Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So in this blog I want to tell you all about the fun I have been having, hence the title of this blog, as yes being a missionary does have its hard times, but recently I've been having a ball and felt it only fair that I share this with you. Long blog alert…I've had lots of fun!
Going back to the 9th August I went to a water park with Abi, her friend Felipe, and Marc from Switzerland who was in Colombia with Latin link for a bit. The night before we all met up for crepes and waffles, then I stayed at Abi's for a sleep over and a girly night and I ended up dying her eye lashes…all missionaries have new experiences…this was one for me! Anyway, we had to be up super early on the Saturday, as the Water Park, called Pisilago, is a good few hours away especially when taking the bus. Felipe and Marc were going in the car with Felipe's parents and so the plan was to meet them there. Abi and I boarded the bus and then received a message from Felipe saying that Marc needed to see the Doctor because he had something wrong with his eye. We were slightly worried that the Doctor would say he couldn't go to the Park, but we prayed. I prayed that the Doctor would arrive swiftly and that Mark would only need eye drops, and that all would be well. No more than 10 minutes later we received another message. The doctor arrived early, Mark was fine and he only needs eye drops! Arrrrrrrr I flippin love it when God answers prayer like that! So off we went and endured a 3ish hour journey to the park. We managed to arrive before the others, as they had stopped to eat, but soon entered the park and the fun began! The water Park is awesome! There are slides for 2 people, for 4 people and for 1 person. The slide for 4 people had a big inflatable, which all 4 of you go on and you go down and around and up and down the sides of the flume, and scream all the way! They had mat slides to in which you could race each other and swimming pools for chilling out. After a few hours we stopped to have lunch and then decided to race round a few slides before the end of the day. Felipe and I had forgotten to remove our flip flops meaning that we had to leave them at the entrance to the slides. On the last slide that we went on, we left our flip flops and proceeded as normal. Afterwards we began to walk to meet his parents. Half way there I was thinking to myself "why do my feet hurt?" and then I remembered…MY FLIPFLOPS! I grabbed Felipe and shouted "Chanclas!!" (flipflops in Spanish) and we hobbled back to get our flipflops, which thankfully were still there. This has now become one of those 'in jokes', which annoys everyone else but cracks me and Felipe up every time.
The next day (Sunday) I went to a place called Guasca, which is about an hour and a half from Bogota. I went with Juan, his girlfriend Juliana and the granddad to have a day with the family of Juan's dad, as an auntie and uncle have a house with some land here. The plan was to fly kites and have a bbq, which is exactly what we did. The weather was perfect through the day, hot, sunny with enough of a breeze to fly a kite. I haven't flown a kite in years and had forgotten that there actually is a bit of a technique (who would have thought!). Anyway I got quite into it, but after about 20 minutes I was bored, so managed to pass it off to someone else to fly…namely the granddad who looked so cute flying a kite and trying to balance at the same time without his walking stick. I walked back towards to the house and helped myself to some bbq'd corn on the cob which was delicious. As I turned around with the house behind me and the landscape in front of me, I suddenly realised that I knew this place; however, I have never been there before in person. But, I had dreamt about it vividly a few months before. I remember in my dream the colours, the landscape and the people who were standing in front of me. I have had these types of dreams before and it is more than a déjà vu feeling. It freaks me out a bit, but at the same time I feel a kind of excitement about this. The moment passed, as more food was being passed around, and all who know me will know when there is food in my sights, get out of my way! The day passed in a relaxing way, with good food, lots of chat, lots of laughs and an interesting game of football by the men, which resulted in them all being covered in mud, but all very happy. For me it was nice to see this side of the family again and see Juan interact with them. It was good to practice Spanish, and have the confidence to ask more questions now I know how to construct them! And get the chance to fly a kite and be in the countryside. I really hope I get to spend more time with them before I leave.
So something that I'm really passionate about is praying for other people, but face to face and it is something that I am lacking here due to the language and my confidence. However, on the 13th August, as I was praying that morning, I asked God to give me boldness, but was not specific in what. Every Wednesday more or less, I go to a church for a couple of hours in the afternoon, as they have prayer for peace, a mini bible study and a chat about reconciliation with different guest speakers. I went this Wednesday and the format was slightly different. We had the bible study and then got into groups to talk about the impact of violence on the victims, and then had a small time of prayer at the end. The group I was in decided they wanted to go round the circle and each one of us prayer…my type of nightmare! But what an opportunity! Thankfully I was number 5 of 6, so whilst everyone else was praying I was planning in my head what I was going to say and figuring out how to say it in Spanish. My turn came, I had a fleeting thought of just not doing it and then from nowhere the boldness came and I prayed, out loud, in Spanish. Admittedly only for a minute or so, but still I was so pleased that I had done it. Then that evening in our Bible study, we also got into small groups and had a prayer session. Once again I knew I had to just do it, so I thought and planned, prayed and then the words just kept coming out of my mouth. I was like woah woah woah, hold on a moment…I have not planned this bit of speech! Anyway, God is good and I know that He provided me with the boldness to do this.
