Catching up in Colombia

Good morning everyone, Writing to give you an update from our weekend. The blog is not working where we are right now, so here is an update of our weekend. By the way, it's 2:10 A.M. - can't sleep, and will need to get going in about 1 hour, so thinking would be nice to have a coffee but everyone else is sleeping and Jordan is actually sleeping in the kitchen apartment, so not a good idea to wake him up, from what I've been told. Decided to eat my KitKat...mmm. (I had to move into the apartment with 4 of the Revelstoke team were staying as my host family left early for a vacation.) Being flexible with the joy of the Lord...) It's been as busy as the week was, yet not as stressful. We have been lacking time to work on the computer as we don't always have the internet when there is some free time. Rick and myself lost our voice completely on Friday evening, we managed with our translators to work with our groups at the table. Mine is Yuan Pablo, he is 16 and has great charisma with everyone and wonderful english. Because I'm also doing the power point for the sessions, I'm up and down from my table to the sound booth, so Yuan Pablo is doing a good job co-teaching for me. My lack of voice did not change the flow of the lessons at all. Friday evening was our Decision Making Seminar and much discussions around every table was flowing. Every team member reported good english conversation, people expressing there Opinions the way they were taught during the week. Then Diego gave a small message near the end for people to make a decision on Jesus, and invited people to come to church and also say goodbye to the Canadian Team. Saturday, Rick took a day of rest as he was giving two messages on Sunday. One in the morning at El Redil del Sur and another in the afternoon at SanDiego church. (Diego has been pastoring another church for the past 2 months as the SanDiego Church has lost their Pastor. They are struggling and ask Diego to help them out) did not mention what happened? Please pray for Diego and Claudia as this is very stressful for them - working in two communities - ( ex: church would be in Orleans in the morning and then having to drive to the west end of the city to preach again and care for the people of two churches throughout the week) On Sunday, Rick's voice was miraculously restored. He was able to preach and many of us worked in the children's program. Katie, the youngest of the Team organized games and crafts and bible studies. she did a great job. I was put in the nursery, because my voice was still but a small whisper, so please continue to pray as the week in Barranquilla will be challenging. We have two groups and most of them are students from High School and University. We did the same in the other church, yet less children and no babies so I was able to stay in the service and hear the message. Praise - Rick's voice was restored. people responded well to Diego's call to come to church. some students from the ESL came as they were touched by our testimonies during the week. more registration for the Speaking Centre which Diego mentioned on Thursday/Friday and again on Sunday, that I would be there for another two weeks and people signed up on Sunday for classes. Prayer needs My voice (Nicole) Safety in Barranquilla (if your up early enough, pray for our flight which leaves 6:00 am Colombian Time - Ottawa 7:00 am - Revelstoke time (sorry, but I'm not sure and Jordan and Michelle and Katie and Rick are still sleeping) Pray for Stamina as we work both session - some morning - some afternoon - and every evening. Health for everyone as we adapt to new climate - it has been cool in Medellin so very comfortable, we are told that it will be very hot in Barranquilla. WE HOPE TO HAVE THE INTERNET IN BARRAQUILLA to be able to communicate more through the Blog, so if you don't hear from us, don't worry. We will do our best to communicate with everyone. Blessings and hope you can forward to friends. Nicole Below is an update Nick wrote to the men's group, (he gave me permission to send it to everyone) some may have received this already. [Nicole, you can use and edit this for the blog if you want] Just back from our little day trip. We went to Guatape to see "La Piedra Del Penol", a big rock with a mere 740 steps stairway to it´s very top, plus a small tower. We all made it in good time and enjoyed the view of the reservoir. We then headed to the very colorful town were you can determine what each commerce is about by the mosaic on it front wall. We all decided to try this zip line that usually run over water. I say "usually" because the low water level meant that it runs over land right now. The whole thing was an interesting experience to say the least. Maybe the $5 cost should have been a red flag to us, but who can pass that good a deal. I guess that plays right into yesterday´s seminar/english lesson about decision making where the students said that the most common way of making a decision is... impulse. Peer pressure was in there somewhere too. :) No instructions, simple finger pointing to sit in contraption, get trolleyed up to the high point squished with your friends, hear click, get shoved off to where you came from, ram into mattress to stop. Quick enough to not entirely realize what just happen, but fun nonetheless. We then had to rush off before the rain storm hit. Since we didn´t listen to our mothers advice to put sunscreen on, many will be shedding skin soon. Lesson learned for our upcoming time in the hoter Barranquilla, I hope. A neat thing happen on the rock. On the way up, someone from our group asked a gentleman what was in the bag he was carrying (so I was told). While at the top, I noticed a gentleman praying with his family, turns out it was the same gentleman. They were in the process of disposing of his father´s ashes. He asked if we could also pray; we obliged gladly. They went on to throw the hashes in the wind a handful at a time. Quite emotional. A bit more on this past week. On morning after a session we were taken on the metro to the metro cable; that´s the gondola part of the metro system. It leads into the poor section of town. Nothing I haven´t seen before, but always troubling. It is amazing to see the government trying to help that part of the population, though. For starters, the metro cable give the whole area easy access to the main city where the work is located. For seconds, it built apartments to host the athletes of a major football/soccer event and give them to the people. Unfortunately, poverty is not a simple issue to fix, but it doesn´t hurt to at least try. On Friday, our last day with english classes in Medellin, me and another team member (Brad) attended a men´s community group. This was during the morning session, so it was not a big deal due a lower number of students. We were able to join the end of the session and say our goodbyes. I was glad. Men are men, and the dynamic seem to be universal to any country of the world. Brad and I unexpectedly got called on to give our testimony. Brad had given his a couple times already during sessions, but as for me, I was still polishing it for next week. As christians, we are told to always be ready to give the reason for our hope, so I had to wing it. Both our testimony connected with someone present. In mine, I added the fact that my parents had moved from the catholic to evangelical faith. This detail is not in my current written version. This triggered some tough, but very good, questions from a new believer. We admitted not being any sort of experts, and shared our experience and opinion. Ironically, sharing opinions is also one of our english lesson. :) In the evening, we said our goodbyes to our many students. Each table leader would have had a different experience, so I will simply say that everyone had a blast. The survey results show that practically every student had a good time and enjoyed the way english was taught. The way we feel about our performance then becomes irrelevant because this mission is not about us. Tomorrow, Sunday, we participate in two church services and head out really really early Monday morning to Barranquilla for our second week. This will not be goodbye to our Medellin friends and new families, but only "hasta luego". Written by Nicole and Nick pictures from Brenda