviting them to the pavilion behind the church on Monday and Wednesday mornings to practice their English. We were invited to one young woman’s house for “pancakes” last week, and we went after the evening church service. Manuella served us what looked like pancakes, but they were denser and they had cheese and chocolate served on the top, along with apple slices. It was a new experience for my whole team, and we laughed until we cried with Manuella and some of her friends. It was so fun, and is one of my favorite memories.
We’ve been spending a lot of time with the Young Adult group, and our focus point has been on evangelism. Pastor Amouri has asked us to try to encourage the YA group to be bolder in their faith, and so that’s what we’ve been doing. They’re a wonderful group of people, all about my age, and we’ve really enjoyed them. God is moving, working and growing these people.
Twice during the week we have a kid’s club at the church. It’s about an hour with about 20-40 kids, and we play games, sing songs, and read them a bible story. We have an amazing story-book bible that tells old testament stories and incorporates Jesus into each story, and it’s incredible. It’s awesome how hundreds of years before Jesus walked the earth, the stories and historical happenings all whispered his name.
Planeta Rica is a beautiful place, full of beautiful people. It’s common for people to attend church on Sundays, and there are three churches in a close vicinity to us. I’ve found that Pastor Ever and Pastor Amouri are not afraid to be bold in speaking about the Holy Spirit, and in every service I can practically see the Holy Spirit moving. People are radically praising Him, the pastors are praying over people and people are crying out for Jesus. The room fills with what I can only describe as the spirit’s heat. Yes, it’s hot here, but this is something different. The Lord is present.
We have one interpreter in the whole city. Caleb is 18 and from Germany. He works for Pastor Amouri and moved here in September. His first language is German, and his second language is English, and Spanish is his third language. He’s been incredible, interpreting for us in his second and third language. He wouldn’t admit to it, but I know he loves having the 7 of us girls around. It’s fun having him with us, he’s funny, and the kid is smart! I’m thankful for his brain and his willingness to help us so much. He’s got to get overwhelmed when everyone wants him to interpret for us all at the same time. It’s even more funny when he accidentally talks to us in Spanish and the locals in English. He’s got a lot of languages floating around in his head, and we are so thankful for him.
The puppy in my lap is named Mattias, we call him Matty for short. He’s really small, and is Carlitos’s dog. Carlitos is like an adopted son of Pastor Amouri. He lives behind the church, sleeps in his Hammock, and hangs out around the church all day long. I’ve never seen Carlitos without a smile on his face. He speaks no English and I speak no Spanish, but he knows I love his puppy, so he lets Matty hang out with me during the quiet hours.
We have a little less than two weeks left here in Planeta Rica. Our vision is that we will leave here better than we found it – we want to bless Pastor Amouri and his family in whatever ways we can, we want to really impact the Young Adult group and leave them feeling encouraged and willing to boldly evangelize, and lastly we want the kids we play with to fully understand God’s love and grace he has for them. Join us in praying fervently for these things – God answers prayer in a powerful way, and we are confident these things can be done.
Much love, from Colombia,
Sara
