Cali, Colombia

Friday we left Maria's farm and drove to Cali. We met the pastor Diago and his wife Claudia, they're awesome, they're blessing and serving us so much. We're staying in a missionary retreat house up the mountain outside Cali, they Church has really blessed us with providing us with free food and accommodation, we have our own beds, a pool, big hanging out area, we love it!

Maria cooking for us

Sunday the 15th we led the two church services at Pastor Diago's church which involved 5 hours of solid ministering, so much anointing and people were so blessed, it was a great day. Ministry during the week has included visiting a woman's prison, a drug rehab centre, prostitutes, church services, a business person's meeting and a school assembly.  I've loved being more settled here as I've been able to go running through the mountains, I've rested and I've been able to put more time and effort into learning Spanish. What has really helped is Maria Clara, who runs the house where we're staying, is speaking Spanish with me. We have a lot of fun as I practice new words and phrases I learn with her. 

Something which is really important in Cali is the ministry of Julio and Ruth Ruibal. They were involved some wild Revival across South America in the 1970s. In 1976 (I think!) they moved to Cali during the time when the city was been heavily controlled by the drug lords. It was a time when it was hardly safe to even walk down the streets in the city for fear of being caught in a drug related crossfire. Julio was instrumental in uniting the churches in the city to pray against the violence in the city. This was very successful and today the city is much safer with the drug cartels being broken down. Julio was martyred for his faith and work in bringing peace to the city in 1995. On Wednesday the 18th Ruth, his widow, and Sarah, his youngest of two daughters came to share with us. What an amazing time we had with them, Ruth is one impressive lady. In the evening we ministered at her church which was so anointed and special. It's called Rey de Reyes (King of Kings) and it's outside this same property that Julio was shot 16 years ago. We prophesied over the church, prayed for them, a man was healed of a broken wrist, is was awesome. The church have started a christian school which Ruth invited us to come and share at on the Friday.

Rey de Reyes Church

That Friday was a definite highlight of ministry for me, it started with a few of us going to minister at a business breakfast meeting first thing in the morning. This was my first time of sharing my testimony in front of people so big day for me! It was a great morning and people were really touched. Many people came forward for prayer and gave their lives. Afterwards they blessed us with a yummy breakfast of rice, plantain, beef and vegetables. Oh, and coffee of course! From here we went to minister at Ruth's school which was very different but just as special. I again shared my testimony with the kids and then we prayed for them. The kids were so cute, some of the girls came up afterwards and shyly asked for a hug! The younger ones who were more shy just waved from the other side of the hall. It was so special hanging out with Ruth afterwards, what an inspiring lady. I've met few people who motivate me as much as she has.

Ruth Ruibal and I

Thursday was also an awesome day where we took a bus 4 hours to an indigenous village Guambia. This is a closed village which doesn't allow visitors in very often. We however were invited by David, who was the village mayor last year, as he is a friend of Ruth Ruibal's. I don't think I'd ever been as honoured by people as I was by this village. We arrived to be part of a meeting in the church where they introduced themselves to us and we worshipped God together.

Pastor Diago ministering

Isn't this little girl just too cute!

See, technology exists even if rural back of beyond villages...

We then had breakfast, a traditional Quinoa drink which was like an oatmeal drink. We then had a meeting where they told us about the history of the village and how they'd been persecuted for their faith in Jesus. Lunch was then served, potatoes, rice and fish. An entire trout, including head and eyes.

Brent eating the trout

After lunch we were taken through the mountain village where we saw David's trout farm, it was so beautiful. Those of us on the team from far away countries were given gifts: the boys were given ponchos, i was given a small purse for coins plus a beautiful necklace which signifies that I am single!

