All's quiet on the Colombian front

It has, in fact, been a quiet spell these last 3 days. Most of my time has been spent in the office. Most of our regular groups are on vacation right now, so we are planning and preparing for the upcoming 'Campamiento' in July. It is the big event of the summer, and is the same thing that I came down here for last summer. It was a great week then, and I think this year may be better. They have changed some of the things we will do, it sounds like a lot of fun and very deep spiritually too.

We spent most of this afternoon practicing a skit we plan to do during the camp. It is something Francisco found on Youtube, a very powerful skit I think. If you want to see it, here is the URL http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=9_M0H5nrY8E

Today I met another American here. He is a businessman from Atlanta who is loosely connected to Chick fil-A through personal friendships. Anyway, he is in real estate and is working with Jesus Ortiz on a plan for a shopping center here in Bogota. He and his wife have an apartment here, as she is apparently Colombian. He seems very nice and as hospitable as any Colombian. I think he is going to invite me over this weekend, and he already did invite me to his place for a 4th of July celebration!

Tonight I met another guy who speaks English pretty well, too. He is a young Colombian and studied English in high school. He works in a little shop that sells logic games and puzzles and other things like that. He and his friend who worked with him were both really friendly. The non-English speaking guy, Rafa, and I even played a game of chess. I think I will meet up with them again in the future sometime. They were cool people. :)

Well, that's all for now folks-

In Truth,
Stephen

Praises go where they belong!

Friday was a busy day. We had two events, one of which was a huge opportunity. God must have been at work, because we were able to share with a group of about 500 people for 3 hours. This is how it went down...

Apparently this school has a 'family day' every year at the end of the school year. In the past they have had fun events, dances, etc. Well, the people with power have been impressed by what Operation Reconciliation is doing, it seems. So, they decided to have a seminar for all the student's families for their family day event. We had activities and experiential learning events, testimonies, teaching, etc. I think the day went well, people seemed to react positively. The main focus of the day was on character and family communication, stuff like that. It is so hard because there are so many broken homes here. Even if a parent wants to spend time with their child, they often have to work all the time just to provide food and housing. There are a couple pictures here from the event...










































































Today I spent some time riding my bicycle around the city. Every Sunday here, they shut down 5 or 6 of the main city streets to cars. Only bicycles and pedestrian traffic is allowed. It is possible to go all over the city this way, without having to ride in traffic. This place is HUGE! I rode for several hours and when I looked at the map later, the area I rode around was only about 1/3 of the city. Well, it was enough to tire me out, anyhowsers. A couple not very artistic shots of the city streets are below, finishing out this very short post. I don't think this post is even long enough to build a fence with...


























Vendors selling anything from fruit juice to bicycle parts line the streets in places during the Sunday rides








In Truth
Stephen

A sandwich of learning...with the police in the middle!

I have a secret to share. I discovered this over the last couple days, and since you have likely never thought of it, I wanted you to be the first to know: God is smarter than me.

OK, but seriously-He is. The last couple days have been interesting and I definitely had a reminder that I always need to seek God and His direction. Monday we had a meeting with a group at the Bella Vista school--that is the same one we went to last Monday. We were talking about sexuality again, but to a different group of students. Well, it was rough. I felt like I wasn’t ready and the kids didn’t want to listen…you know. Anyway, God is faithful. He wasn’t angry that I hadn’t even thought to ask Him for help before the presentation...(stupid of me). You know how you feel after you do something that felt like a failure? Well, Satan likes to get me in those times :) I don’t want to over-spiritualize the whole thing, but I do think it is part of that guy’s job description to try to debilitate and condemn us. Anyhow, God would have none of it. He reminded me that it is not really up to me or about what I do anyway. Ultimately, it is He who will work in people’s hearts. Whether I feel that a day was successful or not, whether I think anyone listened, or think that ‘I’ did well is less relevant than simply doing my best. It is the Holy Spirit who will follow up on our work. That makes me feel a lot better about stuff when things don’t go “as planned” or whatever.

God did lead with some specific ideas, though; several changes we needed to make to improve situational attention maintenance and positive cerebral focus abilities among the students. Oh…sorry, that was the communications student part of me getting out of control there :) To make a short story shorter, we busted out our sweet new moves during the meeting today, and it went much better, praise the Lord.

