Sometimes a Walk in the Park, sometimes not so much

Jan. 26,

Thursday, Audra’s mom arrived.  Such a great lady.  It was so nice to see both so content to have one another in close proximity again, after a long four months.  Friday night Audra and I went out with the Bishop’s daughters; a couple of our guy friends, Felipe and Joel; and we met up with quite a few of the girl’s cousins.  We had an amazing night thanks to such awsome people.  Everyone when out of there way to make it a great night.  I was soo thrilled that Audra really enjoyed her birthday dance party.  I danced like mad!  The music stoped at 2am, Bogota has an early cirfue(sp?).  The guys, Audra and I rode back to our apartment to get something to eat at the same resteraunt I wrote about earlyer that “have the best hamburgers in Bogota”.  But this time I got a chicken sandwich.  Really... really, food is sooo much beter when you are really hungry.  Man was that a good sandwich. 

I forgot to tell you about a really odd conversation Audra and I had with the two priests when we were in Faca.  I remember it now because it circles back around to this same gas station restaraunt.  The conversation began discussing what industries  the comunity could invest themselves in.  One idea was to produce humus, you know the rich black soil that can be sold, not the greek spread made from chickpeas.  Then the conversation turned to the the posibility of a worm farm.  Worms in spanish is lombris.  Yet, they were speaking of night-crawlers, as far as I could tell.  Ok, so you need to know that these guys were going inbetween jokes and deep conversation since we began the trip and these are the kind of guys you have to search to see if they are joking or not.  Back to the conversation.  So from the subject of a worm farm the priests started to talk about how hamburgers are made from worms.  So Audra and I began to search for what was getting lost in translation. A bit desperatley.  Especially since we had just eaten hamburgers the other night. I am all for any way that we can adjust our culture to live sustainably, including a diet rich in bug protein,  but to think you’ve eaten worms when you expected beef, that is a bit disconcerting.  To this moment we have no idea what is true or not.

So my first morning waking up without Audra there was a bit sad.  I am use to having someone to talk to all the time.  I got up and had a very lazy morning watching tv, and of course I got into the kitchen and started cooking.  I spent a great part of the morning practicing the guitar!  It was nice, watching some crazy movies while practicing.  at 3pm I remembered I really needed to get my own cell phone straightned out.  So just as it began to rain I made my way out the door.  So South America is chock full of small businesses.  I was able to find two Comtell cell phone providers on the same block (there are probably more).  The last one I went to had the phone charger I needed in stock.  This was probably the 5th store I had asked.  So I had my US AT&T phone unblocked, all of it caust more than expected, but it is worth it to have a Colombian cell phone.  I have already input numbers from church friends.

Sunday was lovely.  San Pablo has officialy iniciated two church services.  One at 9 and the other at 11.  For anyone who knows me, knows that I attended both services with glee.  I think this is a great oportunity to meet more people.  It also looks as though a different priest will give the sermon at each service, which is doubly cool.  I am officially a lay reader here.  the first service I read the first lesson, the second I read the second.  I have to remind myself to breath often right before I start reading, but then I am just focused on scripture and its words.

I had an interesting and intense conversation with a coworker about the vality of Missions.  It took me by surprise, to say the least. At one point he was being so stuborn and not wanting to listen that I tried to end the conversation! So yeah, he got my goat, so to speak.  Thank God I prayed through it, and we were able to have a civil conversation.  I don’t think he has read or comprehended Christ’s call to send out missionaries.  His issue is that he just dosn’t think we can do anygood for a comunity if we don’t live here the rest of our lives.  I am now praying that God will use Audra and I to give him more hope.  As I also pray for a lot of patience!  

Slowly but surley I am re-establishing my prayer routine.  It really is the best way to start the day.  It is funny how Bogota can distract me as much as Birmingham does.  

