Lost in Translation

As you can imagine, the last few weeks have continued to be very full because of the difficulties at church. Thankfully things have gotten somewhat better in the last two weeks. I am particularly excited about the possibility to begin a men's discipleship group. This will probably start in January, since most people are very busy during December. I've already started the foundation of the discipleship program with one of our men.

The idea comes from Ron Berrus, who was with us here in Colombia last month. He was a pastor for many years and now serves at ABWE. He gave us a CD with all of his discipleship material (a wealth of wisdom and help) and shared with me how he runs a discipleship group.

The basis for the program is a spiritual inventory and ten accountability questions. I've been working on it for about two weeks now, and God has been blessing. I'll post the information here (Ron said it's not copyrighted).

Spiritual Disciplines Inventory

While there exists a danger of legalism, equating spirituality with list keeping or measuring ourselves by others, yet, we must make personal self-judgments regarding our pursuit of God. We must become men of God, men of the Word, men of prayer, men of discipline, growing, sharing our faith and helping others grow. We must become the spiritual leaders of our homes. We must know where we are as well as where we need to go.

Give a completely honest evaluation of your present practices (not plans or past history). Tell us what your present practice of the spiritual disciplines is really like.

1. Present practice of reading and studying God’s word (when, where, how long, how regularly)

2. Present practice of memorizing God’s Word (when, how, what verses in the last 3 months)

3. Present prayer life (when, where, how long, with whom, major prayer requests)

4. Present practice of using a spiritual journal (how often, method)

5. Present practice of leading family worship (if married)

6. Present practice of reading Christian books & magazines (when, how often, examples)

7. Present practice of giving to the Lord’s work (church, para-church, percentages)

8. Present practice sharing your faith (witness, tracts, home bible study – last month, year)

9. Making disciples (helping someone else grow intentionally)

Rate yourself regarding your current practice as a follower of Jesus Christ
(low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (high)

Accountability Questions

1. Have you fulfilled your weekly growth plan objectives this week?

2. Have you taken time to minister to your family (wife, kids) this week?

3. Have you been with someone this week that could be considered inappropriate by anyone, or could have looked like you were using poor judgment this week?

4. Have you exposed yourself or been exposed to any explicit material this week?

5. Have you dwelled on thoughts that were not Phil. 4:8-9 thoughts this week?

6. Have you been completely above reproach in all of your financial dealings?

7. How have you handled temptations in the last week?

8. How can you be more Christ-like in your workplace?

9. How have you shared your faith with an unbeliever in the last week?

10. Have you just lied to us?

I've been in "emergency mode" for the past two weeks. By that I mean I´ve had to attend a ton of emergency meetings to try to fix some major things that blew up in the church. Here´s what happenned.

Two Sundays ago, I had an inkling that things weren't going to go perfectly. We were going to have a budget meeting with the church after the service. I had thoughts of budget meetings at Campus Baptist, where the budget is presented, three or four respectful questions are asked, and then it's approved.

Not so on that day. We spent 45 minutes just debating the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. Obviously something was brewing. And Holly said that she saw Galatians 5:15 come alive, "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!"

Towards the end of the meeting a group of people stood up and read a letter basically sharing their desire to say "chau" to the Colombian pastor.

Of course this type of thing sends major shudders through the whole church. There was group of people who met almost every night for a week or two. Other people see the unbiblical foundations of such a tactic. Last Sunday the tension was palpable in the service.

As a church we need to work through many details of this situation. People were offended verbally. The Bible was not followed. As the interim pastor I felt like resigning on the Monday after this happened. Now I see that God needs to work through this situation to purify His church.

I´ve been mostly working on an individual or family level with this problem, slowly unraveling the knots of problems that should have been handled biblically a long time ago.

We took our first trip out of Cundinamarca (the department in which Bogota lies), crossing the border into Boyaca on our way to the city of Tunja, which has a population estimated at about 124,000. The drive of two hours is breathtaking and a good challenge for our Renault 9 (forget about running it with natural gas, it wouldn't make it).

As we arrived at Tunja, we drove by instinct to the center plaza, where I left Holly and the kids to look for our hotel. As I walked across the plaza, a man walking parallel to me made eye contact and greeted me. We talked for about five minutes about how it is to live in Tunja. In Bogota that would hardly ever happen! I was experiencing culture shock. That first impression continued for the whole time we were in Tunja. A whole group of girls on a school trip approached us to ask where we were from. Several police officers offered to help me find our hotel... the list goes on, but I was impressed with the friendliness of the people.

As far as churches in Tunja... lots of Catholic churches and few, if any sound Bible-teaching churches. We saw four evangelical churches, but probably only one would be of sound doctrine. The people are very Catholic. Lots of young people poured out of the Sunday mass. Everyone I talked to said that they were Catholic and believed very strongly in the "Virgin."

The most interesting experience was visiting a monastery where the "Virgin" had supposedly appeared hundreds of years ago. A man was sitting on the steps, reading his prayer book. I approached him and struck up a conversation. It turns out that he has two major problems: his son is into drugs and he's involved in adultery with someone. He was there to ask the "Virgin" for help with these two areas. He was very willing to listen to what I had to say about the gospel, but it is so radically different from his background and experience. The mentality of looking to the "Virgin" for everything and the idea that we have to always be "confessed up" with the priest or we're up a crick clouded his understanding. It least I was able to share the gospel with him and leave a gospel of John with him.

This trip was part of a desire that God has placed on my heart to see how we can expand our church planting out of Bogota and the surrounding towns. It may only be a dream, but I'm going to be praying that God would give us wisdom and a deeper desire to reach all of this country for Christ.

In the post below you will see some photos from our trip in the following order...border of Boyaca, Tunja from the north, central plaza from our hotel window, the cathedral outside and inside, and the last two are of the monastery.

One thing Colombian pastors and students have told me is that most students who finish our program in Bogota have a lot of great Bible knowledge but lack ministry experience. I've been pondering the possibility of promoting a 1-2 year program for that type of student.

The program would involve some classes but would major in getting practical experience in a local church.

The idea has been fleshed out in an American context by Faith Baptist Church of Lafayette, IN, which is going to begin their program in 2007.

You can visit their site for more information:

Faith Bible Seminary

I've always like the NET Bible, but the folks at www.bible.org have just upgraded to the NeXT Bible, which includes more powerful options for Bible study, quick access to articles, etc. The site offers a wealth of information for Sunday School teachers and deeper study of the Word of God.

NeXT Bible

Thanks to a co-worker back in the days at PDI, I read the Da Vinci Code when it was just getting popular. I would say it's good for Christians to read it... it has opened a number of chances for me to share the gospel with people.

I want to post a link to two excellent articles by Dr. Paul Hartog from my alma mater, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary. I was able to be his teacher's assistant in one class, and I highly respect him as both a person and a scholar. His writing challenges me to study church history more deeply.

Here are the links:

The Da Vinci Code and Early Christian History, Part 1

The Da Vinci Code and Early Christian History, Part 2

This last weekend was my first without Pastor Jose being in the country (he'd been gone before within Colombia). It was pretty wild, mostly because of my own planning or lack thereof.

Saturday morning I went to the monthly pastors' meeting from 7 a.m. to almost 10 a.m. I got home in time to catch my breath and eat lunch. Then we headed to Chia for our youth trip that we were going to start at 2 p.m. We arrived early and waited, and waited, and only one of the 19 youth who had signed up arrived by 2. Finally about 2:30 a number of youth arrived, but we were still waiting for about four. We called, and they said to meet us at a park in the middle of Chia. We got there and waited. I was driving the mission van, and Holly our car. She decided to go towards their house to pick them up. We noticed that she picked them up down the road a ways, so we headed in that direction. We passed her, and the teens yelled out the window, "We're here!" "Did she see us?" I asked. "Oh yeah, of course!" So we took off... we got about five blocks away, and she didn't appear. Now we were in trouble because it was a one-way road. We looped around the block and she was nowhere to be found. By this time it was past 3 p.m., which wasn't good because we were on our way to Bogota, which is about 40 minutes away. I started praying fervently (granted, not very profoundly..."Lord, where is she?). She finally showed up after ten more minutes, so we happily accelerated towards Bogota. The back way is beautiful, with green mountains to the west.

About a mile or two outside of Chia, I lost sight of Holly. We pulled over, and she finally caught up, telling me that the car was having some trouble. So I told her to head back to Chia while we forged on in our intrepid journey.

I decided to take the back way to the park, which is a very bumpy dirt road. I heard some groans and some laughs as we slammed through several holes (thankfully my boss doesn't read my blog). We reached the final stretch, which was a stretch of mud. It reminded me of a boyhood adventure I had had with my friend Dirk in elementary school (that time we went through the mud with our bikes and got bogged down in the middle and fell over). With that in mind, I took the high road. A Minnesota-like grass path behind a line of trees (think Camp Swampy for those who've been there). We reached a two or three foot deep crevice, and all of the teens bailed. I think they didn't realize how much experience I have on three-wheelers, so that hole didn't bother me in the least, except that there was a steep embankment to the right. But it was no problem.

We arrived at the park and had only about 90 minutes to play soccer, tennis, fly kites, etc. Then it was time to go (note to self: don't be ridiculous with the scheduling... we're in Latin America!). The teens voted to take the route through the city for fear of the "back way." Mistake. The neighborhood you have to go through to get back to the main highway, Engativa, is almost as bad as the "back way." No, it's culturally interesting. I took a wrong turn, and we ended up on a dead-end street.

Finally after 30 minutes of navigating through narrow, hole-covered roads, we made it to the highway for another 30 minutes back to Chia. Did I mention that I had a couples' meeting at 6:30? We arrived in Chia at about 6:20. I went to the Alonso's house and slapped on some clean clothes and drove to the couples' meeting. Thankfully, everyone else was "late" too, so I didn't miss anything.

I'll spare you the details of Sunday, except to say that Holly was in charge of the breakfasts for an outreach we have to a poorer neighborhood, so she wasn't with me for the choir practice. I was running around scatterbrained to get ready for teaching Sunday School, leading the music, and preaching. After the service, Holly was with Eliana in a teachers' meeting. All of a sudden I hear shrieks, "Jon, get the vehicle and go get some clothes." Eliana had vomited in Holly's face, and they were both covered with spit up.

I think something else happened, but I have a gift for forgetting negative things, so I have no idea what it was.

As I told Holly..."It can only get better next weekend."

Just a quick note on a small blessing in my life. I've always liked reading a good paper. By good I mean one that makes me think, provides insight into the world, and broadens my understanding of culture, politics, economics, literature, etc.

Up until this week I hadn't found such an animal. El Tiempo is the paper read by most executive types here. Frankly I have been very disappointed with it. It offers think pieces on topics that don't really interest me (e.g. in-depth analysis of Colombian politics), and in general just tells about the events of the country without any interesting commentaries on what has happened. I often found that I would buy the paper and end up reading only two articles because the rest made me yawn just looking at the titles.

El Espectador is a little bit better for my taste, as it comes out only once a week. For this reason, the editors have more time to find insightful articles. But again, the paper shows a surprising dearth of information about the rest of the world.

Many of the other papers of broad circulation in Bogota are not fit for Christian eyes. One, El Espacio is like a Colombian version of the National Enquirer, only worse (as a Christian I don't even look at the paper hanging on the rack because you never know what you'll see).

All this said, I finally ran across a good weekly paper, which is Tiempos del mundo. It is a sister publication to the Washinton Times. I received a free issue over the weekend and read almost every article. It included articles on the U.S., the conflict in the Middle East, the foreign policy of Hugo Chavez, migration globalization, etc.

I have stepped up my Spanish study in the last few weeks, spending some time on Tuesdays and Thursdays with building my vocab and pronunciation. This paper is going to become part of that routine.

Last week a number of missionaries and national pastors received an anonymous letter with a number of accusations against the pastor in our church here in Colombia. As discouraging as that fact may be, God has turned the sin of one person into blessings for the church.

As we sat down to evaluate our response to this letter, we were impressed by how trials like this can be used for good. The honest fact is that the church has not really functioned like a Baptist church in a number of ways. This letter really brought this clearly to light. We haven´t really had a well-defined membership and the congregation hasn´t been fully involved in some decisions that were made in the past.

When we follow the precepts laid out by the Word of God for church polity, we see less tension, more unity, and difficulties can bring us together. For example, how do we make decisions as a church? If the congregation has weighed in on every major decision and has voted on each one, they will be behind the ministry more. I think of Acts 6, where a controversy arose over the caring for widows. A controversy? In the early church? Yes, and God used it so that the church grew, precisely because the problem was handled biblically with the help of the whole congregation.

This type of controversy can become a vicious cycle. Each person begins to focus on the negative side of the problem, instead of seeing how God can use it to polish us and mold us into the image of his Son. For this reason, open communication is so vital in the local church. We´ve learned that it´s better to openly communicate with the congregation when something may appear doubtful. We´ve also learned that being in the minstry means constantly learning and constantly growing.

I just updated my post on language learning resources and strategies (Language Tools) with two more. So here are number 9 and 10.

9) www.wordreference.com. This website is fabulous for language help. The site has a ton of people who speak various languages and post questions and answers about them. Usually someone answers my question within ten minutes, not to mention that the database has thousands of the most common questions that you´ll run into. You can add a toolbar to Firefox for the site as well.

10) Prayer. Several days per week I pray in Spanish during my devotional time instead of in English. I always have a dictionary on hand because I like to talk to God with the right words. I think that I´ve picked up more vocabulary this way than almost any other.

Just a quick link for you teachers out there. This article is fascinating and makes me wonder how I could use the Socratic method in teaching the Bible.

The Socratic Method

I´ve been really busy lately, but just wanted to share a couple of thoughts. First, praise God that a young woman (Liliana) made a profession of faith after last Sunday´s service. It´s interesting that I have been reading a book (The Deliberate Church) that showed me a lack in my pulpit ministry. The author uses various passages (Luke 24:27; 1 Cor. 2:1-5) to argue that we should always present the main point of a passage but should also share the gospel and its implications every time we preach. I was convicted and made a special point of that on Sunday, and God blessed!

On another note, I´ve started blogging a commentary on 2 Timothy in Spanish. I figure that I should be part of the solution for the lack of good materials on the Internet in Spanish. When I´m done with the commentary, I´ll order the posts in the order of the book. You can see my intent at Blogging 2 Timoteo.

Google Earth now has some pictures of Colombia, although you can only see the northern part of Bogota, which happens to include the neighborhood in which we live. The only thing that stands out to me about seeing our neighborhood from the air is the number of parks within three blocks of our house.

Interestingly enough, the amount of green space in Bogota has been a debated issue. In the north of the city, there is plenty of green space, but in the south there aren´t as many parks or green areas.

Just a quick post to plug the book that we are using for discipleship in Chia. As a Sunday school class we have been going through it, and I also have been leading a discipleship with Javier from our church, and I'm also in the study with Pastor Jose. In other words, I have had some good contact with this book.

The most exciting day was yesterday as Javier and I studied lesson 4, which deals with the "way of man" in contrast with the "way of God." The lesson has a wonderful chart contrasting different ways of dealing with personal problems (Freudian approach, behaviorist approach, New Age approach, spiritist approach, and a biblical approach). The lights came on for Javier as we studied this chapter. "You mean I don't have to worry about the curses from my grandparents... You mean when I focus on my self-esteem that's actually sin?" He left with several burdens lifted from his shoulders because of a faulty understanding of Christian growth.

I would encourage you to check out this book in English. I can only vouch for the Spanish version, but I'm sure they're the same. If you want to grow spiritually, grab some discipline and get ready to grow!

Self-confrontation: a Manual for In-depth Discipleship.

I don´t know why, but I continue to be fascinated by technology. Now, what does technology have to do with missionary work? I would say a lot. For one thing, we can reach many with technology. I just finished reading a bit of a blog by a missionary here in Colombia, and he mentioned that he had 13 students in class and over 600 outside of class who access his website of resources in Spanish (Recursos Teologicos).

At least one pastor here in Bogota has asked me about good theological resources in Spanish online. It remains a great need. In English I can recommend many sites, but in Spanish only a handful. For what it's worth I offer the beginning of my work towards putting many resources together. At this point my work is only on my del.icio.us page, but I would like to convert that into a full-blown website in the future.

