Just a brief posting to say we're 'Back in York'. I'm sure there's at least one more Colombian video to upload. But first let's get over the jet-lag, well that's me I'm talking about,... Dora Maria is fantastic, she woke at 6am, got up, put the washing machine to work, cleaned through the whole house, did some essential gardening and went jogging. As for me, ... well I did get up. I'm working through a pile of post, I need to tax the car in order to legalise it(!!), catch up with: the office, More Than Gold (don't forget Sunday evening in the Minster for the Pentecost Launch), the Elders (tomorrow), BOING! (tonight), ACT course students (tonight), GAP YEAR interns (tomorrow), welcome Pam onboard and CAP (probably next week now), prepare for Sunday morning and a number of other things. Though in all honesty I can't wait to jump back into it all ... what a privilege !!!
Wednesday evening we attended a church meeting - just to sit in the congregation, enjoy the worship and catch up with friends. At the end of the meeting the pastor greeted us and offered me his pulpit for Sunday! "Lo siento pastor, Domingo estamos en Bogota." Another evening Dora Maria's Colombian mobile rang,... it was her pastor from when she was just a babe in Christ some 20 years ago. He'd heard of our presence in the country and wanted us to come and minister in the town where he was living - about a 90 minute bus journey from Medellin. He had some English so I also spoke to him on the phone, while we were speaking he shouted out with excitement "I'm looking at you! I can see your picture and Dora Maria's, I've found York Community on the internet."
Well, there's no time to accept all these offers. Already we had to say 'no' to some of the requests we'd received by pastors in Pereira and Medellin. Anyway, I need to prayerfully consider the value of my future ministry here in Colombia. What I'm witnessing and the conversations we've had with different pastors, shows me that many of these people are operating with levels of faith and fruitfulness that leaves me almost ashamed. I'm humbled. I'm humbled in the worship. I'm humbled seeing the ministries of transformation. It's a hugh reflection on their character that they so easily and willingly offer me space to minister, but I think I'm the one learning, I'm one impacked, humbled and challenged. To allude to a prophetic picture I was given before we left England - the ship is still in the Colombian dock, what will be loaded on board for York, England, Europe? And what still needs to be unloaded and left here?
As promised on Monday, some of the laughter from Sunday evening with Juan and Monica, Alejandro and Jeni. If you ever watch Euronews, they have a piece called 'no comment' - which is just some unedited footage without commentary showing visually a news item. Here's my 'no comment' ... Do pray for these guys, their ministry is so precious and highly effective. PS the big 4x4 car Juan is standing next to is not his!! He has no car. But in faith he stood next to it and he got me later to pray that God would provide a much needed car for their ministry.
Just a very quick blog for the sake of continuity ... the worst of the rain seems to be over, it was dry and hot for our weekend in Medellin and also here in Pereira. I've actually sneaked back to the hotel to get some air-conditioning and escape the soaring heat outsde. We're both over our viruses and Dora Maria's voice is back 100% so she was able to share, preach and pray with folks on Sunday morning. Seemingly our niece, Diana, who was with us on our Jungle trek (see Colombia Blog 02 video) ended up in hospital for her treatment in order to recover from the virus. She's out now - praise God.
This week will be mainly 'family goodbyes' as we prepare to head off to Bogota on Friday to do some ministry there,... and then we eventually start our journey home on Monday evening.
Wow!! An amazing weekend and no time now to tell you about it. In 20 minutes we'll be off to the airport and heading back to Pereira. The weekend with Pastors Juan & Alejandro has been a truly blessed time. I think I mentioned that on Saturday morning we had no clear plans re: our Sunday commitments. In the end I preached twice and Dora Maria once, our first service started at 8am, which meant a 7am pick up from the hotel.
Saturday was "guns for toys", well actually, toy guns for better toys, ... the day will be an unforgetable experience of Christian witness and practical work. In all, the work Juan and his wife, Monica, are doing leaves a lasting memory of applied Christian fellowship with all the components of: transformation, love, teaching, acceptance, worship and witnessing.