Yesterday, in between learning all this, I went to the Colombian National Police Academy. Jesus Ortiz, the Operation Reconciliation founder is also involved with another group, which, although apparently started in the U.S. I had never heard of before. It is called “La Red, Business Network” and is a Christian leadership consulting and training organization. Well, they have contracts with the police, army, navy, and air force here, and are growing programs within their officer training programs. It is pretty awesome, I got to sit in on a couple of the sessions and meet another man, Juan Carlos, who works with Jesus in this. They also have programs operating in Guatemala and Mexico among court judges, military, teachers and police. I was impressed with the presentations they were doing, and plan to check out this organization once I get back in the states, it looks great. I took a couple pictures on the sly while in the Academy. I had a feeling that it wasn’t allowed, but, you know. Well, it was against the rules, as I found out quickly. I guess I was not as sly as I thought…

I would appreciate continued prayers for me and those here I am working with. Pray that we may stay close to God personally, and that the light of his glory may shine through us. Pray for the students we interact with, many so young and vulnerable, yet so mature in the ways of the world. Pray for clarity of mind as we present and discuss, for open hearts and minds. Our goal is to instill a vision in these young people that will drive them to strive for a better life, a true, eternal one. Sweet! Thanks for reading my rantings, have a good rest of your day…or night…or cup of coffee…or chicken sandwich…or whatever is up wid yu der…

The main walkway after the security gates at the Police Academy. he he...













A sunset+pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular traffic on the street in front of the office OR is based from. It is Calle 127 for those of you who want to look it up on google maps...in between Carrera 19 and Carrera 14? I think, the Autopista...
The bike path there is a part of the largest city bikeway system in the world, for those of you who care to know. Bogota has more bike path space than any other city, anywhere. So there, take that Oregon!










In Truth,
Stephen

I thought the weekends were for resting?

First, a quick note on the weather here. Or, more to the point, the sun. It rises at about 5 AM and sets at 5:30 PM, approximately. What this means for me, getting off work around 5 PM is that I have no daylight left. For some reason this makes it feel like I have worked from dawn til dusk... ... ... Well, I am used to still having a few hours of daylight left after 5 PM. Anyway, the point of all this is…

…After a long week with lots of work and crazy bus situations, it was Saturday. Consequently, I went for a bike ride. And wouldn’t you know it; the whole ride was a hill.

Now, thattsswwhaaat-I’mtalking about!!! Wait, what am I talking about!?!?!?

Essentially, there is this hill with a neighborhood on it. The road goes all the way up and around a bit until it gets to the top. Makes sense to me, so I decide to ride it. It took me about 30-45 minutes to climb I think. Not too certain, since I was focused on other things than watching time…but it was definitely a slow ride up--but pretty sweet going down before I went up again. Nice curves at high speeds, you know. Can’t beat that!

Anyway, for those 4 of you who actually care about this stuff, I tried to figure out the grade of the hill. After all the conversions from kilometers and other mind bending logic-er, math- I think it was about a 1000 foot elevation increase over 1.5 miles, about a 12% grade. The elevation at the bottom was around 8500 ft, so the top would have been 9500-ish. The view was pretty awesome, though it was cloudy. The pictures below should speak another 4 thousand or so words, leaving you with a pretty good impression of the area...

This is the view from the house of Jesus Ortiz, the Operation Reconciliation founder. His house is on the right.








The view into the valley from part way up the climb.














The brick road that winds up the mountain. You can see a strip of it below as well.























This is from the top. It was pretty sweet, looking down on this neighborhood from up there, thinking about all those poor people who had not just had as fun as I had!









Sweet!

In Truth,
Stephen

This Week Behind Me

One thing is for sure. Life here is different. But good. Though in different ways. Obviously. So, in what ways is it different, you ask? What have I been doing, you ask? Well, it’s a long story, I respond. It’s ok, I’ve got time, says you. And so it begins…

I have now met with all the groups Operation Reconciliation works with on a regular basis. One is a group of about 25 school teachers, one contains 15-ish high school students, and the third consists of 10 unwed mothers from a teenage mother’s home here. The way that Operation Reconciliation (OR) works is to go to the sight of a group once per week for a meeting. There is a small amount of curriculum in the form of handouts and exercises/homework. They go through a series of character traits, one per week, which are important to a whole and successful life. Each group has the same trait each week, though the discussions are obviously different because of the different personalities in the groups.

I am learning a lot about how they do things here, and it is pretty encouraging. Even though this country is, in many ways more morally loose than the U.S. we are still able to go into public schools here and teach about character and at least a little about God. We still have to be a bit careful about religion, but there is a lot of freedom. Identity was last week’s character trait, and Humility was this week’s. Teaching about identity focused on who we are created to be by God, learning to find our purpose and meaning in life in Him as our maker. The direction for discussing humility has been to show that we all have things we need help with. We can’t live alone or be perfect. We need to humble ourselves and confess our sins or problems to others, to get help to overcome. I have been encouraged by how open the people here are, willing to share and be open about their struggles.