Three old men sitting on the balcony enjoying Quinoa

Over the weekend and the last few days we've been working on our cars which really need a lot of help before we head to Equador. We also went to another of Maria's family farms an hour and half outside of Cali for a traditional Colombian party. It was a lot of fun, we had a salsa competition plus braaied a pig which had been slaughtered for us. A great 24 hours of them totally blessing us. The plan is now to get our cars and ourselves organised and ready for the drive to the border on Wednesday (the 25th) so we can cross into Equador on Thursday.

Susy  fixing the pop-up home

Alcala, Colombia

We left Anolaima on Sunday 8th Jan to drive towards Armenia on route to Cali where we met up with more of our Colombian friends, David, Carlos and Maria. After a really long day of driving we arrived after dark at one of Maria's family farms outside the town of Alcala. It is a really beautiful farm up in the mountains of Colombia. Her family really blessed us with making us so welcome in their home, it was a great few days of rest for us.

View through the farmlands

Monday was a quiet day for me as I sick with a migraine, Tuesday was more fun as we went to Parque del Cafe to to see some Colombia coffee plantations. It was more of an amusement park with rides and shows etc but it was so beautiful and I learnt about coffee so that's good.

View through Parque del Cafe

Having fun in the garden with Rose, Caitlyn and Kimmie

Wednesday included 3 hours of grocery shopping in the town of Alcala. It took so long as the town only has small stores so shopping for such a large group of people required me clearing out more than one store. Oh, and of course we had to take into account the supermarket being closed over lunch... The afternoon was fun with me learning to shoot a bow and arrow, courtesy of one of the guys on our team. It was a lot of fun, even if I did feel horrible when I lost one of his arrows... I did get better after that :)

Thursday was a cultural day where we drove to the small town of Salento where we had a traditional lunch and then went horse riding. It was so beautiful riding through the mountains, pretty eventful as my horse and the horse in front of me didn't get on so the horse in front kept kicking me and my horse. After about the fifth time his leg got caught in my horse's reins so that was a bit traumatic as the horse hand had to quickly come round to cut the rope. Both horses were fine :)

The beautiful countryside around Salento

Anolaima, Colombia

Thursday we left Bogota for the town of Anolaima which is a mountain village about 3 hours from Bogota. Here we have spent 3 nights staying in a farm house. We have been hosted by a local church who have been so amazing to us. We've had a great balance of ministry and rest here. Thursday night was a wonderful evening of ministering at a youth service at the church. Less exciting was me walking almost straight into a Tarantula spider right outside the front door of our house. A bit intense and yes I did scream like a girl!!!

THE Tarantula!

Friday morning was I think one of my best days of ministry. A group of us went to minister at an old age home. This is quite challenging and stretches many of us out of our comfort zones. But off we went. I had the most fun I've had in a long time. Old people are so funny!! We started by sitting and talking to some of them while they were having breakfast. We then walked through the whole home to make sure we spoke to and loved each person. We talked to them, prayed for them, hugged them, just loved them. It's challenging because I don't speak Spanish well, I have a South African accent (even English speaking Americans struggle with my accent!) and many people here in Latin America generally learn American English with an American accent, I'm sick with a cold so my voice is a challenge, these old people speak local village Spanish which is a dialect that totally loses me, they don't speak clearly (I need all the help I can get when people speak Spanish to me!!), many of them are missing teeth which doesn't aid to them speaking clearly, oh, and most of them are hard of hearing if not full on deaf so even if they understood me they'd still struggle to hear me!!! But we still had the most fun ever not understanding each other all the time!

Susy and Alejandra loving Carmen

Some of them just giggled at nearly everything I said, one old man was hilarious, he told me about how he didn't like being there, he'd been there 20 months, they didn't feed him enough or give him enough water. He then reached into the pocket of his cardigan to pull out a handful of pills to show me how he doesn't take his medicine - he even demonstrated how he pretends to take them but then puts them in his pocket! Another man Jaime was great, so fun to hang out with, Carmen was a dear old lady who told us she would love to offer us a cup of coffee (she must've been remembering when she had her own home, she must've been so hospitable), life is also tough in a home, one lady had a massive gash in her shin which was caused by a wheel chair crashing into her. Another lady, Col???? made us laugh by saying my water bottle (which is attached to my bag) looked like it was my sneaky alcohol bottle!!

