Bogota and beyond!

So, since my last post, I have had the most AMAZING weekend! It was a long one because Monday was one of the 18 public holidays they have each year here (compared to the 8 we have in England!) We spent Saturday at the botanical gardens, which was so peaceful and relaxing. There is a beautiful rose garden, which was my favourite part, but they also have a huge greenhouse with different rooms for each of the climates found in Colombia, which was super cool ('cheverisimo' as they would say here).

On Sunday, we went back to the Vineyard church where we went the previous week with Abi. They have it at the top of a Persian restaurant, and everyone sits on comfy benches along one wall, or on cushions on the floor against the other. The service is in Spanish, but someone often translates the sermon for us, and the songs are often ones we know in English, like Blessed be your name or Come, now is the time to worship, but sung in Spanish, which is great fun! The service 'starts' at 10.30 (aka 11) so we turned up at 10.20 to find no one there and went for an awkward walk round the block until someone recognised us from the previous week and asked if we had forgotten where the church was! We had no plans for lunch but the same couple (Maciel and Alvero) who invited us for lunch the previous week found out about this, and quickly invited us round for lunch again. Colombian hospitality in incredible. Us Brits could really learn something from their generosity and spontaneity. After a delicious lunch, they took us to a neighbourhood of Bogota called Usaken, which has a beautiful artisan and crafts market on a Sunday, where I bought some lovely earrings.It was such a nice way to spend an afternoon, and I was overwhelmed by their hospitality, and that we could have such an amazing day considering we had no plans first thing that morning.

Maciel and Alvero said they would be visiting a lake out of the city called Guatavita on Monday and asked if we would like to join them. It was on our list to see, and as it is a 2 hour drive from where we stay, it was going to be difficult for us to get there, so we gratefully accepted. Monday was an amazing day. The lake has a lot of history and is fundamental in the legend of El Dorado. It was a pretty walk up to the lake, although the altitude of 3000m made it a little challenging, but the view from the top was worth every step. The lake is a beautiful turquoise colour and the mountain scenery around it is amazing. They then took us to the new town of Guatavita which is very pretty and bought us a delicious lunch of trout and chips. I have never had such a big plate of trout before!

The rest of the week has also been good, but very tiring. We had 5 music lessons this week, the first of which was a slight disaster as we didn't manage to communicate anything we wanted them to do, but they got progressively better, and we were so pleased with how the last one went! Our cooking lessons have also been good fun, making bread with all the classes. We have started work on tidying some cupboards and storage rooms that desperately need sorting but no one here has the time as they are desperately short staffed. It's a big task but we are more than happy to do it.We are continuing with the board games lessons, and this week I taugh the kids Pass the Pigs, which is one of the Preston family's favourite games!

On Wednesday we had the chance to visit another project in the south of the city, called Children's Vision International, who have 3 children's homes, a school and a medical centre. It's great to see other projects that are going on in the city, and their story is so encouraging. It started out with a lady taking in a baby she found abandoned under a bridge 20 years ago, and now it is a really well run organisation with one of the best stocked medical centres I've seen in a developing country and 195 kids at their school. It's encouraging to see how much of a difference can be made, from such small beginnings.

Once again, my photos from the week are on blipfoto :)

Prayer requests:

• For the school lisence which needs to come through ASAP. The school have done all they can and are just waiting on the government.
• For Felipe,  a Colombian we met and became good friends with, who has gone to Leticia (a city in the very very south of Colombia, in the Amazon) to do a YWAM discipleship training course. Pray that he settles in well and really knows God's presence with him.
• For Alvero and Maciel, thank God for their kindness, and pray that he will bless them as they try to start a family
• For team relations, that minor disagreements would not lead to bigger arguments