On a similar note, I've recently started using Google Notebook, which is a handy way to save all of your links, research online, etc. I'm still pondering the ways these technologies can be used in my ministry. At the very least, I'm not losing a lot of good links that I run across on a regular basis.

What tools have become invaluable to me as a language learner of Spanish? I post this in order to give you an idea about the process, and perhaps you may be a language learner who could glean some ideas from my experience, especially if you're learning Spanish. Here are a list of activities, books, etc. that have become invaluable for me:

1) A high school level dictionary in Spanish. This may sound basic, but it's much better to rely primarily on a Spanish-only dictionary, instead of an English-Spanish one. You learn to think in context, not to mention that you are exposed to new words in the definitions, forcing you to learn new words.

2) A book of synonyms and antonyms. This is an invaluable tool for sermon and lesson prep. In Spanish we have a common weakness which is called "cosismo" (Spanish word "cosa" means "thing"). Instead of describing what I'm talking about in precise or varying terms, it's easy to fall back on words like "thing." This book helps me expand my vocab and use more colorful words.

3) Diccionario Panhispanico de Dudas de la RAE. This is the dictionary of "doubts" put out by the authority on Spanish, the Royal Academy of Spanish in Spain. This book is gold. It answers common doubts that native speakers have about their language, or errors that are commonly thought correct. For me, it helps tremendously with prepositions and verbs. For example, in English the word "look" can have different meanings with different prepositions (look for, look out for, etc.). It's similar in Spanish, and I often don't know which preposition goes with which verb.

4) A Bible that has four versions in parallel on the page. Again, this is a necessity for me because the Reina Valera version that we normally preach from often uses more difficult words or constructions. It also helps to be able to put a text in more common language, since that's half of the work in preaching and teaching.

5) A Bible that was translated in Bogota. This Bible helps me know for sure how I could say something in this city and be understood.

6) Tongue twisters. One of my profs in Costa Rica gave me about five pages of tongue twisters. I've been finding that pronunciation is one of my biggest problems in Spanish. My tongue just doesn't want to obey me with some words, so I've been "working out" with these tongue twisters for a week (5 min. per day) and have noticed a difference.

7) A chart with the 11 most common irregular verbs in Spanish. I practice with this chart to the point of being able to say the conjugations at break-neck speed without errors. Why? These verbs are your bread and butter in Spanish. If you're making mistakes on the verb "to be" you're sunk. It has to be overlearned to the point where you never make a mistake on these verbs.

8) The Internet. This is surely a breakthrough in language study. Ideally we would have a native speaker who could answer every question on usage, but that isn't always practical. So, if I don't know exactly how a phrase goes, I plug it into Google with quotes. If it comes up 258,918 times, I can be pretty sure it's valid Spanish. I can even do a search only in Colombia to see if it's used here. But if it returns 7 hits, I will probably think it's just a few gringos who don't know how the phrase should be.

9) www.wordreference.com. This website is fabulous for language help. The site has a ton of people who speak various languages and post questions and answers about them. Usually someone answers my question within ten minutes, not to mention that the database has thousands of the most common questions that you´ll run into. You can add a toolbar to Firefox for the site as well.

10) Prayer. Several days per week I pray in Spanish during my devotional time instead of in English. I always have a dictionary on hand because I like to talk to God with the right words. I think that I´ve picked up more vocabulary this way than almost any other.

Well, these are the tools that I've found myself relying on. Obviously, mastering a language is not a short-term process, but good tools definitely help.

I was talking with one of our Colombian pastors last week, and he said something interesting: "In the ministry the problems are generally the same." How true. I've been noticing the same thing in the ministry in Chia.

What's the basic problem of your average Christian? A self-centered life as opposed to a Christ-centered live. For example, how do we solve problems in our household? Well, if we are self-centered we'll do it according to what seems right to us. We may explode, we may avoid the problem, or we may try get back at our family member so that "they see how it feels." I've found that many Christians haven't learned how to ask for forgiveness. But this is a prime case of giving Satan a foothold in our family.

