For the past two and a half weeks, we have been involved in an intensive leadership training program with churches in three geographical regions of Colombia. Dr. Mike Householder and John Leech traveled to Colombia in early March for a scheduled series of training seminars. I organized the event and traveled with them for most of the conferences to serve as translator.
We began with a five day training session for the churches in Bogotá. We held conferences on Saturday and Sunday during the day and then in the evenings for the Monday through Wednesday sessions. There was a high degree of interest and active participation by a large number of the leaders from the churches here in Bogotá.
Then on Thursday we traveled to Cartagena to work with the church there. At that time there was not only some teaching but a lot of consultation with the local leaders as to the development of the program. Mike had taught the intensive seminar there last August and so on this trip it was more a “tune up†as we checked up on the progress of the church. I had written more about that segment of the trip in a previous blog so only a brief mention is needed here to place that trip into context.
We returned from Cartagena to have two more days of classes and consultations with church leaders here in Bogotá, including a trip to visit with and teach at one of the churches in the South end of Bogotá that was interested in implementing the program. Most of the leaders were satisfied that they understood how to begin working in a more effective manner and were excited about the prospects.
On Thursday, Martin Sanders came up from Villavicencio to take Mike and John down there. They visited with three of the churches in the Llanos and spoke with the leaders there. The purpose of that segment of the trip was to introduce them to the material and program that Mike has developed. They also participated in the Holy Week (Easter) services of the churches and to get to see the work and meet some of the leaders.
Martin brought them back up to Bogotá on Sunday afternoon and we immediately headed out to visit another one of the churches in the South end of Bogotá. That service lasted till late in the evening and so it was nearly time to turn in when we made it back to the apartment. Besides, we were all quite tired after the more than two weeks of intense activity and training. On Monday we printed up, gathered, and stapled more than one hundred of the evangelism booklets used with the program. That took us all day.
Then yesterday, it was up early and off to the airport. I drove John and Mike to the airport and helped them get through all of the paper work to depart from Colombia. We then headed upstairs and had a cup of coffee and chatted while waiting for the time for them to enter the concourse and catch their plane. I drove back to the apartment and monitored their flight until it had left. We thank John and Mike for their efforts and ministry to help us with the work here in Colombia. It was a very beneficial time of training and we look forward to improved evangelistic results here in Colombia.