Colombia thus far!!

2 more weeks of ministry and then we are off to Vietnam! Time here has been slow paced, but the days have gone by so fast. My team and I do a different ministry each week and so far we have done vegetables, recycling, kid’s ministry and prayer walks. The foundation here has multiple sources of income and part of it is prepping and selling vegetables, or separating paper from plastic for selling. All of it has been fruitful in its own ways.

Kid’s ministry has been my favorite so far. Every Saturday morning at 9 am we walk the streets to gather kids ages 4-15 and take them back to the foundation. We spend some time playing games before they separate into age groups for a Bible lesson. Then at 11:30 we serve them lunch, and walk them back home. It has been so joyful to be with kids who don’t care if you speak Spanish or not. They just want to have piggy back rides and color mariposas on pieces of paper.

After we are done with the foundation, we spend a week in Guatapé, Colombia debriefing our ministry and enjoying time as a whole squad before we separate. This is the last time all 40 of us will be together, and we grieve for the friendships that have been created outside of our teams. We won’t get to see them for the rest of our time on the field except for our debriefs that happen at every country and when we get back to the states. We are sad, but expectant for the time we get to spend just as a team. I love the women that God has given to me as a team, and I’m excited to spend time with just the 7 of them.

The day we leave for Vietnam is on November 23rd, and we spend two days of travel before landing in Da Nang on the coastline. Our ministry location is just a walk away from the beach, and the most exciting news is the ministry we are doing. We were told that we get to do relationship building with local college students and teach English classes. To say I’m excited would be an understatement. My team and I are overwhelmed with joy for this ministry opportunity because it’s safe to say that all of us love to make new friends. And to do it by the coast in Asia? You can’t get much better than that.

I should note that Vietnam is considered a closed country, and we were told that the government knows us as “tourists”…but this fuels me even more to go.