Of course we see different variations of the same-old problems. I've had to scratch my head a few times lately. I had someone storm out of the class I was teaching in a different church for the following very good reason . . . a difference of opinion over Spanish grammar. This person then refused to talk to anyone from the church. You really can't do anything except pray for such a person.

Last night I had my first class at the Valley of Tenjo Baptist Institute on "Inductive Bible Study." The problem was that our car also has "pico y placa" (peak and license plate) on Thursdays, which means that we can't drive it in the city during rush hours.

Holly had gone with the kids to a book fair somewhere in Bogota, and I expected them to get back on time so that I could get out of the city before rush hour. Holly called twice to tell me how things were going, but it seemed like she would make it on time. I finally realized I'd waited too long, so I caught a taxi to go pick the car up where she'd left it. By that time I only had enough time to get the car back to our house before it was grounded.

I confess that I reacted in a sinful way because I felt angry about the whole thing. I asked Holly for forgiveness for my anger towards her, and had to leave on Transmilenio, which is the big bus system within Bogota. Thankfully there's a station about 5 minutes from our house, and it costs about 50 cents. I caught a bus out to the bus terminal on the edge of the city, and then took a bus to Tenjo.

Some people don't like using public transportation but it fascinates me. It's cheap, usually quick, and you don't have to worry about a few things that a driver normally has to worry about in this country (my two biggest fears are hitting an empty man hole or hitting a biker/motorcyclist).

I ended up spending the night in Tenjo with Scott because there really aren't very convenient bus routes back to Bogota after 9 p.m. As always it was a blessing to talk ministry with Scott.

Oh, the first class went excellently too! I definitely love teaching, especially in one of my favorite subjects like Bible study.

Para mis hermanos que hablan español, aquí pueden acceder el seminario acerca de las 50 razones por las que murió Cristo en la cruz. El Pastor José y yo lo desarrollamos con base en el libro The Passion of Jesus Christ por John Piper.

La Pasión de Cristo

Just a quick post about the joy of being involved in the ministry here in Bogota and Chia. God has certainly not allowed me to get bored. Last week I had the privilege of teaching the Monday and Wednesday sessions on 50 reasons why Christ died on the cross. Pastor Jose and I used John Piper's book, The Passion of Jesus Christ as a starting point for the study, although we modified some of his points for theological reasons. On Friday, I preached my first Good Friday message; taught Sunday School and led the choral group on Resurrection Sunday, preached in seminary chapel last night and then had my first counseling session with a family from our church.

All of this speaking has really shown me my weaknesses in Spanish, but God has helped me to see this from a 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 perspective. When we are weak, He can be strong in us.

I posted some photos from my trip to the armory with Pastor Jose. We went two days this week, and Jose shared a seminar with them on sexually transmitted diseases. The idea of this type of seminar is to open more doors for the crisis pregnancy center in Chia. Jose was able to share that the only true way to prevent these type of diseases is fidelity in marriage.

The young men laughed at him each time that he mentioned this concept. "Impossible!" they yelled. But what should we expect? Without God in their lives, life-long fidelity appears absurd.

As God opens more doors, we will have more opportunities to share Christ. For example, yesterday a new couple came to the center. Jose and I had the first counseling session with them last night, sharing about what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Today in Chia we hosted the annual men's meeting, and the topic was "every man's battle." We had five sessions, two taught by Pastor Jose, two taught by me, and an open forum for the last session.

I've been a little surprised and encouraged by the number of times I've been asked to speak lately. I'm not sure if people think of a missionary as instant "expert" or exactly why it is, but I am very happy to use the gift that God has given me. I think that I've literally been asked to speak on diverse topics by five different people from five different churches in the last month.

Pastor Jose had wanted to discuss this topic for a long time with the men of the association. We received a lot of positive feedback, more than anything from people who said, "Wow, this topic isn't normally talked about. It's nice to hear what the Bible has to say about it."

As far as my sessions went, I was very pleased. The first was about our wives as the true source of joy in our life. We talked about a biblical view of the sexual relationship in marriage, and how we should work to please our wives romantically as well. I was surprised that when I asked if there were questions a torrent poured out. I had to tell the men we would return to the questions later.