Oh, I want to let you guys know how wonderfull the giving of the peace is at San Pablo.  It is almost like being home at Saint Andrew’s!  You get out of your seat and you pass the peace to everyone.  It is so wonderfull!

Blessings and Peace  

What a Week!

Somehow it seems as though I have been here for at least a few weeks. I realized saturday that I was going to be attending only my second service at San P

aulo (or Pablo), which is the name of the church where we work and live.    Thursday Audra and I returned to La Gran Pared.  This time I made it to the top of two walls.  It really is a thrilling experience to conquer ones fears.   The Bishop encourages this extracuricular activity because it relieves stress, requires concentration and strength, etc.  I am really excited to meet the next challenge.

The Bishop is having us work on an English segment of the Episcopal Diocese of Colombia website. 

Right now I am being pestered by a stuffy nose.  It is soo much better having someone around when you don’t feel well. I did not sleep well last night because breathing out of ones mouth is not condusive to sleep.  I woke up in a crabby mood and took my time getting up to the office, but can I just tell you how much I love being here with Audra.  I had been in the office for no more than a few minuets, still in a sour mood, and she made me bust out laughing.  I am already feeling better because of it. 

Friday Audra and I went to Faca, a town on the outskirts of Bogota.   It took two hours by car to get there.  What a beautiful place!!  It is very much in the country and I think I left a bit of my heart there.  I have been, and still am, in need of the outdoors and the country.  With rolling hillsides spoted with cultivated farms, horses, cows and small homes, dapled with natural vegitation and brushed with wide-open skies, I desired to just sit down and take it all in.  Audra and I road down with two Episcopal priests, one is the priest from Faca, the other from Cali.  Also along with us came a man named Matt who works with the ERD and is on a multiweek mission to visit all sorts of Episcopal comunities around Colombia to try and start aranging projects that the ERD could help with in the contry.  The ride down was really interesting.  The majority consisting of the issues that plauge the Episcopal comunities.  Within the conversation we talked about agricultural issues.  I was excited to here that the ERD does have an agricultural sector that falls under nutrition. 

As of right now it apears that I have at least a couple of oportunitities to get my hands into agricultural projects.  One, in the city of Bogota, another in Faca.  I have a much clearer vision of were a profession in agricultural sustainability/development could lead me.  I look forward to becoming active in this sector in Colombia.  

Well, as we road into Faca we pulled up to a turn and at a bus stop a young man stood up, the car stoped and a fourth person snugled into the back of the car with us as we drove up a bumpy dirt road.  All I can say is thanks be to God I took some Dramamine.  What a spectacular vista!  The priest showed us arround different sectors of this small comunity.  However, he first had to let us out of the car to continue our way on foot because the road is so steep the car won’t make it with so many passangers.  As we climbed our way up I was gasping for breath and thought I was going to keel over.  I litterally was praying to not pass-out.  Yet all along the way I was thinking what a wonderfull excersise oportunity this could if I lived here.  Finaly we made it to the church.  As we caught our breaths I took photos and video of the area.  From the church we walked up a bit more to what I think is the priest's house and I absolutly fell in love.  I hope that you can get some impression of the impact the view offers from the porch.  With the right circumstances I could live there forever I think.  We then traveled to the priest’s sister’s home, to a neighbors house to check on them and back to the sister’s house for a bit of coffee before we headed back to Bogota.  As we drove the Bishop called time and again talking with each of the priests about why they didn’t have time to make some sort of visit with some person or other.  It was a real experience to see the realationship between priest and Bishop in action.  

That night we met up with Nanny (pronounced with an open a = au).  The night was okay.          I realized that, well, Audra and I both reevaluated what we wanted to come from a night out on the town.  We first met at the house of Nanny’s friend.  Nanny is a lovely person to be with while climbing, however we realized we would enjoy more mature group.  It does get to be cumbersome, I supose, to continually meet new people and have to explain ourselves over and over again.  We really hope for a seady set of aquaintances or friends to hang out with so this cycle of meeting  new people can at least be certailed.  Now we know that we can begin our evening as early as 5 or 6pm.  We are now seeking somewhere that will facilitate good conversation and dancing.  

