Day 1: A Quick Recap

After many delays and what turned out to be a 12 hour layover in Houston, I arrived in Bogota at 1am Sunday morning.

Sunday was a weird day walking around the city, I surprised myself with memories I had basically forgotten, now suddenly at the forefront of my mind. This Chili's used to be a TGI Fridays. There is an annual food festival in this park. This is were my Spanish tutor lived, and that is where my dentist works. Pretty normal, boring stuff, but it was exciting to me.

When we were here with the State Department we were not allowed to take the buses because it was considered too dangerous. So, for the first time ever, I boarded a bus in Bogota. To be fair it was anticlimactic, there wasn't too much of a difference from any other bus I had taken before. I'm not really sure what I expected, oh well.

Church began at 4:30 pm. When we arrived we went through a hotel to the back room which the church rented. The congregation was pretty small, probably 30 people in total. We filled up the small room, if the church gets too much bigger they won't fit. 

After the service almost every family in the church introduced themselves and had a conversation with me. The community was very welcoming, which made me think of the difference between attending a large church versus a small one. My home church probably has a thousand people, and if a new person comes to church they can often get overlooked. This isn't the church's fault, I know they try everything they can to avoid it (connection cards etc), it is simply a consequence of being that large. I think this told me a great deal about the members of this church, it would have been pretty easy for them to slip out without saying hello.

After church a group of us went over to a church leader's apartment and had a long meeting on how the music team could improve. We also spoke on how the church could most effectively use members who are ready and willing to serve.

I spoke and listened to more Spanish on Sunday than I think I have since I left Colombia 4 years ago. It was mentally draining and I was exhausted by the end of the day. Overall, I think I fared alright, but I still have quite a bit of practicing to do.