I think I am beginning to understand how the buses work here. Of course, now that I say that I will likely get lost again tomorrow, but still. However, if I may put it delicately, everything I now know I learned the hard way. What I mean by this is that I have been lost in the city because of taking the wrong bus; I have had to walk and had to take a taxi twice because I didn’t know what bus to take… Even when using the Transmillennial, supposedly simple, I have been late for a meeting because I didn’t realize that the bus I needed didn’t start operating until an hour later. Oops. Oh well, every day I keep learning more about the buses here, so by the time I leave I should have figured out how to get a ride to the moon. I will be sure to bring you back a piece of cheese as a souvenir, don’t worry.

Or, you could just come with me. I am sure we can fit at least 60 people in a 20 seat bus! That is about how it feels during the busy times here, you wave down a bus, and step onto the bottom step to get in as the bus takes off. Holding on for dear life to the handrail, you realize that you can’t even get far enough into the bus to pay the driver. You cannot, in fact move any farther than the first step. Every seat is full and the two foot wide isle is packed. You look anxiously at the back of the bus, hoping that it has a back exit door. No such luck. That means that every person in the bus has to go past you to get out. A couple people finally do get off, giving you a spot to move to, or else a couple more get on, forcing you in between that suited businessman with the earbuds and the old lady with the shopping bag. You can’t move. The handrail on the ceiling is pretty useless since even the jerky stars and stops can’t knock you down-you are too tightly entrenched between other passengers. Each time someone needs to get off the bus, they push you into the face of the mother with her baby sitting in the seat beside you as they go by. There is only room for two people beside each other in the aisle, but there are already three and this other one is passing you one way or the other. Add to that picture the necessity of figuring out where exactly you need to get off, and you have a fair idea of what it is like to ride the bus here. Lots of fun!

When I can I prefer to commute on the bicycle I am borrowing, which is another experience in itself. I will not go into any detail right now, but let’s just say that Chris Shute and I would be extremely cautious and sedate drivers here!

One huge difference here that would have killed me is the job situation. It is extremely rare for a high school student to have a job, something I had a lot of and enjoyed immensely. In fact, most college students don’t either, and many adults have trouble finding work. Jobs are rare here, and there are lots of things people do on their own to make money. I am always seeing something new that some guy has thought up to get tips. Of course, there are at just about every intersection a couple people selling snacks or newspapers, but there are lots of other options. In most grocery stores the “baggers” aren’t employed by the store. They bag groceries and often carry them to the car, earning only tips. On busy streets where parking is scarce a man will often stand all day and help stop traffic and direct a driver in and out of a small parking space. Again, all he earns are the tips. Some of the most creative I’ve seen yet are the men who get tips from bus drivers. They will stand for hours on a street corner with a notebook. They record times of when different buses pass them. Then, as a bus passes they will give the driver hand signals to tell him how far apart he is from the other bus(es) belonging to his company. I guess they care about knowing this, for whenever a bus stops near where the timer guy is working he will hop on for a second and the bus driver gives him a little money. Crazy times.

This week will be busy. We have all our regular groups, but we are also going to two new ones. They are at the same school where we went last Monday. We have two groups of 20 students to discuss sexual freedom. I would appreciate prayers for these times especially, as I am doing most of the talking. It is a bit difficult to talk about this topic to begin with and I am trying to do it is Spanish which makes it even harder. Pray for my vocabulary, for the student’s comprehension, and most of all for receptive hearts. This is such an important topic for this culture, where things like masturbation and pornography are common and things like virginity are rare. We really want to impress on these young people that they were made for a purpose and it is so much higher and better than what they see in the movies. Pray that they will have the courage to stand up and be different.

I would covet prayer for my relationship with God, too. For those of you who read the first blog entry, you may remember that I tend to get distracted by new surroundings. I have some goals for my walk with God, but need to follow through and make sure they happen. It is super important that I stay close to Him so my light can shine brighter.

This is the front of the school where we went last week. It, along with most buildings here, has a fence and a gate with a guard.














A few of the kids in the group















This is during an activity we did. The guy in the red t-shirt is Francisco, the main man in most of the stuff we do here















It was pretty weird getting mobbed by a bunch of elementary schoolers at this other school. I guess I do stand out a bit here, huh? Behind me is my best friend here, Hugo Fernando. He is pretty awesome and has taught me a lot about the culture.

Just a quick post with a few pictures. This first is the front of my apartment building--notice the name on the front!!




