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Our first week at school

This week has been super busy, teaching lots of lessons and also having classes ourselves. One of the highlights of the week was teaching cookery classes, in which we made shortbread biscuits. The school covers school years from pre-school all the way up to year 11, but every class got stuck in and loved the cooking. Next week we think we might make some bread with them.
Josh and I also took our first music lesson which was a very interesting experience. We were so nervous and stayed up until gone midnight planning it but the kids engaged so well, and the activities we had picked worked well. It's really hard having grown up as a hearing musician to try and comprehend how the deaf respond to music and vibrations, and to know what activities will and will not work. Thank you so much to everyone who responded to our frantic prayer requests the night before and for all the suggestions of activities to try, they've been so helpful .
One of our main aims for the week was to help decorate the classrooms, which we have nearly completed. Decorations ranged from a tree of fruits with everyone's name and birthday written on their favourite fruit, along with the fruits of the spirit, to a solar system with people's names and birthdays written on the planets and a little space man holding the Colombian and British flags.
We have sign language lessons twice a week from 2-4 to help us improve our communication with the children. They are great fun but also very helpful and our communication gets better day by day. I am also getting more confident with my Spanish and often surprise myself with how much I can understand (I still have a lot to learn though!)
Other highlights of the week are: Dinner on Sunday with an amazing group of Colombians from Abi's church (the food was fantastic and the conversation was even better. We felt so welcomed, it was really amazing), cooking a roast dinner to celebrate the birthdays of a couple of Latin Link Striders (the next type of placement up from step) and the chance to meet a couple of native people from the Cachua tribe from the Colombian Amazon. They are working with some missionaries to translate the bible into their native language and was so interesting to hear how in the past 35 years the tribe has gone from worshiping native gods, with no knowledge of the one true God, to half of the tribe becoming Christians.
There's been a few times this week we've been completely out of our comfort zone and been quite nervous of how things would go, especially the music classes and the assembly. But through this, God has really shown his faithfulness and every time we have turned to God saying "HELP!", he has filled us with a sense of his peace and the things we had worried about went very smoothly and the inspiration we needed for different things from our assembly drama to what to decorate the classes with has been provided and has been so successful. Thank you God!!

My Blipfoto has been updated again. There are photos for each day  since I arrived, you can use the little calendar on the right under the picture to navigate through the days.

Prayer requests:

• Definitely need to thank God for his faithfulness and that He is with us even though we are miles away from home in a strange country and culture
• For a restful weekend, as we are all quite tired after this week
• That team relations continue to grow and that the fun times will keep coming!

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Settling in, in Bogota

Hello all! (Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors, Spanish keyboards are weird.)

This week has mainly been orientation and finding our way round Bogota:
We arrived on Monday after a very long day of traveling. We made our connecting flight in Miami (but only just!) and were greeted by the in country co-ordinator, Abi, at the airport. We were taken to our first project, the Philadelfia College for the Deaf, which is where we are both working and living for the next 2 months. The accomodation is lovely, we are in separate rooms with comfy beds and WiFi access! Monday evening we were introduced to arepas (a typically Colombian and Venezuelan corn pancake type of thing, filled with cheese) and the Colombian hot chocolate, which is AMAZING! It comes in bars which you melt in hot milk and its so, so much better than at home.

From Tuesday to Friday we completed a number of important tasks: getting bus passes; beginning to understand the Transmilenio (bus/metro system); learning how to use the charts in taxis so we don't get ripped off; finding our way around the nearest neighbourhood (called Las Galerias); sampling the delights of Colombian restaurant chain, Crepes&Waffles; discovering the nearest supermarket and stocking up on some essentials like laundry powder and hot chocolate.

We have also had our first sign language lesson, which will now be a bi-weekly occurance. It was great fun and I'm so excited to learn more! The contruction work here is on hold as something didn't go through with the plans, so instead we are going to be spending much more time with the pupils, which I'm so excited about! Next week we will be teaching a number of classes, including cooking and percussion which will be great fun. Our timetable looks quite busy, but hopefully it won't be too hectic.

Today was our day off so we went into the centre of Bogota to the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) which was very well done and really insightful into the history of Colombia. Tomorrow we will be off to church with Abi, and then we have been invited for lunch with some of her friends, which will be a fantastic opportunity to get to know some locals.

