Entrenamiento

I arrived in Bogota, Columbia last Thursday for training.  22 of us spent a week in slightly close quarters learning everything about Latin American culture and sharing our faith.

Bogota is a beautiful mountainous place.  I think we were in the nice part of the city because everything was pristine, with flowers and trees and cute houses.  We spent a little time walking around the city.  We got to meet a lady who wanted to practice her English and took us to get sodas.  We practiced telling our stories and what we believe about Jesus.  We also met some young people who were Christians and talked to them for awhile about their churches.

We went to a church in Bogota called El Camino (the way).  They sang a lot of Psalms and the message was about reconciliation and how our only true ministry is the ministry of reconciliation, to show people that God wants to repair His relationship with them.

While at training I had more types of fresh juice than ever in my life, including Guava, blackberry, water tomato, and strawberry.  There are A LOT of strange fruits in Colombia.  The money there is measured in thousands, and $1USD equals 2,000 pesos.  So a jar of peanut butter was the price of a car in the states ($12,000).

This semester, students from our group will be in:
Lima, Peru
Santiago, Chile
Mexico
Brazil
Colombia
and of course, Montevideo, Uruguay.

After our week in Bogota, we headed to the airport.  My team had three flights, with layovers in Lima and Santiago.  We left at 3:30 pm Thursday and arrived in Montevideo at around 12:30pm Friday.

One thing I learned...
South American cultures often mix religion.  They are Catholic by tradition, but "Catholicism is a thin facade over Animism."  People often mix the story of Jesus right in with their other superstitions.  A missionary in this part of the world once saw a woman selling sacrifices, with a picture of Mary behind her, but she also had a salvation bracelet someone had given to her.  Pray that the people in these countries would realize that Jesus is the Only true God and that there is no other name by which we can be saved.