Sitting in the doorway watching the world go by

After the home we went to pray for the healing of Lucia. This was so sad. This beautiful old lady has consecrated her whole life to preaching the gospel in and around this village. She'd spent 35 years walking the hills preaching the gospel, until five and a half years ago when she was attacked by a group of satanists (this area has quite a problem with satanism). Since then she has been really sick and has not been able to preach the gospel anymore. Now she is bedridden and alone. It was so heart wrenching. All we could do was sit with her awhile, listen to her story, love her and pray for her. After all she's dealing with and has had happen to her, it's so encouraging to see that her faith is still there, she continues to love Jesus and prays for us. 

In the evening we were part of the evening service at the church. It was good although long, 4.5 hours!! Lucky I'm used to long African services... ;) After we prayed for people at the end of the service, a highlight was hanging out with Santi (short for Santiago), a little chap only 5 years old. What a character. He loves singing, proved by the fact that he carries his microphone in his pocket! He was gracious enough to entertain us with a number of his top sings, he's really good, we could create a "Colombia's got talent" show just for him. 

The church in this town has been amazing with hosting us, providing us with all our meals, arranging ministry opportunities for us, and just being great to hang out with. 

Bogota, Colombia

Monday was the first of 3 great days of ministry in Bogota. In terms of land area, Bogota is the largest city in Colombia, and one of the largest in Latin America. It is one of the thirty largest cities in the world and it is the third highest capital city in South America (after La Paz and Quito) at 2,625m above sea level. It has become known as "The Athens of South America" because of its many universities and libraries. A more local name for the city is "The Freezer". This is what Colombians who live anywhere else in Colombia refer to Bogota as because it's so cold, it's the coldest part of the country. 

Bogota

We stayed in the mountain village of La Calera which is about 20min outside of Bogota. Monday we hiked up a mountain, Monserrate, which overlooks Bogota. There is a Catholic Church (built in the 17th Century) at the top of this mountain with a shrine, devoted to "El Senor Caido" (Fallen Lord). The mountain is a pilgrim's walk, as well as a tourist destination. It can be accessed by aerial tramway, a funicular or by climbing. Most of us walked, and suffered for it! Mostly because we're unfit (we spend many many hours in the car), but also because of the altitude. Bogota is at 2,625 metres (8,612ft) above sea level and Monserrate is at 3,152 metres (10,341ft). A bit of a shock to the system considering we've been at sea level for the last few months. 

The idea of climbing the mountain was to pray from a high place over the city, against the corruption, addiction, perversion, injustice etc. We also did some treasure hunting where we spoke to and prayed for individuals we met up the mountain who God pointed out to us. An awesome day.

Praying for Bogota and Colombia

Tuesday we were the hands and feet of some of what we prayed for on Monday when we went out and ministered to the prostitutes in the city. What an amazing yet also heartbreaking day loving these women. Some were so open to hearing from us and were so thankful for us praying over them, others were closed to us and we could see the spirits holding them back. We also ministered in a rehab centre for ladies coming off the street which was so powerful. One of the girls (Paula, only 16 years old) I prayed for gave her life to Jesus with us, we prayed and prophesied over her and broke many strongholds in her life. So amazing seeing a life transformed before our eyes. Another lady I prayed for her eyes were healed. I love physical healings to. On the way back after our ministry one of the local Colombian ladies from a church we were partnering with was healed of breast cancer after we prayed for her. Praise God!

Wednesday was a day of ministering at a men's drug rehab centre. I sat this one out as I was sick, but the reports back were great with the men from the centre being really touched. 