Unfortunately, this is the view out my back window...
















These next two are from the weekend trip last weekend when I was out of the city...















This is definitely one of my favorite pictures I have taken. Ever. In my life. For serious.


Bye-

Que he hecho?

Wow, a lot has happened since my last post.

First, a quick summary of the weekend. We went to this place, did some stuff and came back.

Next:

But for serious, not a lot of exciting things happened during our time at the vacation house. We spent time planning a bit and relaxing a lot. I did get to try several different typical Colombian dishes over the course of the trip. One interesting one is called Sancocho. It is a soup which consists of a flavorful thin broth containing a huge chunk of potato, a huge chunk of plantain, a huge chunk of yucca root, and a huge chunk of beef. I will leave it to you to figure out how much of it you think I ate. The weekend was also a good time to get to begin to accustom myself to not being able to understand what was going on around me. Really though, it is hard work listening! I cannot understand things the way I can in English, I have to focus hard and I still only catch on to the gist of what is going on at times. Tan pobre yo! Anyway, on to what happened today...


Every Monday the OR staff (all 4 of them) meet to discuss how the last week went and make plans for the current one. That was this morning at 8 AM. I began to get a feel for the groups they work with on a regular basis. Right now they have three regulars: one group of students, one group of teachers and one group of pregnant girls and unwed mothers. This afternoon 3 of the other OR staff and I went to a school here in the city. We were scheduled to do a one-time workshop with a small group of their students. We had 16 from the 7th-9th grades. The ideas we brought them were focused on purity and dealing with sexual temptations as creatures created by God for a purpose. We got to use some experiential learning type activities and I was given the privilege of entertaining the students with my Spanish skills by giving the main message we had to share. We got to break up into male/female groups afterward to discuss temptations and responses to them in more detail. Thankfully, Fransisco took over at this point and did most of the facilitation of the small group conversation. I would have been like a white (very white), bike ridin' (very fast), chicken sellin'(My Pleasure!), home teached (very splendificultly), gringo kid out of water if I had tried to do that part. Wait...

...
...
Maybe I should just have said a fish out of water...

Anyway, I was surprised at how quickly some of the guys opened up and talked about the things they are going through. It was very encouraging and they seemed sincere in their desire to live pure lives. My main concern is that they need someone to keep them on track and lead them on a continual basis. However, we may have a chance to figure out a way for that to happen, since before we left, we were asked to come back next week. They lined up two or three mornings for us to go have similar conversations with other groups of youth at the school. Please pray for the students at this school, there are around 400 of them. It is one of the few free schools here, as even most public schooling costs at least a small amount. That means these children are from very poor and often broken homes. Our hope is to be able to influence the whole school by taking groups of 12-15 students from each classroom (of 40 students) to go through this workshop. Please pray that we will be able to set up a method for continued influence, that any who want to may have a system of support to help them make good choices for their lives. Please also pray that the students who we are able to talk with will feel confident and share these ideas with their classmates.

During our travel to the school I got to ride on the main bus system here, the Transmillenial. It is the backbone of the immense bus transportation here in the city. As many of you no doubt know, buses down here are very different from the nonexistent ones in the U.S. The main difference is that they exist. I think there are more public transport buses in this one city than in all of the U.S. There are hundreds or more local ones; Then if you go to the edge of the city, there are scores more bound for various outlying cities or villages. I would guess that about 10% of the vehicles on the road are buses, making up a much greater percentage of actual travelers. Another 60% or so are cars, and the remaining 30% are motorcycles and bicycles. I am just making up all these numbers, so don't quote me or anything, but seriously, there are a lot of buses and two wheeled vehicles here. I do think my percentages are pretty accurate. Well, more local traffic news later, officer Don is now off duty.



This is a pretty typical motorcycle for around here. They usually have somewhere in the are of 100-125 cc engines. For anyone who needs a comparison, a 500 cc engine is kind of small in the states.









Signing out__
In Truth
Stephen

Here are a few pictures in my apartment in Bogota.
This one at the top is obviously my little kitchen...

This is one side of the living room/dining room area.
















This is the other angle, the dining area, with the bicycle I mentioned in my last post. I haven't used it yet, but I feel it will serve me well.













Just for kicks, this is a picture of the "bottled" water I bought the other night. It is cheaper to purchase it in bags. This bag cost 1300 pesos, or about 85 cents.