The second session that I led dealt with practical strategies to overcome these temptations. From making a covenant with my eyes not to look at a woman in a wrong way, to allowing my wife to pre-read and edit with scissors any magazine that may have questionable images or adds (even Nat'l Geographic falls into that category).

What encouraged me most was to have two people come up afterwards and tell me that they were greatly helped by what I had taught and that they would like my prayers for their victory in this area.

We were looking into car insurance this week, so I had to take our car to the shop for an in-depth review. The insurance agent, Cecilia, went with me, and we ended up talking about spiritual things for most of the hour we were at the shop.

She has many interesting views. She considers herself Catholic, but she doesn't agree with many of the teachings of the Catholic faith. What was very interesting was to hear her talk about an aunt who had converted to the Christian faith (interesting that in Spanish "Christian" and "Catholic" are not used interchangeably, whereas in English I think that most Catholics would consider themselves "Christians.")

She just shook her head and said, "I can't believe what she did. She gave up her identity. How can you be born a Catholic and not die a Catholic?" She was most upset by her niece's wedding. "It was just a normal guy with a normal suit and tie who officiated. It was held in a house, and there wasn't a fancy altar or anything. They should have just gone to the justice of the peace because that would have been just as meaningful. There was no one with authority. In contrast, in the Catholic church you have a real priest who has authority. He wears a special garment. He isn't just like all of the rest of us."

I tried to explain to her that it all depends on your authority. If the Bible is your authority, you will see things differently than if the "Church" is your authority. You will realize that the people are the church, not the building, and that the pastor actually does have an equal standing spiritually with any other person.

I tried to explain the Good News of God's grace, but I don't think that I got too far. It's difficult when someone has already heard the message, holds tightly to the traditions of their church, but has decided to believe only what makes sense to them.

At any rate, I learned some things during that conversation that will help me in the future.

We had some hail here in Bogota this last week. Just thought you might like to see the closest thing to a snow storm that a bogotano will ever see.

As a young missionary I've noticed that setting one's own hours is a challenge. How many hours should I spend in study? How many hours should I spend visiting people, or talking with a pastor? I'm sure that this will become more second nature after a while, but for now it's a challenge. Where does a missionary or pastor's work start and where does it end? Okay, most would say that it doesn't end. So the question really is, "What does God want me doing today?" As many books discuss, the urgent is not always the important. And the important rarely seems urgent.

For example, prayer does not seem very urgent we tell ourselves. I can get by today without concentrated prayer. But where will we be in five years of ministry with that attitude?

Or consider language learning. I can get by with my Spanish. I can communicate, and the people understand what I'm trying to say. Why should I make improving in Spanish a priority? You see how easily we justify putting important issues on the back burner.

This is a photo of my office . . . it's very cozy. I'm praying that I will spend the right amount of time there, doing the right things.

Yikes, time has flown by and our camera has gathered dust. We will try to take more pictures in the future, so that you can get a better idea of our life here in Bogota. For starters, here are a few photos:

Our neighborhood, our house, and the path that I jog on every other day.

I have been noticing something. Spending lots of time with paperwork and errands rather than people drains me. Now I know that the opposite can be true as well; it all depends on with whom you spend the time.

The first month in Colombia has been like this . . . Wake up. Read Scripture and pray. Every other day go jogging. Then I ask Holly, "What are we up for today?" "Well, we still need _______," and we take off for a local store to buy something superfluous, like a bed or a refrigerator.

Now, I am not complaining. I just don't remember this stage when we were newly-weds. Ah yes, the big difference was that many family members gave us the necessities (like a bed), and we'd always rented apartments that came with refrigerators and a downstairs laundry room. Added to this is the fact that this is not our home country. So there's a learning curve.

Like the other day when I went on a short errand to take the microwave to a repair shop (note to self--always open new things here right away to see if they work or not, otherwise you'll be in charge of getting them to the repair shop). I was looking for an address on Calle 68. Without any thought I headed up the big road near our house (it's 68). I got about two miles away and hit major traffic (no surprise there). I also noticed that the road had changed to Calle 100. Okay, it must be in the other direction. So I head south for another thirty minutes and see the cross street I need. I pull into a parking area and grab my microwave. It's hot, and microwaves are heavier than you think. As I round the block where the repair shop should be I see a restaurant. I ask the lady there where the address may be, and she tells me that it's written wrong.