So continuing with the theme of prayer; we had a chat in work about how we can evangelise more and get UCU known more with the students. As I said I'm passionate about prayer so having been part of the prayer ministry team with my church in England and being involved in some praying on the streets, I suggested that we do this at the National University. The answer was okay, let's give it a go. Off we went the following Friday, only Laura and I, so we only spoke to female students. We approached and spoke to 5 students, all of who said no to prayer, but one did ask us who were, etc. and what UCU did. We got to share with her this information and off she went. I was not disappointed because you just don't know what seed you have planted by offering to pray for someone. I asked my church to pray about this, that God would open doors and we would have the confidence to continue and that people would be open to prayer. Anyway, we did this again today (22/08), but this time with Oscar, another colleague. We again spoke with 5 people (1 couple, 2 friends and a guy on his own) and all of them said yes to prayer! Only one person said that they were a Christian, which means that 4 non-Christians happily told us something that they wanted pray for and allowed us to pray for them. I feel that this is a very exciting time for the student group and yes praying for randoms is something that is just so against the grain here, so it is a risk, but what an exciting risk to take! I'm a real strong believer that it's fine to interrupt someone's day because that is exactly what God does, and you just never know what place emotionally they might be in and what offering to pray for someone might do for them. I'm so excited to continue this, and one day pray for someone out loud in Spanish myself, rather than only helping to introduce who we are and what we are doing.
Finally I am going to tell you about the weekend that just passed. It was Abi's birthday weekend and a bank holiday (yes another one), so 10 of us went to a little town called Choachi, which is an hour out of Bogota and in the country. To get there you need to go up over a mountain and down the other side, driving along roads that have so many curves, it's a bit like afro hair! We went in a bus, and I am just so thankful that I don't get car sick, otherwise I might have re-lived my breakfast (sorry if you're squeamish, you just need to man up). Anyway we arrived in one piece and then had to get to our cabin where we were staying. There were two options; walk or take a chiguachiva, which is a reliant robin (like the one in Only fools and horses) with enough space behind for 3 people. We decided to take these because we had our bags. We arrived at this cute cabin which was sufficient for 9 people with 3 different rooms, unpacked a bit and then headed off to the thermal pools, which was about a 20 minute walk away. The pools consisted of one big swimming pool which was a medium temperature and 2 smaller pools which increased in temperature, one being really hot! We had a really nice time there and played quite a long game of IT in the big pool, which was hilarious! Abi really got into it and you would have thought someone was trying to kill her with the shrieks she was making when the person who was IT got close! We were there for a couple of hours then, all smelling of sulphur, made our way back the cabin for some food and a good few games of SPOONS, which again was a right laugh, although slightly violent and there were a few injuries incurred.
Day two and we had a lateish start, but still early for a Saturday. I made some breakfast with a couple of others and later on we got ready and then headed into the town for lunch. Sadly we had to say goodbye to Marc, as he was heading back to Switzerland. This also meant Abi and Felipe headed back to Bogota with him to the airport and then later returned to Choachi. In the meantime the rest of us wandered around the town (it is very small), we looked in the church and then tried to figure out why there was a calf tied up, and lots of people making noise. We found out there was a raffle for the calf, but this was being done in a very round about way. The firstly drew numbers which co-coordinated with names, and if your name was called you received a bottle of beer. On the lid of the bottle of beer was another number, which I think then went into the raffle and whoever won this, won the calf. All very interesting and obviously one way of deciding who wins the poor little animal. We later returned to the cabin and a few of us played some card games like rummy and 21 and then decided to make a fire and against all the odds of the rain, Paula and Marsielle managed to get the fire going and sustained it. The reason for the fire…to toast marshmallows of course! Abi and Felipe returned and we all had a thoroughly wonderful time attempting to avoid the rain and smoke from the fire whilst roasting marshmallows. For the rest of the night, once we had done the fire thing, we continued to play games…namely charades, eat cake, and enjoy. I just want to tell you a little bit about the game of charades that we played because I seriously have not laughed so much for a while. We had 5 rounds…1. Describing. 2. Mimic. 3. One word. 4. Sound. 5. Freeze frame. The topic or phrase could be about anything or anyone, so we had a whole mix of things. I think the funniest round was the sound round, as trying to make a noise for Thermals, or Hammack really is not easy! I think everyone enjoyed themselves…it was hard not to!
The following day again we had a slow morning and breakfast was made. We were going to play Colombian Monopoly but there was a slight lack of materials in the box (I won't explain why!). So we played the letter and topics game where you have topics and you choose a letter and you have to fill in the boxes with words that start with that letter. My favourite non word was 'ñice', which Abi used as a type of colour, and I think my favourite surname, which I came up with and which I actually think could exist in Spanish was 'llegastarde', which means 'arrive late'. I have a friend with the surname 'casasbuenas', which means 'good houses'! Anything is possible here! After all the excitement of this game, we packed up, went and had a late lunch and then got the bus back to Bogota. I think the journey back was worse and I'm sure the afro curls had tightened! The whole weekend was great; the place, the company, the fresh air and the laughter. I felt privileged to have been able to have been a part of it.
So what now….well I'm off on another trip, to hopefully get to know UCU in Barranquilla and to get to see another part of Colombia. Prepare for the blog on my return!
Chao xxxx
- comments