Villavicencio

One of the churches in the Aposento Alto group is in the city of Villavicencio. Unfortunately the church in Villavicencio has been struggling recently. To support our brothers and sisters there, some members of Iglesia Parkway decided to go down for the weekend and I was invited.

Saturday morning I stuffed my backpack and hopped on a bus with a friend. We were meeting the rest of the group at a mall across town. We arrived early and then had to wait one or two hours after the agreed departure time before we left. 

Arriving early is always a mistake in Colombia. Colombians live by what is affectionately referred to by expats as "Colombian time". "Colombian time" is just another way of saying everyone is always late and nothing ever starts on time. Yes America, it is just as bad as it sounds. And let's remember that this is coming from someone who is consistently 5-10 minutes late. Sometimes things start hours late, HOURS... Deep breathes, rant over. I promise I won't bother you with this again.

A member of the church drove us in his SUV. We were packed in, all seats taken. I normally don't do too bad in cars, but the roads in Colombia through the mountains are very curvy, and the constant traffic means that you are always speeding up and slowing down. Anyway, I shut my eyes for most of the 4-5 hour trip to keep things from getting out of control, an inconvenience more than anything.

When we arrived in Villavicencio the church there gave us some lunch. We then went to the town square to begin setting up for the event we were having that night. A group called Energema had come to Villavicencio as well. Energema is a group from Bogotá that does evangelistic drama/dance/music productions. The event that night was a show from them, followed by a quick message from Sam. We were to setting up speakers, microphones and instruments when it began to rain. We grabbed a tarp from the car and tried to bind it to the top of a soccer goal to create a makeshift shelter for the electronics and instruments. It worked well enough and we were able to, for the most part, keep the equipment dry. The real loss was the fact that the rain acted as a deterrent to people coming to watch the show. Despite this, we were still able to generate a small crowd, but I couldn't help but feel a little frustrated with the situation.

After Energema finished, Sam started to give his message and the rain came down even harder. There was no choice but to begin to put things away to keep them dry. We left the speakers for last and Sam was able to finish his message. Sam left that night to return to Bogotá for Sunday church. The rest of us stayed to attend church in Villavicencio. The women stayed at a member's house and the men slept in the church itself.

Sunday morning the music team from Iglesia Parkway played and Fabio (a leader at Iglesia Parkway) gave a message.

We were able to get to know the members of the church in Villavicencio over the short weekend and help them with some outreach. It is often hard to judge the impact on a church and community over such a short time, but I hope we were able to encourage them.

It was a good trip overall and it's always nice to see more of Colombia!

Pray for Iglesia Parkway and Iglesia Villavicencio and the work that God is doing here in Colombia.