After going to sleep between 2 and 2:30 we awoke, had breakfast and were out the door by 10am.  Ok, so this use to be an easy schedule to manage, but wow do I feel old with only 6 hours of sleep.  Gone are the days of 3-5 hours of sleep, and good riddens. Man were we tired.  Yet, it was for good reason.  We had decided to meet up with a friend at a nearby park.  It was such a beautiful spot.  The change in air quality was almost stagering.  If you can imagine a time when you were absolutly parched with thirst, do you recall how sugar sweet simple water tasted to you?  How it seemed like the best thing you had ever tasted in your life?  Well that is what it was like for me to walk through this park and take in the fresh air.  It is so very tiresome to constantly be around sooty, exhaust-filled air especially after being acustomed to Camp McDowell country-fresh air.  This park will serve as refuge for my body and mind I am sure.

Sunday service was absolutly lovely.  I am captivated by this church, its congragents and ever circulating priests and guests.  I had an amusing conversation with two of three guest priests.  They have such great personalities. I met another of the priests from Cali.  He told me that Cali is one of the last pockets of drug trafficing in Colombia.  Ten years ago the country was plauged with this, Medellin was once the most dangerous cities in the world, with something like 200 murders per day.  But now it is known for being tranquile and absolutly beautiful.  Cali is not so dangereous.  When we work there we will just need to take extra precaution. 

I read the Psalm, thankfully my part was only four verses.  I will work up to the leccionary.  The sermon was beautifull, not only because I could understand it :.).

Afterwards we all went downstairs to share in some coffee or tea and talk with everyone.  Audra and I signed up to provide the flowers for my birthday, which happens to fall on a Sunday this year.  Before we left I spoke with a couple of the women about starting a women’s group.  They jumped on the idea and, the wednesday after next, we will be meeting wednesday morning to distribute and sell used clothing to the persons in need.  

I wasn’t able to focus them on the bible study portion, but I will work on that next.  But how cool is that, you ask and you recieve.  

If anyone so desires I would greatly appreciate music to be sent my way that I could download into my computor.

That reminds me.  The Bishop is actually working on getting us a wirless internet conection.  He is wonderfull and so very sensitive and considerate to our needs.  Since it is dificult for us to use the phone at times the wirless conections would allow us to call the US any time, even in the apartment.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  

So Audra and I are going to meet up with a  group from the Diocese of Conneticut in Cartagena to join with them in a Mission programe.  So far I am not sure what that will consist of.   Then in the second or so week of February, we will begin work in the south of the city in an imporvershed sector of the Episcopal community.  The only thing I have to gripe about is the fact we are to lead English lessons, which just happened to be one of the very few actions I put on my YASC application that I really did not want to do.  I will do it, but I am not looking forward to it.  

'Aint no Mountain High Enough

Tuesday was a frustrating workday.  First of all this grant that I have mentioned was first given to Audra the day before I arived!  She had only had one full day to work on it untill this past Tuesday.  How crazy is that!  These folks don’t understand that this is a thing to work on for weeks or even months.  We were given a cople of days.  So all day tuesday, because Monday was a holiday here, we worked on the grant, wording, rewording and getting new information about what the project is actually about.  At every conversation we were given new information that changed the idea or format of the project!  Please, please, please pray for this grant to be fulfilled because they really do need it to build on a plot of land that the government has lent them.  If they don’t get the money they can’t build and they will lose the land.  So please pray for a miracle, because we really have no confidence in the writen grant.  

