For the past two weeks, things here in Colombia have been moving so fast, there have been many days where there was simply no time to even stop for lunch. I returned to Colombia a bit earlier than normal in order to get ready for the intense activity planned for this period and it is a good thing. Even with that time for preparation, the frenetic pace of the activity has been breathtaking (and at many times, that would be literal!) as we would rush from one activity to the next.
First, brother Paul Odham arrived to help us with our Christian Day School by giving conferences in Christian education for students with learning disabilities. In working with our Christian Day School, I run across many such students yet my own training in this area has been extremely limited. So at the request of the teachers themselves, for over two years I have been searching for someone to come down and help us with this project. I met brother Paul in January while speaking at the Winter Park Church in Orlando, Florida. He generously and graciously agreed to come down and help.
In the time he has been here, we have been offering an eight hour conference divided into two sessions. We offered four such seminars in two weeks. The presentation was an excellent balance of theory and practical advice and all of the teachers who participated were very positive and thankful. While this seminar was designed for our own school and teachers, we opened it up to the local public education establishment and the response was overwhelming.
During the time of our conferences, we had more than one hundred and thirty teachers attend the different sessions. In the breaks between sessions, we were swamped with teachers desiring to consult some specific case with us and so we were seldom able to take a brake ourselves or even get lunch. Paul would teach and I would translate and adapt his message to the Colombian reality.
Only three days after Paul arrived, Dewayne Liebrandt flew in as well. Along with what we were doing with the seminars for learning disabled children, we were also working on the development of the ministry to the deaf here in Colombia. So as I translated and taught in the area of learning disabilities, I also was shoe horning in meetings with Dewayne and the deaf ministry leaders here in Colombia.
As a result, for two weeks my days were beginning at five in the morning and we were going till ten thirty or eleven at night. By the time the two weeks were over and I was seeing off my visitors at the airport, I was so fatigued that I could hardly function. It had been two weeks that were too busy. But at the same time, we were able to get an incredible amount of very important things accomplished. For that reason I thank both Paul and Dewayne and praise God that He opened these doors and granted us health and stamina as we worked furiously to get the job done in the time we had.