In Colombia

Hey everyone! I wanted to let you all know that I am safely in Medellin, Colombia! We arrived in Bogota on Christmas Eve, where we stayed at the YWAM Bogota base until the 26th when we left for Medellin.

Here in Medellin this week we have been staying at a church retreat center, which is really nice. We learned really quickly here in Colombia that many people do not have hot water for showers and such, so we all have become accustomed to cold showers, which actually after a while feels kinda good when it is hot outside. The average temperatures here have been 50 degrees in the morning and night and 70 degrees during the day. I can now say that I have also learned how to hand wash my clothes and hang them over a balcony to dry. Who knew 2-in-1 Suave shampoo could make your clothes smell so good.

Our ministry this week has been to work with the kids (ages 2-10) and the youth (ages 13-18) by doing dramas, giving testimonies, and someone preaching. We leave the church retreat center on Friday and will then be working with the YWAM Medellin base for the next 12 days, and will be staying various places. We will start out staying in a college dorm, and then will move to the YWAM base, and possible some host homes.

I hope that you all are doing well. I will post again when I can get to an internet cafe. God Bless.

Week Eleven

Well, this week has definitely been an exciting one. The week started out with us going down the mountain on Monday, like we always do, but what we didn’t expect was to be spending the night down the mountain too. That afternoon around 3pm it started snowing at Eagle Rock, but didn’t reach Arvada until about 5pm. We left early that night to head back to Eagle Rock, but soon discovered when we were only about a quarter of the way up the mountain that we weren’t going to make it……my van had already fishtailed three times, and we soon discovered when we pulled over to put the chains on (before the worst part of the mountain) that one of the three vans was missing the chains. So, the decision was made that it was safer to come back down and stay in Arvada for the night. The 57 of us (staff and students) were split among the Arvada base and YWAM Denver staff houses for the night, and we just had a fun sleepover – we all just looked at this adventure as preparation for outreach.

We started out Tuesday morning with class down the mountain and made it back up the mountain by the afternoon. Our teaching for the week was on Evangelism, and I enjoyed our speaker, Richard Thompson very much. One aspect of Richard’s teaching that I found to be interesting was when he talked about the four reasons why many people do not do Evangelism. The four reasons are: Bad Experiences / Bad Examples, Apathy, Unbelief, and Fear of Man. We then talked about how to model Evangelism in the way that Jesus did it.

Tomorrow night we have our Love Feast with the entire YWAM Denver community. The students in my DTS, as well as all the secondary school students, and all staff come together at the end of the lecture portion of the school for a big celebration of what God has done the past 3 months, as well as a send off for the outreach portion of training. There is always a theme for Love Feast, so ours is Winter Wonderland (kind of funny since it is suppose to snow again tomorrow). I am looking forward to Love Feast and just “hanging out” with my fellow classmates, who are going on a different outreach than I am. I still can’t believe that the Mexico outreach team leaves a week from Sunday, and the Argentina team, and my team, Colombia, leave three days later on Christmas Eve. It seems like the first three months have flown by.

I pray that you all are doing well. Please let me know how I can be praying for you.

Thanksgiving and Outreach Prep

Hey everyone! I hope that you all had a splendid Thanksgiving holiday. I know I definitely did. I was blessed to have mom and dad come out to Colorado to visit me for the holiday. I got to spend about two and a half days with them, and we had a lot of fun. I am very thankful for my parents for the love that they have always shown me, and for their unconditional support of me in following my dreams.

Well, this week has been Outreach Prep week, and we have been learning the different dances and dramas that we will use while on our respective outreaches. Each outreach leader was given the task of choosing the dances and dramas that would be most effective and culturally sensitive for our outreach locations, and this week we have been learning them non-stop. My team will be doing nine dramas and a skit with puppets (we are not doing any dances on our outreach team). Each outreach member is a part of four dramas, and I am involved in the three dramas called: Fix You, Gone, and Redemption, and I am doing puppets. I am pretty excited about all of the dramas, and our team has worked really hard during practices. Hopefully I will be able to film some of them and post them for you to see.

It is hard to believe that there is less than three weeks left before we leave for Colombia. We will be flying out on Christmas Eve and travelling from Denver to Atlanta to Bogota, Colombia. Luckily we have a four hour layover in Atlanta, so mom and dad, as well as a few other parents that live near by, are going to come see us at the airport. It will be nice to see mom and dad again, even if only for a few hours.

Above is a picture of the Colombia outreach team. The three in the front our our outreach leaders, and the rest of us are students. (Darren, the outreach leader is front and center, and Keri and Angie behind him are our assistant outreach leaders).

Well, next week we are back to a somewhat normal week with teaching on Evangelism, so I look forward to updating you then on what I am learning.

Oh, and I have added some new pictures as well. A few weeks ago my small group and I did a photo shoot, so those pictures are posted, as well as some pictures of our recent snow.

God bless you for your faithfulness in reading my blog and for your prayers. I pray that you know how much I love and appreciate each one of you, and how thankful I am to know each of you.