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.