We flew to Bogota, Colombia, on Saturday evening, June 17. We checked in to the hotel and met the team of six from Copper Springs church, Fresno, and Steve and Pam Kern. We worked with them on Sunday and Monday. The team of six from Abundant Life, Lee's Summit, Missouri, arrived late Monday evening and began working with us on Tuesday morning.
As usual, we loved seeing our friends at church and worshipping with the Guadron and Hernandez families. After church we went to the Gran Estacion mall for lunch. Instead of an evening campaign, we went to the park in Usaquen, a tourist area about 25 minutes from the church. We were able to share one-on-one until it began to rain.
Monday was a holiday in Colombia, so we went to Parque Bolivar and shared the gospel with people all over the park.
Juntos Together started tonight. It is a combination mission trip/mission's conference. A team of 8 came from The Bridge Church in Fresno and another 33 came from Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield. These teams join with the youth of Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva to learn and serve.
We started the week with orientation this afternoon, followed by the first night of the conference. The theme for the week is "Stand Firm/Se Firme." The theme song for the week is Fix My Eyes by Kings Kaleidoscope. Click here to hear the song.
It was a long, but productive week and amazingly the rain held off. In fact, it's been very hot, humid and dry--quite an uncomfortable combination.
However, the harvest this week was anything but dry--more than 750 people made professions of faith this week--most of them were high school students who heard the gospel presented in their classrooms.
We said goodbye to the team tonight after the final campaign. It's always bittersweet when it's time for them to return home.
We started a campaign on Saturday evening with a small group of 11 from Fresno and 2 regulars from Bakersfield. Although the sky looked very threatening, the evening was going fine until half way through the movie when it started to sprinkle. We stopped the movie, Pastor Steve preached a quick message, the team counseled those who made decisions and we left before the rain turned into a downpour. Since that night, we haven't seen anymore rain!
I celebrated my birthday on Sunday (not admitting to the "number) with church in the morning, lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant and a campaign on Sunday night.
Here are a couple of pictures of from the week so far:
