long lost family and friends...
hello from bogota, colombia. i know many of you have been asking about the blog. my appologies for having been pretty pathetic at keeping up with it. looks like 2010 didn´t start so well in the blogging department.
in the past two months, much has happened. i spent the majority of january in zambrano, hanging out with the community. since school doesn´t start till february, many church programs and activities were also on hold, so we did a lot of relaxing and such, which was...good for the most part.
i was really hoping to get a good start on work in these first few months of the year. we are attempting to begin a conflict transformation and community development training, both in zambrano and in other areas around the coast. in theory, i love the idea, although moving forward on the proposal seems to be very slow-moving. at this point, we are doing a lot of reading materials, looking at how we want to write the curriculum we´ll be using in the different communities. the idea is to take contextual experience and mesh it with many other materials we have on hand at sembrandopaz to create a curiculum that will apply effectively to the situation here on the coast.
in february, jodi, a good friend from college, visited me, which was phenomenal. always and adventure having visitors arrive, we had a great week together. spent the majority of it in zambrano. having my two worlds come together is always a blessing, as well as a challenge, figuring out how they fit together. i am grateful to have friends that spend their vacation money and time to come hang out with me in zambrano. i am undeservedly loved.
a week ago, i boarded the plane to head out to bogota for two weeks. we had a workshop with the seed group (and partners from our communities) about peace building, which was a good space, and then followed a four-day mcc retreat with all mccers outside of bogota. retreats are always a space of rejuvination and re-connecting, a time to breath deeply and here in bogota, enjoy the colder weather!
i am now spending a week more in and around bogota. norvy, the pastor´s daughter, is now living in a town outside of bogota, teaching. it has been sad and lonely not having her in zambrano with me. i miss her dearly, so im excited to spend a few days with her this weekend. will return to bogota on saturday night to be able to attend church with veraguas, my church community in bogota, which although seeing people and connecting with friends, i have not been able to attend church there since i left bogota, and i´m very excited to be in that space on sunday. the following couple of days will be spent with two seed friends in cazuca, the outskirts of bogota, in their community, before i head back to the coast.
i´m really enjoying a break, although in this tiem away, we have hopefully found some ways that work will begin to pick up a bit on the coast. is looking like í´ll be doing some travel around the coast, doing workshops on context analysis so that we can use the information to build our curriculum for the conflict tranformation stuff we want to start. so´i´m excited to travel around the coast a bit, as well as feel like we´re moving toward concrete work. we´ll see how it goes.
am also in the process of thinking about what i do after this. doing another term in colombia is a real possiblity. i cherish the ways i am being challenged and changed here. but its all up in the air. will let you know when there is more clarity. prayers and wisdom would be appreciated. in many ways, i´d love to stay. in many ways, i miss you all so much its hard to think about that idea.
since i´m in bogota and not on my computer, i have no pictures to post, but i´ll try to put some up next week when i get back to the coast. regardless of how little i write and post, know that i do think of you all often, miss you tons, and love you all deeply. hopefully i´ll be back on writing again soon! much love...