With her help I figure out that there's a difference between Calle 68 and the road that runs by our house, which is Avenida Carrera 68. But of course!

I finally make it to Calle 68 and pull off for directions as I zero in on the neighborhood. "Oh yeh, just pull out here and go about two blocks up." What they didn't tell me was that the lane was a one-way road. It's a good thing that I don't know many swear words in Spanish because I wasn't a bit offended when the taxi driver cussed me out for my little maneuver.

Finally I arrived at the repair shop with an unbearable thirst (the altitude really dry you out). In fact I'm getting thirsty just thinking about it.

This is just one example of how I spent three hours in a day. But on the plus side, I'm learning to drive in this city pretty well, which is an accomplishment.

I am very much looking forward to beginning in ministry here. With God's help, it could be in the next week or two.

Just a quick blessing . . . we now officially have Internet in our home. That means that we'll start updating our blogs regularly and that we may even start taking some pictures of Bogota.

Thanks for your patience. We almost have our house in order now.

We´re still trying to get situated here in Bogotá, although God has blessed in so many ways. Our next major need is to determine where we will begin ministering. There are several possibilities . . . perhaps help a pastor who is pastoring two churches at the moment, or go help a young pastor who is working in a new church plant. The other missionaries have been very helpful to not burden us down too much at first.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we´ll probably be signing on our house tomorrow. That means that the next few weeks will also be devoted to getting the house furnished. About all we have for it are books (isn´t that all you need?). At any rate, we´ll be learning more of the city by traveling to all of the furniture stores.

Well, I´ve gotta run.

Well, we made it to Bogotá, and since Holly already blogged about the trip I´ll skip that to give you my first impressions of being a missionary in this country.

I had forgotten how gargantuan this city is! For the first three days my head was spinning just trying to find my bearings. Thankfully I´m starting to understand how the addresses work here. They just changed them all a month or so ago, so even some of the Colombians are learning. The system is logical . . . the calles go towards the mountains, while the carreras run parallel to the mountains. The numbers go logically based on their distance north/south and their distance from the mountains. I´ve driven a few times already, which was a little tramatic the first time but is now "normal."

Speaking of driving, you have to not make mistakes. For example, I made the mistake of thinking I could get off a road under construction, but it took over an hour to get to a turn-around. Traffic is incredible if you take the wrong road at the wrong time. Picture moving five feet on each change of the stoplight. It´s a wee bit different than Hibbing, MN or Ames, IA!

Holly and I have essentially felt overwhelmed with all that has to be done to get set up here. In the first week and two days we have: filed for our cedulas (ID cards), received our shipment from the States, begun the process of getting a driver´s license, and worked on a bunch of paperwork to rent a house.

Renting a house is not a simple task either. They want to have two cosigners just to rent a house, which both need three or four documents to show their income, position, property, etc. We turned that in yesterday, so we´ll see if we got approved or not. We are very pleased with the house that we´ve picked out, since it´s fairly close to the seminary building (about 10 minutes or less), has a good price, and has all that we need.

We set a new record for getting our shipment out of customs. I got there at about 11 a.m. and had our shipment to the guest house garage by about 3 p.m.! Usually it has taken between two to five days to get this done. Apparently many of you are praying because I´ve been stumbling my way through, and it´s been working.

We visited the Tunal church last weekend, where Holly´s parents ministered. They are doing very well and now want help to start a mission agency to send missionaries to different cities in Colombia. Their goal is to send one couple every four years. I surely don´t feel like an "expert" in that area, but I´m definitely willing to help in any way possible. We also may begin our work with a young pastor who is ministering in Suba. This part of the city has grown tremendously . . . I remember hearing that it had about two million people. We´ll keep you posted as we see God´s direction unfold.

 

This is what may come to your mind when you think of Bogota, Colombia. A big city with a lot of concrete. But I can guarantee that within a year we will be able to fill a collage with pictures of Colombians who have been etched on our hearts. When I think of our friends in Costa Rica, I am amazed at what God can do in one year. He can take total strangers and make them brothers in Christ. He can change lives, calm fears, and give joy where only bitterness once existed.