Since as we have quite good internet here, I'm going to try keeping a blipfoto daily photo journal here: http://www.blipfoto.com/rachelhpreston
The idea of a blipfoto journal is to upload one photo for each day as a way of helping you remember and share what happens each day. I might not be able to include a photo every day, and I will probably update it weekly with the past 7 days photos,  but I'll give it a go and see if it works out!

Prayer requests:

• For a great week with the pupils here, that we will connect well and really inspire them
• That we will pick up sign language quickly
• That the team continue to get to know each other and bond well
• That we will continue to settle in and not feel totally lost in this culture

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At the airport

Just a quick one to say we're at the airport. Check in took forever, but the kind man moved Naomi and I to extra leg room seats for free! Had to unpack my bag again at security, but at least we have plenty of time. I'll try and update you when we get to bogota!

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What will I actually be doing in Colombia?

Right, well I'm about to leave home but just thought I'd write a quick post to let you know a bit more about what I'll be up to in Colombia (or at least, what I think I'll be up to in Colombia - Latin America is similar to Africa in that plans don't mean anything and we might end up doing something totally different to what we thought!)

We have two projects - one in the capital city, Bogota, and the other in Santa Marta, a city on the coast.

The first couple of months in Colombia will be spent in Bogota working alongside the Colegio Filadelfia para los Sordos (CFS) – The Philadelphia School for the Deaf. There are two main aims for the Step team
whilst you we on this project. The first is very much of a practical nature as we will be helping the college as it begins to extend the current building to help create more space for their ongoing work. Part of this work will involve helping to construct a foot ramp to the entrance to enable wheelchair access to the first floor. We’ll get your hands dirty with a spot of brick laying, mixing concrete, clearing away rubble, painting etc. This practical help will be of huge benefit to the project as it will mean they are able to reach more people, offer better access to those with disabilities and reach out further into the community.

The second aim of the project will be to help facilitate and engage with an activity programme for the students. We’ll help out with things such as taking the young people to the park for sports/games days, host board game events in the school, run beauty days with the girls, help with cooking activities (particularly something typically British – maybe some kind of cookies) and much, much more.

The last 2 months will be spent working alongside a Vineyard church (La Viña) in a poor area of Santa Marta. 

The church we will be working alongside has very limited facilities and next to no space for running any children’s activities. With this in mind one of the main aims for our time in Santa Marta is to help with the construction a terrace area and an additional room. The practical work involved in doing this will be 

fairly simple however due to the heat it will definitely be bit of a challenge! In addition to the above, the team will also help with the weekly running of the church. This will involve helping in Sunday services, getting stuck in to children’s work, and then attending various mid-week groups. The church is also keen for the team to help with a variety of activities they have planned for reaching out to the local community.

I'll do my best to keep my blog updated for you, but we will also be writing weekly reports which will be put on the Latin Link website here.

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1 week till Colombia!

1 week to go till I’ll be in Colombia! It’s come round so fast, I can’t believe we leave on Monday!

I’ve just come back from our Latin Link Step Team orientation, and it has been an amazing few days. We started off on Wednesday and Thursday with team leaders’ training where we looked at some of the biblical principles behind good leadership. We also focussed on the more practical aspects of leading a team like planning our week, leading team devotions and resolving disagreements that may arise in the team. This was really useful and I now feel much more prepared for the task of leading a team. It also gave me chance to really get to know my co-leader, Josh, and to share ideas with the leaders of the step teams going to Nicaragua and Peru.

The rest of the teams arrived on Thursday evening. The weekend involved getting to know each other, sharing meals, lots of practical sessions to help prepare us for our time in Latin America, as well as an exciting photo challenge around London.

My team is amazing and I’m so excited for what God is going to do during our time in Colombia!

 

Team Colombia - Rachel, Bunny, Josh, Naomi, Mary (Top to bottom)

Once again, I’ll try to include prayer points on my blog updates. Your support in prayer is invaluable to my team and me!

Prayer requests:

• Final preparations this week go well, everything fits in our luggage and we don’t forget anything.
• That God would calm any nerves and fill us with excitement for our time away.
• For Josh and I, as we continue preparations for leading the team, that God would equip us and give us a sense of peace over the responsibility, and that we would trust in Him for everything.

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