Sunday in Bogota

The rest of the team arrived in Bogota after 10:00 p.m. Sunday evening, so we didn't wait up for them.  Instead we saw them at breakfast and then at orientation on Sunday morning.  It was great to see five people from Abundant Life, our home church.  They brought down two suitcases full of fabric, t-shirts and other things for the ministry in El Salvador.  Pastor David Guadron told everyone about the work in Bogota, handed out the schedule for the week and answered lots of questions.

The service started at 10:15 and, as usual, it's great to worship together.  Pastor David translated the message by Perry Safron, from Richland Creek Church in North Carolina.  (It's always a treat for us to hear a sermon in English.)

After church everyone had a quick lunch because the bus picked us up at 2:00 p.m.  One of the families in the church opened their home and set up their pool for baptism.  The weather was chilly and the water was fairly cool, but David and five others were obedient to follow Christ in baptism.

The family festival was hold in a park in the same neighborhood so we went straight from the baptism to knocking on doors.  We had a trampoline, popcorn and a dog show like last night.  There were 25 professions of faith with several whole families coming to Jesus.

Hayden is Here--Day 2

We walked to the hotel for the  9:00 a.m. service and Hayden ran into more friends from his last two mission trips--that boy is popular.  After the service, Hayden and I walked back to the apartment; we planned to go to the grocery store.  Unfortunately, we didn't realize that Stephen had the keys to the truck.  So, instead, we walked back to the hotel and waited for Stephen to finish playing for the 11:30 service and then ate lunch at Olive Garden.

We probably watched a baseball game in the afternoon; I don't really remember!  Then David and Maritza game by and we drove to Los Planes de Rendero to introduce Hayden to all th ings "corn."  He was a good sport and tried everything we put in front of him, although the crazy corn with mayo, mustard, black sauce and cheese was a little too much.

Later, Koky and Ena joined the five of us for pupusas at El Atico.  He definitely like the pupusas and the great view!  Of course, the company was outstanding, as well.  

Monday in Bogota

Monday, January 19, was our last day in Bogota.  We slept in until 8:00, said goodbye to Bayron as he headed off to work and enjoyed the breakfast that Teresa prepared.  After reorganizing our suitcases, Teresa, Marco and the two of us hailed a "large" taxi, which is nothing more than a car with a trunk.  Teresa and Bayron thought it would be very difficult to take our 3 pieces of luggage on the bus on a workday.  

Pastor David invited us to join their family for lunch at their apartment.  Pastor Alex and his family and Mike Buss, one of the Valley Baptist team, who was staying an additional week to help with the follow-up, also joined us.  It was a great time of fellowship and an opportunity to debrief after the campaign.

We said goodbye to everyone about 2:00 p.m. and took a taxi to the airport.  The flight was smooth and the immigration line was short.  However, when waiting for our luggage, I was paged by an Avianca employee who told me that, for some unknown reason, my suitcase didn't make it on the plane.  After describing the suitcase and giving them the directions to our apartment, they promised it would be on the first flight out of Bogota on Tuesday.  If a piece of luggage is going to go missing, it's much better for it to happen on the way home, as there wasn't anything in the bag that I had to have.  They were true to their word--I had the suitcase in hand by 2:00 p.m.

We were blessed to be a part of the first trip to Bogota.  It was a beautiful city and we look forward to visiting again later this year.  We are excited about the 500+ persons who made professions of faith and for the follow-up and discipleship that have already started.

First two days in Bogota

I am more than a week behind on blog posts about the first ever campaign in Bogota.  We were busy, with limited downtime, so I used my Internet access to post pictures (each afternoon and evening) on Facebook.  Now that we're back in El Salvador, I am taking time to blog about the week.  Today's post is about the first two days.

As my previous post indicated, we arrived after 8:30 p.m. on Saturday evening so we didn't see anyone until Sunday morning breakfast.  There were teams from Valley Baptist in Bakersfield, CA, and Cooper Springs Baptist in Fresno, CA.  There were five more from three other churches in Missouri and Louisiana.  

The team had orientation with Pastor Steve Kern from El Salvador and Pastor David Guadron from Colombia before the service on Sunday morning.  As you might imagine, it was unlike most of our orientations which focus on "how things work."  This orientation was more about how we don't know what "things will work" in Bogota because this was the first time for everything.  The schedule for the week included a little bit of everything:  family festivals, a one-night conference, a visit to a senior citizens' home, a visit to an orphanage and one-on-one sharing on the street.  

Pastor David (and family) and Pastor Alex (and family) arrived in Bogota at the beginning of September so the work is very new.  With more than twenty gringos and about eight of us from El Salvador, the service on Sunday morning was full.  

Because the weather is cooler in Bogota than in the other countries where we work, David and Alex decided to start the family festival at 4:00 and end before sunset, about 6:30.  They contracted with a company that specializes in children's parties for the music, inflatable, face painting and other games.   Most people live in high-rise apartments, which we do not have permission to enter, so we had to depend on the music and inflatable to attract the attention of the apartment dwellers.  The team spread out on the streets around the apartments and shared one-on-one with everyone they met.

Monday was a holiday in Colombia so we shared all morning in Simon Bolivar Park, which was full of families enjoying their day off.  The park was enormous and very beautiful.  Except for the sunburn gringos, the morning was huge success--people were very receptive.

Sunday evening, Pastor Steve preached an end-times message at the hotel.  We invited everyone we talked to on Sunday evening and Monday in the park.  Four visitors (two from the family festival and two from the park) attended the conference--Pastors Steve, David and Alex were amazed by God's faithfulness to bring people to hear the message.