Well, that tuesday evening Audra and I went around the corner of the block to a climbing gyme called La Gran Pared.  So I went there with the mentality that yea I’ll try it out, but I am never going to love it because I am not so comfy with heights.  Well it was three of us.  Audra, a girl she climbs with and myself.  We began climbing one after another.  I started off better than I thought I would.  As we were going up and down I met some of there climbing friends, all men.  We talked about our work as Missionaries and after a bit I realized this could be an awsome evangelizing oportunity.  Well, I was still nervous of the heights and I was all well and good, but I wasn’t loving it.  I went over to the oposing wall and prayed to be able to enjoy climbing so that I could share this time with Audra and get to know these folks even better.  Can I just tell you, that God just blows me away sometimes because as I began to climb I suddenly understood the atraction to this sport.  It is like one huge puzzle between me and the wall and how to get my body to the top.  I stoped thinking of the height and was concentrating on where and how to move next.  It was all of a sudden so much fun!  I am now hooked on climbing.  I finally did give up, but not because of fear of heights, my body was exhausted.  So now bit by bit I am going to concure La Gran Pared :.). 

After climbing, Audra, her friend, Mateo, and I went to have the “best hamburgers in Bogota”.  Which turns out to be located in the gas station across from our appartment/church/office, who would have guessed?  And ya know they were pretty good.

peace

First Tuesday in Colombia

My first few days in Colombia have been pretty great.  The first days Audra and I simply marveled at our new lives here.  For her it is like a totally new life also.  She had been living with a wonderful family close to the church.  They love her dearly and she appreciates them a great deal, however living with a native older adult couple comes with its own stresses.  

We are living in an apartment on the bottom level of the church and church office, everything is in the same building.  Also we have a guard on duty 24/7 with a locked gate and guard dogs.  Toby is huge, black and so very fluffy.  We have become friends.  Unfortunately  he has abandonment issuesthat manifest in displaced aggressive growls, we are working through these issues slowly. He use to live with the Bishop and his family, now he is alone outside all the time.  

We live in a very metropolitan area, we can literally walk 2 blocks to five dance clubs.

Saturday night Audra and I went dancing.  I met up with a real sweet guy 17 years old who dances really well.  I got my to show off my skills as all of us struggled with communicating amidst very loud music in two languages since so many people here want to practice their English when speaking with us.  We simply continue to respond in Spanish.  

Audra unfortunately had difficulty in shaking unwanted admirers.  But in the end it was all fine.  

This weekend we went to the mall and purchased a couple of articles of clothing that fit the style.  Really a lot of fun.  And what would shopping be without great food, so we had a lovely lunch at a place called Crepes and Waffles, it is all around the world apparently.  

We continue to eat very well and to get our apartment set up.  

Audra is great at making new friends so we have a list of people we can meet up with already.  

Oh, I have already set up guitar lessons for sundays.  I am really excited to have extracurricular activities.

Next I will be searching our Spanish classes and Dance classes.  

Peace dear friends,

Saludos

I'm Here!!!

Well, I arrived in Bogota at 10ish Wednesday night, with a headache but none the worse for ware.  The best sight ever was to see Audra smiling and waving to flag me down as I exited the International airport.  It is a bit disconcerting to not know what to expect when one arrives in a foreign Country, but everything worked out beautifully.  

Audra and I are great roommates, we talk almost entirely in spanish, prepare and eat familiar/favorite foods and we are now getting our apartment organized and supplied with necessary items.  Thankfully the church is paying for most of the needed items. It really is quite cute especially once we got dishes, a shower curtain and plugged the hole in the shower :.).

It is priceless to have the freedom to cook just what we need.  It is very uncommon, well just entirely unlikely, for Colombians to have a dinner of sautéed vegies. That, by the way, was our dinner last night.  

I have already registered with the gov., thanks to Pilar.  Pilar is the secretary, more or less, for the Bishop.  She is invaluable!!  I will be able to pick up my Colombian ID next week.  I am totally official, how fantastic is that!!  It is such a HUGE difference between my first few days here as apposed to Quito in '07, way less stress :.).

Well now I am going to try to send out emails from my Mission gmail account.  Keep an eye out