Lost in Translation

I´ve recently run across three other missionary websites of people working in Colombia. It´s interesting to see different perspectives from other parts of the country.

The Washburns in Medellín
The Morelands in Pereira
David Ford in Medellín

In a previous post (Future possibilities) I talked about statistical need in Colombia. Well, after corresponding with another missionary who lives in Pereira and thinking about it, the national registry of churches doesn´t have as much bearing on the situation as I´d thought. For one thing, many churches aren´t registered. For another thing many churches are under the coverage of a church in a different city.

So how can we get more reliable statistics? I found a national church directory of Colombia that seems to offer a better idea. Granted that not every church is listed, and unfortunately a few of the buttons in their website don´t work, so I can´t get numbers for several cities I want (Bogotá, Barranquilla, and Tunja).

All things considered, I came up with some interesting results. Based on a comparison with the number of churches listed, here are the most needy cities per person:

Florencia -- 146,249 people, 3 churches listed, 48,750 people per church listed
Buenaventura -- 339,096 people, 8 churches listed, 42,387 people per church listed
Valledupar -- 372,096 people, 16 churches listed, 23,256 people per church listed
Montería -- 393,179 people, 19 churches listed, 20,694 people per church listed
Medellín (metro area)-- 3,092,355 people, 150 churches, 20,615 per church listed

My biggest surprise was to see Medellín in this list and not see Cali, but Cali has 233 churches listed and fewer people than Medellín.

Now, all this is nice, but it´s only an estimate. What would an indepth study look like? Well, surprisely I found exactly that kind of study done for Medellín. You can find it at a site called prolades.com, in the document La pluralidad religiosa en Medellín. I only wish they´d done a study of all the major cities in Colombia, but the ground work would look very similar to what Profesor Mora has come up with for Medellín.

Uff... (as we say in Spanish), I´ve been out of the communication loop to some extent because I was at kids´camp last week. I would like to get caught up with everything this coming week (prayer letter, finances, correspondence, etc.), but I´m not so sure that will happen.

For the time being I´ll post the Alonso´s prayer letter, which gives you a basic idea about what´s been happening with the ministry here. We´ve seen some real blessings as of late. We´re also looking at renting a house in Chía in the next few weeks. We saw one that we liked today, and I have an appointment to talk to the owner tomorrow. It happens to be in Ponylandia, a residential community you can read about in the Alonso´s prayer letter.

Alonso´s December prayer letter

Something that I don´t like about the ministry is that you make friends/disciples and then either you have to leave or they do. This happened today with two people who are special to our family. Ricardo Andrés has been a good friend of mine, and I was discipling him for a while. His family moved from Chía to Bogotá, and he has decided that another church more close would be better for his family. He was my apprentice in our small group ministry, so it´s a loss on that front too.

Lorena is another person who has become a friend of our family. I met her in Cartagena, and she accepted Christ. We have been discipling her by e-mail, and she has visited us in our home a number of times while she´s been in Bogotá. She spent all day with us today, going to church, eating lunch, looking at a possible house and then being stuck 2 hours in a traffic jam on the way into Bogotá (another reason why moving to Chía will be a big blessing!). She leaves tomorrow for Cartagena, and we will miss her. It´s amazing how someone can become a family friend (Lucas and Elie love her) in so short of time. Please pray for her spiritual life and especially that God would give her wisdom to seek her fulfillment in Him and His principles.

All this to say that I feel a little sad today. On the other hand I trust that the Lord will work in this two young people´s lives.