Getting on Track

This past week was quite productive, in an official sense.   If you recall,  Monday David Copply, our director from the national office, paid Audra and I a visit to help us give the mission a kick-start.  The past couple of months our work had staled-out and because these things tend to be wrapped up in diplomacy, Audra and I needed an official hand in figuring out what we would be doing for the next several months.  The meetings seem to have been a great success. The Bishop is amazingly open to our ideas and his involvement and availability is rare in such circumstances. The night of our first meeting Audra and I sat down and hammered out a schedule that would serve as an idealistic base.  The following meeting the Bishop gave us cart-blach to follow the schedule we had created, as far as it could be realized.  Our calenders are now full of hopes, goals and travel plans.  I find that the simple prospect of travel and getting into projects has given me an energy and emotional boost.  Although I do realize that the schedule we created is in idealistic terms.  For example:  we had hoped that there would be existing projects with an aids clinic in Suacha that we could work with twice a week.  The reality is that the Aids program is not active yet. Sunday, Audra and I visited the church in Suacha with the Bishop and we are now needing to reevaluate our calenders.  There was talk of a youth program that has already been started up that meets Saturday nights.  Along with this I am hoping to make a visit once a week to do some old-fashioned door to door parish invites.  I hope to be able to visit the homes of parish members and hold a bible study during the weekday.  I have aspirations of doing the same for the Cathedral community and perhaps in Faca as well.  Along with this Audra and I are wanting to get a couple of parishes involved in youth groups that would allow for discussion of topics that are important to the children/young adults.  So pray for us that things start rolling strongly towards fulfilling work.  

The question that is most poignantly on my mind is how to get a church to be filled with congregants.  It is also the question on the minds of many priests here.  For example: The cathedral is right smack in the middle of the city, surrounded by apartments and possible attendees, yet each of the two services might have in attendance  20 or fewer.  In Suacha, this past Sunday, there was only a handful (on account of the rain?).  Audra tells me the parish in Medellin has 10 members.  What is going on?  And what can I do to help?  I know that our goal as a church is not necessarily in numbers, but I think even this would call attention for need for growth.  From my observations the difference between the parishes that are packed-out vs those who struggle with attendance lies in the priest who is supported by the ministry or payed by the diocese, such as in the souther mission and Fr. Raphael in Cartagena (who's churches are full, healthy and growing), vs those who are volunteer priests such as in the Cathedral, Faca, Suacha, etc (who struggle with attendance).  I have humble hopes that the missionaries from the Episcopal church can serve as intermediaries for the communities of such parishes who's priest(s) are volunteers.  As of recent I feel called to meet with parishioners (including visiting them at their homes), to check in on them and to get them involved in activities during the weekdays (potentially a once-weekly bible study).  I have no experience in leading community outreach projects, but this could be a start.  I realize how much having Fr. Mark (my priest from St. Andrew's Birmingham) available for meetings and bible studies effected where I decided to commit my time and energy. The Episcopal diocese in South America just don't have the recourses that we have in the states to pay all of its priests.  In this there is evidently a need to supplement time and energy to the community.   

A small archive of photos from months past

All of these Pictures are from the mission in the South where we mento the Kids at an afterschool programe. 

that is the church/mission center in the background

The children are so very loving and caring to oneanother

They are so darn cute

Audra and I belting out "the little tea-pot" song....

we are just about to - pour out -

flower power in action

a few of the children decided to adorn us with native flora

Diego's impish little smile betrays him.

A train running up and down the hill 

I love these kids

To the unknowing eye this might appear as an English class 

Actually those three had made a game of who can goose LauraCatherine's leg

Bishop Duque's family.  His three girls have been studying at a university in Buenos Aires since Feberuary

Mirium and Oscar, the wonderfull couple who hosted both me and Audra

Oscar is still wearing the helmet because of the piece of scull removed after a toumor was removed

This is me and Audra's mom, along with the rest of the crew getting down and funky with live music.  

I love Latin America!

The bishop, a priest and a congragant showing off their dance moves.