Finally, Sunday evening we ate with Juan & Monica, Alejandro & Jeni - and we laughed and laughed and laughed --- that video to follow, but for now a very brief snap shot of Saturday.
Wednesday saw us arrive in Medellin, catch up with Pastor Juan and minister in the evening meeting at the church at Restoration House.
We arrived just on time, as it took an hour in rush hour traffic from the hotel. The worship had already started so we quickly prayed together: Juan, Andressa (the translator) & the two of us, then we joined the meeting. Oh the worship – I loved it – to see these once broken lives free in Christ, wow! The praise lasted 40 minutes (from the time we arrived): moving from celebration to declaration and adoration. It was a wonderful atmosphere of continual prayer. To witness the intensity, joy and freedom in these guys was a testimony to God’s transformational power, and also to the God given vision of Juan’s and how, with spiritual confidence, he has facilitated the vision with such striking results. He has 40 men presently staying at the House of Restoration.
I preached on the power of the tongue. I checked first that we all had one and that it was working, from the response I assumed there were no mute people in the meeting. From James 3, Proverbs 18:21, miracles in John’s Gospel and finally to 2Cor. 5 and 1Cor. 14 we saw that the power of the tongue could bring life or death. Every time I made a positive statement about God, or the work of Christ in our lives, the congregation cheered. I’ve always wanted corporate worship to be participative rather than a spectators’ event – well here even the sermon was fully participative. In preparing to talk I’d already allowed time for the translation, but here I also had to give space for people to find all the Bible references, they eagerly wanted to read through the passages together,… and of course additional time was needed for all the cheers and clapping whenever I stated a good biblical truth.
Prayer ministry followed, plus more praise. God released people with a tongue ready to pray, praise and prophesy.
The volume of the PA in the building was at a volume that caused my original sound to be distorted on the video I captured, so on the video below I edited in an alternative recording of one of the songs we sang.
Yesterday (Friday) we met a friend of Dora Maria’s she hadn’t talked with in 16 years. The last time they had met was when Dora Maria was the leader of her home church in Pereira between official pastors. Her friend was now also a pastor and working with homeless people in Medellin, taking many teenage girls out of the city to a special farm where they could get free from all of life’s distractions and learn skills that could give them employment. Though this lady and Juan have such pastoral hearts, they see themselves as evangelists. They’re happier being outside with the people than inside a building with the saved. Pastor Conrado in Pereira is just the same. In recent decades the UK church seems to me more pre-occupied with events on a Sunday morning than the broader mission of the church. From my own Bible College and denominational training, I know this bias is there. If we continue to allow discipleship to be in the hands of non-evangelists teaching primarily Christian-family-based-believers, the church will become almost spiritually infertile – unable to tackle and respond to the need to rescue troubled souls from the kingdom of darkness. I’ll stop there.!!
It’s now about 11am on Saturday morning. This afternoon Juan has a special event planned. It seems that he has invited the children from the neighbouring barrios (neighbourhoods) to come to Restoration House in order to swap their guns and knives and other tools of violence for toys more suitable for pre-teens. Can you imagine? We’ll be in touch. Also, plans for Sunday – presently unclear, I think Dora Maria may be preaching, if her voice is restored more. Since the tropical jungle rain disaster day out last Saturday we’ve both been fighting off the various symptoms of viruses, but we’re both running at 80%plus now. The sun is shining and the day is full of godly possibilities.
As we arrived in Medellin so too did the rain, a helpful reminder that we were wise to travel by air. Pastor Juan met us at the airport. He is so pleased to see us and greeted us with the information: 'We have a church meeting tonight and Simon will be preaching.'