Well, more photos later. Let me quickly explain a bit about the people I am connected with here so I can use names to refer to them. The founder and director of the organization I am here with is named Jesus Ortiz. His wife is Marcela, and they have three children: Edwardo, Sara, and Camila. I am staying now with them and Marcela's sister, Sandra at their summer house in Girardot, a smallish city about a 3 hour drive from Bogota. We will be here until Sunday afternoon. Marcela and Edwardo are recovering from a bad cold (the whole family has been sick recently) and Jesus and I have been talking about plans for the summer.

He is a man of great ideas and feels called to a great work with the youth here. I am excited about what I can learn while here, for certain. I can see that he will allow, and even expect, me to jump right in and help with the work they are doing. That will be a great experience for me, though stretching. I have been working for a few hours on plans for a one-week camp we will be having in July. It is the same one I came down here for last summer, though it will be very different this year. Well, I had better sign off here, there is no internet in their house here, so I am in the clubhouse of the condo complex. I think it is time to head back to the house, so I will say goodbye until..."The opportune time". Dum ...dum...dum...

I'm gonna shock your culture!

First day down, 61.39 days left to go! Sweet!

Anyway, Bogota is a huge city. I think I have decided to simply do a bicycle tour from one end of the city to the other instead of cycling across the U.S. It will be longer. They do have a pretty organized system for their roads though. It is really easy to understand-at least that's what they keep telling me! Let's put it this way: I thought I got away from the New Jersey traffic regulations about left hand turns...but they are the same here too-except they are now is Spanish and full color.

Moving on, I spent the majority of the day today planning for next Monday, which will be the first day I actually start working with any of the youth here. We huddled up and made a game plan in the heavenly language. I understood at least 73% of what was going on, I promise.

I didn't mention my apartment yet, but it is very nice. It is small but comfortable and fully furnished. I found out today what I hadn't been told before, which is that this isn't just an apartment they lined up for me to rent, I am actually living in the apartment of one of the relatives of the family I had contact with before I came. This came as a bit of a surprise to me today, talk about hospitality! She is unmarried, and simply moved in with her sister for two months while I am here. It is full of decorative little knickknacks and things which I wondered about before I knew this detail.

As I mentioned before the people here know hospitality to the nth degree. They keep buying me food and are very nice. It has definitely been great to see the friends I made last summer on my one week trip, and to make new ones too. Obviously the apartment is one huge example of hospitality, and I had merely to mention an interest in buying a cheap bicycle to commute during my stay before someone had her sister calling her brother and found me a bike to use. It isn't quite a speedy road demon or anything, but is likely better for commuting around here. It is simply a basic mountain bike, and a girl's at that. If I can figure out how to post some pics I will let you all see it for those of you who either care about bikes in general or simply want to laugh at me for riding a girl's bike. However, Chris and Cody, I bet I could still smoke you guys on a climb with these sweet wheels!

Well, apparently I will be going somewhere away from the city for the "weekend" with the Ortiz family. I put quotation marks around the word weekend because the trip starts tomorrow, on Thursday. The way I am used to working, I would have called that half a week, but hey-I'll take what I can get. I just hate to think of those of you working at CFA slaving away in that double drive-thru while I get to see the countryside in Colombia for a whole weekend! All I can say is, Eat More Chicken!!

With the trip these next few days, I don't know whether I will be able to update this til I get back, so hold your breaths for the next installment.

Living it Forward

I leave the country tomorrow. This will be my second trip overseas, and by far the longest. At 6:45 AM I go to spend 8 weeks in Colombia, South America. I am excited!

I will be working with a Colombian organization teaching leadership and character to high school students in Bogota, Colombia's capitol city. I hope to be able to update this blog every couple days so anyone interested can keep up with what I am doing. Your comments and notes will be greatly appreciated--I want to hear from you!

I ask up front for prayer for this trip. Obviously, safety is a huge concern, as Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in South America-if not the world. However, the main thing I ask for prayer for is that I will be able to maintain and deepen my relationship with God while there. New places and change often present challenges to me in remaining focused on God. I get distracted easily I guess.

The importance of the God-me relationship was driven home to me today as I was reading in Joshua about how the Israelites conquered the land of Canaan. Joshua actually asked God to stop the sun for them so they could finish a battle, and God did it. That is crazy! Well, here's the deal as I see it. Joshua knew what God wanted done. He had listened to God and heard his wishes. He asked God for something to fulfill God's command to conquer the land. I guess what I want to say is that I want to be in a position to know what God wants from me while I am in Colombia. Obviously this will require that I listen to Him. That is why I ask for your prayers during this trip, that I may seek Him daily even in a new setting.

Well, that's all for now, folks. I will let you know if I make it safely there tomorrow. :)

In Truth,
Stephen