This is our dear and lovely Cathedral decked out for a comitioning cerimony; 

specifically for our beloved Father Juan Carlos... whoop! whoop!

what is God doing in this Mission Trip

 

A God one-on-one moment:  So a number of weeks ago, I had a very real and interesting encounter with God.  It was during the time I was feeling the loneliest and I had been struggling to encounter God, trying to get the face-to-face contact.  Among my streaming thoughts I began to wonder about prayer.  I recalled scripture that I have studied related to the topic, meditated on it being through faith that our prayers are answered and I recalled a book that my friend Alicia and I discussed this past fall.  I happened to have read a section of this book where the author suggests a prayer form that he calls "random acts of prayer" or something to that very effect.  The author challenges the reader to use his or her daily life as an excuses to pray for those around you.  Well, as I was walking back to the office one bright sunny day I walked upon a couple of men trying to get their car to turn-over.  It was making sounds that did not give much hope it would cooperate.  I decided that these gentlemen needed a Godly intervention and so as I was walking towards the car I prayed, in the name of Christ, that the car would start.  As I concluded the prayer with an Amen and was passing the car, it started.  It wasn't a surprise that it started at that moment, but I felt a wave of extreme gratitude and love.  I gave thanks over and over again for God's grace and kindness.  That was the face-to-face, instant gratification moment I needed.  I know God is there but sometimes what I really want is for the Lord to be sitting at the foot of my bed, talking with me about my heart and letting me cry in His arms.  I am realizing my weakness of being in this.  I so want my faith and the Spirit to be enough to sustain me.  I want to be abel to say and live into a relationship with God that is so full that I am never lonely, that God is all I need and never waver in knowing that God will give me his best.  Yet I have found myself in tears wondering  where God was and wanting a physical presence to comfort me, but God is much bigger than such moments; He is so much greater than what I think I need.  As I reflect on the waves of emotions that I have experienced I realize where God has been in each circumstance. It is not a pale reflection or a shadow of God's Holy work, but it is bright, beautiful and clearly present.  I wonder how I don't see it as it is in progress.  One bright blessing in this journey is my friendship with Audra.  In this friendship God has blessed me with that physical presence I need.  We talk about our hearts, our pains and trials, we share innumerable laughs and our tears.  I don't know of many such circumstances (if any) where two strangers where placed together as a team in another country and became best friends; it is nothing short of a blessings form an immensely loving God.  So, despite the organization issues with this mission, it has been a remarkable growing experience for me spiritually.  

More about Faca

Facatativa (Faca) has a stunning view with a heavy reality.  The weekend I was there for the weekend, Father Javier took me around the community and explained the issues that plague its people.  There are narco-traffickers up the mountain who demand individuals pay them some sort of life-tax (I would call it).  These people hardly have enough to maintain a basic level of subsistence without being extorted.  Yet if they refuse to pay or just can't then they will "disappear".  Many, if not most, of the young women begin having children as early as age 14.  Claudia, Father Javier's wife, mentioned that it was not uncommon to have a twenty to twenty-two year old with four or five children.  A family that I have gotten to know goes along with that image.  The mother is 32 and her oldest child is 18.  She has four or five children with the youngest at less than two years old.  They all live together in house no bigger than Audra's and my apartment.  The husband who is at least twenty years older than the mother is somehow disabled and unable to work; if you ask Claudia, she says he is just unwilling to work.  So the entire family depends on the 18 year old son to sustain the family.  The young-mother-plight occurs for many of the same reason it occurs in other areas of the world; lack of sex education, lack of parental presence, limited resources in ones own family leads to the 'need' for young women to leave the home early and join with a man who can provide for her (although in the case of this family, the father was only a provider until he could lay the responsibility/burden on his, way too young, son). 

 The agricultural life is absolutely gruling.  An individual may work from 7am - 4 or 5pm picking peas (a labor intensive job) all day to come away with $4; and that is after the work of tilling, planting and tending.  The harvest is the only time when they make any money.  If you are talking about potatoes (the majority of the crops of Faca), the income is even less.  There is also great strife that presence itself in Faca and around Colombia that targets Anglican/Episcopalians.  Father Javier explained that there are three types of people: those that just let the 'Episcopalians' be, those that attend the church and those that are bent against it (as a result of the strong Roman Catholic culture).  The latter has proven to be quite the challenge.  The seriousness of this conflict was made clear when Javier explained that the priest before him left Faca for what he felt were safety concerns.  Another telling example is that one of his son's professors tried to fail him for no other reason than he was Episcopalian.  The only reason he didn't fail him is because Javier is a lawyer and went and laid the law down (literally).  The professor apologized saying 'if I had known his father was a lawyer I would have never thought of failing him' - LIKE THAT'S THE POINT!  I think one of the dominant reasons I didn't come back from Faca refreshed was because it was such a heavy reality experience.  These people are so very kind and full of life and love (those who I met; who granted are not always easy to get along with, as Javier told me; but none the less wonderful people).  They struggle to get enough food, education tends to not be top priority (although there are young people attending college) and non-responsible sex practices are the cultural norm.  

change of plans

This is a message written on a rock along side the road that leads to the church.

