I have just returned to Colombia after a short and frenetic two month visit to the States. This trip up was primarily dedicated to family and working around the house. I did some traveling and speaking, but I tried to spend much of the time with my family. We painted the house, which had not been done in over twelve years and worked on some other odds and ends.
I did one VBS, preached and visited a couple of supporting churches, and made a trip to Louisville to meet with the people at TEAM Expansion. It was a trip filled with family and missionary activity. I enjoyed dedicating time to my family and we ended the trip with a birthday party for Heidi, our second grand child. Then on the 27th of June, I returned to Colombia.
This trip turned out to be a very tiring one as each leg of the trip was characterized by crowded airplanes and long delays. We left New York more than two hours late and so arrived in Colombia late at night. The airport was packed as all of the other flights had come in and the very small airport was obviously over capacity. But one of the preachers was still waiting for me and I reached the apartment very late. I was very tired after such a long and arduous trip, so I simply dropped the suitcases and headed for bed.
Yesterday I began to organize the apartment and get it set of for living and working here again for the next four months. And, as always, I hit the ground running. By six in the morning people were calling me and I was calling others as we began to set up my work schedule for this trip down. For the entire day, I worked on getting unpacked and organized while holding a telephone to my ear with my shoulder. The fact that I will have two coworkers down for different ministry aspects added a sense of urgency to these preparation.
This Sunday, only four days after my arrival, a brother from a church in Florida will be down for a seminar on working with children with learning disabilities. He is the head of special education of one of the largest school districts in the United States and teaches part time at a college in teacher training. He very generously accepted our invitation to come down and help us in that area.
We had set this up before I left for the States but a teacher’s strike here has thrown my plans and the entire educational system into utter chaos. Seminars that had been organized at one of the local teacher training colleges were cancelled along with all of their regular classes. Our own schools had their semester breaks moved back so that they will not be in session during the time he is here. So this has made for a hectic time as I had to try to set things up again in order to be ready to make the most of this brother’s trip down.
Then next Wednesday, Dewayne Liebrandt will be down again to help us in the deaf ministry here in Colombia. This has been a great blessing and a challenge to the churches here and we really appreciate his help. But I need to get the meetings and translation sessions set up for him as well so that we can make the most of his time here in Colombia. So I will have two coworkers down at the same time and that will make for a very busy month of July.