Sleeping in a tent when you're freezing cold is not fun :(

What was supposed to be an easy hour drive into Bogota to find the YWAM base for us to stay at or a place to stay at landed up being quite a crazy day. First of all we landed up driving closer to like 10 hours!!! We spent some time in the city trying to figure out what to do, the YWAM base turned out not to be such a great option (expensive and logistically challenging with no nearby parking amongst other things) so we decided to drive an hour outside the city to camp up the mountain. This proved to not be such a good idea as the place we'd found was more of a family farm rather than a campsite with not enough space for us. We had to do two extremely tight hairpin turns to get into the garden (particularly challenging when one is pulling a large trailor). We unfortunately ruined part of the family's grass trying to get our vehicles in, only to not stay there (just not big enough for us) so after all that we turned around and headed back down the mountain. 

We landed up camping in the courtyard of a restaurant. So NY for us was spaghetti bolognaise cooked in the campers, camping and enjoying watching the fireworks over the city. Some of the challenges for the day included Open Heaven (our really big camper van) driving into a horse buggy, driving into a parked car while getting out of the McDonald's parking lot (it can be really hard to maneuver a car this big in a city) and smashing it's large side window when it accidentally drove into a fence. It's a challenge having 4 such ridiculously large awkwardly long vehicles!!! Plus our pop up trailer finally broke (only one side winds up) so out with my tent...

Open Heaven's broken window...

Bogota is freezing. Warm during the day but freezing during the night. We all wore everything we owned for the evening which was ok, but the night was terrible, i was so cold I couldn't sleep, spent the whole night shivering thinking this sucks!!! It's kinda weird being sunburnt cos the sun is very intense during the day, but then the night is so cold. It's so beautiful staying up the mountain though as we look out over the city. Bogota is massive, we can see miles and miles of big buildings making up the city, but it's apparently only about 20% of the city, which has about 10 million people. Kind of interesting when I remember that the whole country of Belize only had about 330,000 people.

Sunday we drove a few metres down the road to have breakfast at a traditional restaurant. It was so amazing, having a team breakfast followed by team time praying for each other and discussing the next few days. Breakfast was yummy, finished off with a plantain leaf with salsa, guacamole and cheese. Yummy. The restaurant owners were so friendly and welcoming.

New Year's breakfast

Plantain leaf with salsa, guacamole and cheese

We have been so blessed to find an abandoned restaurant for rent/sale to sleep in. $5 a night and a roof over our heads. What more could we want! Unfortunately we have no showers, so we'll have to bucket bath, which is ok except that the water is freezing and it's super cold outside to. Oh well. I'm wondering how many days I can deal without being able to shower...

Bar/restaurant we stayed in

Sleeping around the central bar

Sunday we were blessed with an amazing meal at the restaurant for half the normal price. Cherry and lemon juice, and a hot plate of 4 pieces of different meat (chicken, steak, pork and a sausage), jacket potato with sour cream and roasted vegetables. All this for only $5. Oh my goodness, these people are just too lovely to us. We'll be staying here for 4 nights before we head towards the town of Cali. It's great to be camping in one spot as we finally have the time now to do some ministry.

The journey to Bogota

Thursday we got up at 4:15am to leave at 5:30am to head to Bogota. Reason we left so early is a) Bogota is very far, and b) the traffic in Cartagena is crazy. We would never have been able to get into the traffic with all our oversized cars, plus driving through the city even at that time of the morning was intense. It was a good although long (13 hours) and hot day of driving. We were so incredibly blessed with an amazing place to stay the night. Around 6pm, when we were all exhausted and hungry, we got caught in a traffic jam and didn't move for nearly an hour. We then found a gas station where we enquired to camp. Most of us didn't have a good feeling about it so we were so relieved when 10min down the road we were able stay at a mom and pop hotel (Platito Hotel) for super cheap, plus a great homecooked meal for cheap to. A roof over our heads, a good meal and a shower. Thank you Jesus. It was still a tough night as I was sleeping on the floor between the door and at the bottom of one of the two beds. So between feet hanging over the edge of the bed in my face, a hot night without AC, ants crawling over me and turning over only to whack my head against the door  it wasn't the best night's sleep but anyway :)

Driving...