 I didn't translate this image the first time I posted it.  Here is what it says: 

"Every day God is born in our Hearts"

A simple message that I love! and since my first visit to Faca I have repeated these lines to myself to help me center in my experiences here. 

So I have been putting off this blog for a while now.  One: because it has become hard to separate what has become common place for

 me (although a fellow missionary reminded me to make the effort) and Two: because I am still in the 'blah's' and I really don't want my blog entries to time and again to be about that.  But that is where I am and this blog is to share the truth that I am experiencing.  So about two weeks ago I decided I needed to get out of Bogotá for my sanity and was making plans to go to Medellin for a week.  The sunday before last I asked the Bishop for a meeting and told him of my plans formedellin; his response, we'll talk, I would like you guys to go for one or two months.  I didn't pay much attention to this as I though

t well we can discuss the extended visit more when I return from my short visit.  Well thursday came and the meeting never happened.   The bishop was in and out of the office.  Thursday I talked to him over the phone and found out he didn't want me to go for this one week trip and to wait until it is a more extended visit. 

 It hurt to have to change my plans so drastically.   In one part it is my fault for making having such expectations for a visit without first approvals from the Bishop, but on the other hand, we just don't have anything at all to do in the 

office right now and I didn't see a reason why not.  This is defenitly a time to tune our communication. 

So instead I went to Faca to visit Father (Padre) Javier and his wife.  It turned out that it was a weekend get together with friends and family.  So there was a whole crew at the Faca house. 

It nice.  Unfortunately because this trip 

was so last minuet I failed to check if my camera battery was charged and yeap, I am sure you can guess, it was dead as a doornail ( where did that expression come from anyway?  reminds me of how wide the language barrier can be)  So that means there are no pictures on my part. These are the pictures I took from my first visit. The weekend was full of food, visiting neighbors and enjoying the beautiful freshness of the countryside.  Friday afternoon the whole crew came together to make a community pot of Ajiaco, a traditional colombian soup of mazorca (big white corn), chicken, potatoes (two or three varieties), some type of tuber who's name I can't recall, and a few other native plants.  It took hours to prepare and 

was amazing.  along with the soup we feasted on grilled sweet plantains and fire roasted pork ribs.  I was literally stuffed until 10 am the next morning.  That friday night those who still remained, a group of 10 or so, partied down with some good whiskey and dancing.  I got to teach some of them some dance moves.  I still take pleasure in the irony of a Gringa (girl from the States) teaching latin dance moves to native latinos.

 Saturday was slow and lazy, no need to do anything, except eat and walk around the beautiful countryside a bit.  Revisit the photos from Faca.  The people were kind and fed me well.  I hope I did my part to help out with the food and cleaning so that I didn't make a pest of myself. Sunday we came together for Padre Javier's Sermon at San Thomas, his church; which is litterally nextdoor to the house we were in.   I was stunned at the passion that man came out with, being that he didn't exactly prepare any sermon.  I was wondering how it would work out.  He has gotten to know the people of this farming community quite well and his language in his sermons hit at the heart of their lives.  Which is actually a more pure and direct interpretation of Scripture, being that the gospel was about the good Sheppard and many of them actually tend flocks.  That is what strikes my heart when I read scripture, how it is so intertwined with the earth and man-kinds tending and working the creation.  It makes me want to sink my hands into the rich soil their to get closer to God and to be present with His love. 

 I stayed with Javier and Claudia Suday night and Javier dropped me off at the apartment at 545 am as he went to work.  Needless to say I went back to bed for a couple of hours.  Audra and I went to my fav. coffee shop and ended

 up talking for two solid hours.  We missed a lot of our talk time in the three days I was away.  I realized that I returned from this trip not rejuvenated like I was sincerly hoping for.  Audra noted that as well.  But, I will go on.

  Truthfully I walked away more refreshed from our coffee-talk.  I do love colombia and my time here, but the bright-

spot is the friendship that Audra and I have been building.  It is a precious gift to come away from any experience with such an encounter.  

Amidst the talk with the Bishop about going to Medellin for more than a week I realized how much I am coming to love the children we work with.  It actually brought tears to my eyes to think of leaving them for so long.  They are begining to really respond to the more structured time schedule.  Wednesday Dylan, although still his bing-bongy self, was much better behaved.  Unfortunately I didn't get to see if it would last since he and his sister left even before we went outside to play.  It is so nice to be with them.  They smile at us with genuine affection.  I love their hugs and their calls to co

me play with them.  

Although I still am a bit in the blahs, I am having lovely experiences and I am confident that personal/ internal struggles are the growing pains of God's grace of transformation.  

Peace