Well once I've got this uploaded, I best get sorting out a message. Though in my heart, I wont have confirmation of what to say until I encounter the people. Soon after Juan and I first met back in Nov 2009, he planted a church. Dora Maria didn't know of this either. Due to his ministry with addicts and troubled teens, the transformation of these guys once they meet Jesus is so obvious that they are a living witness to their once estranged families. Therefore it was natural for Juan to open a church for both his transformed men and their families. Less than three years on he has a congregation of about 350 people - Gloria a Dios!! I'm sure during the worship/praise tonight the Lord will prompt me with an apt message. Juan has arranged a translator, which is a relief to both of us - especially Dora Maria!
We've done the sensible thing and have booked flights to Medellin to avoid unnecessary delays or problems with the roads due to the recent bad weather.
We'll be in Medellin by lunchtime Wednesday 9th. and looking forward to catching up with Juan and the House of Restoration.
What started out as an exciting day in the jungle became an absolute wash out. The daily rainfall that normally lasts 40 minutes simply continued and continued and continued. We were expecting to get to see an amazing view of one of the highest waterfalls in Colombia, but due to the heaviness of the rainfall, it was hard to keep your eyes open and take in the view. By this stage we were all soaked through to the skin and we had fear our cameras were damaged too. Though I wanted to stay and wait for the rain to stop, we reluctantly began the return journey. THANK GOO WE DID!! As our path had already become in places flooded and washed away. After an hour of walking through mud and water we neared the car park. But then secondary streams from the mountains had flowed into our way and for a moment we thought our path was completely lost. We formed a human chain to wade through the fast flowing rising water to return to our car. The video tells some of the story...
The rain is causing serious problems and we've been strongly advised NOT to travel to Medellin by road, for at this time mudslides and other disruptions could either add hours to our journey time or halt it all together. We're investigating costs of flights, and one local pastor encouraged us to stay in Pereira and minister here this week and cancel our plans for Medellin. But Dora Maria has family in Medellin and we really want to connect again with Pastors Juan and Alejandra. We'll make the decision later today (Monday) and our scheduled departure is for Wednesday.
It's great to see the family here attneding church regularly and having their lives in order. Previously our times together included preaching the Gospel and re-commitments, but now individuals head off to different churches to worship and grow in their walk. The nephews and nieces prefer the modern lively congregations in Pereira rather than the Pentecostal church Dora Maria's sisters go to. We're so pleased to see lasting change. Personal miracles have taken place, perhaps too personal to share here, but let's just say one seriously clinically problemed and depressed soul is now back in their right mind - it's beautiful to see - Praise God.
We arrived safely and are filling the days with family events. First in the city at the houses of Dora Maria's eldest sister and her sister's daughter - they're neighbours!! And then at a farm which is being looked after by a nephew's in-laws. Travelling east to west you don't normally get jet-lagged, but this time it's different and I'm ready to drop by 8 in the evening, which means I'm ready for a 6 o'clock walk in the morning and a very early breakfast at a local bakery. The owners laugh at my Spanish, but I always get what I order and it costs me less than £2.00 for coffee, scrambled eggs and two speciality breads ---- and then its back to the hotel to see what plans Dora Maria has made.
This morning we met with a local pastor, Conrado. Back in November 2009 we met for the first time and I cried when I encountered the presence of God in the church building. This time the Spirit jumped within me when we greeted each other. We shared together, he has a real heart for mission and is increasingly away from the church in the south of the country working with indian people, setting up a training school, a children's play area and a water purification thingy!! We shared Scripture together, talked of church ministry and then he invited me to speak on Sunday morning.
It's a little strange blogging when on holiday - but in reality Colombia is never a normal holiday experience. The attached video is just me playing with some modern technology, but slow computers and random internet access makes it quite a real patience building exercise. Hasta luego - until next time. Dios te bendiga.
If we get online and have access to the necessary equipment we will seek to add updates on this blog page. Hopefully you'll be able to add comments too. Well we'll just have to wait and see.