Friday was another 13 hour drive on towards to Bogota. Thankfully another day of almost car trouble free driving, except for the last hour or two when we hit the mountains and discovered our small camper (New WIne) was leaking gas. Our car was driving behind them so we could keep an eye on them. It was quite amusing seeing Kurt hanging out the back to open the door (they didn't want the leaking gas to be trapped in the confined space of the car). Through most of the mountains and we spent the night at La Vega. All accommodation in the area was completely booked as it was NY weekend so many people who live in Bogota were taking a few days holiday and going an hour outside the city for a couple of days. We managed to camp in the parking lot of a resort. It was really nice, we wished we were in the bungalow cabins! But it was good camping to. 

Saturday started with traditional breakfast at the restaurant which was pretty interesting. An oily broth soup with a piece of meat and potato. A croissant, scrambled eggs and and a fritter type thing. Oh, and hot chocolate. Yummy but where's the coffee?? 

Colombia, finally!!!

Christmas Eve involved flying from Panama City (finally!) to Cartagena, Colombia to meet up with the rest of the team at the YWAM base there. It was great to meet up with the team although it was a bit overwhelming being with so many people again, I'd got used to just living with 3 other people!

Christmas morning began with pancakes, followed by a team family time of worship and praying for each other. During the week preceding Christmas we'd written words of encouragement, affirmation etc for each other which we read out during this family time. It was good for us to hear these things. 

Monday a group of us took a boat to do ministry at Bocachita Island, about half an hour away. The good news is that I didn't get seasick (!), although I can't really boast too much as we didn't leave the bay so we didn't really go to the sea actually, but still! The bad news is i got heat stroke. Seriously, Cartagena is really hot. It really sucked being so sick. Luckily I was able to go back to the YWAM base on the island where I could lie down for a few hours while the rest of our group had lunch and ministered more. The ministry I was part of was really good, going door to door sharing God's love and praying for people. The island was interesting, loud music plays all the time, lots of street parties with beer, loud music and dancing outside. 

Tuesday was a quiet day for me spent mostly in bed recovering from the previous days heat stroke. A massive highlight was getting our cars back that night. All intact with nothing stolen or vandalised, praise God. We only unpacked them on Wednesday though. We were so happy to get the rest of our stuff - we'd all been living out of daypack of stuff for the last 2 weeks so we all really needed a change of clothes, among other things!

So after about 3 weeks of paperwork getting the cars shipped, waiting for them to be shipped, then 3 days of paperwork to get them back, we finally had them and were able to get going on the rest of our trip. It's been quite a challenge not having our own transport or all our stuff. Not to mention how challenging it's been organising our time as we haven't known how long we'll be anywhere, when we'd get to the next place etc. It's been a time of patience and of just being okay with being with where we are. Sometimes it was challenging feeling like we weren't doing enough, ministry etc wise, but I've also learnt that when you drive through and from one continent to another there will by necesity be a lot of admin time required. And for us over the last few weeks it's involved getting our vehicles and ourselves to Colombia, not to mention made more difficult by us doing it all the week before Christmas!!

Colombians are really friendly lovely people, I'm really enjoying the country and the people. Even if I've had only one good (at a push!) cup of coffee!  The countryside is beautiful. Colombian Spanish is really hard to understand. Lucky for us we've had a few Colombians join us so that's really helping, they're being amazing with translating and helping organise stuff for us. An interesting thing is as we've driven we've seen many many stuffed dolls (kind of like scarecrows) next to the road. Some of them are really lifelike. They are filled with firecrackers and burnt on New Years Eve to represent all the ugly things from that year to show that the old things have passed away and a new year is now upon you.