My Colombian Chapter

(Prayer requests underlined) A couple of weeks ago, I went with my Spanish school to a comedor. This is similar to what I will be doing in January (but we just went for a couple of hours to serve lunch). It was a hugely eye opening experience... The school take students once a month and on the way always buy pudding for the children. They were so excited to get a chocolate bar (and lots of them tried to sneak 2 - I couldn't say no to their cute little faces!) The houses and area they were living is was quite frankly pretty shocking to see. Their houses were often no taller than me (and I'm short!) and made out of rubbish - tyres, old bath tubs etc. The teacher from the school informed us that just outside of the comedor was a big drugs hub which just happens whilst the children are around. Something children shouldn't have to see 😩, but sadly a reality here. I was terrified to go, because I knew that my Spanish wasn't going to get me very far, but I was so glad

The past few days have involved some eye opening experiences... (prayer requests underlined). This weekend just gone was a Latin Link retreat weekend. They have them twice a year in Colombia and it just so happened to fall fairly soon after our arrival! We headed off on the bus to a town a couple of hours away called Fusagasuga (a great name hey)! As we headed out of the bus terminal my heart slightly broke. Tens, more realistically probably hundreds, of Venezuelans were camped out by the terminal, most with not even a tent, just a bit of material attached to the wall . Many of them were trying to sell things to us through the bus window, including their money as their biggest note is worth less than the smallest Colombian coin (I think).. it was so horrid and sad to see, and it was strange to then arrive at a nice house in a sunny town. Hard to process I guess.  On the way, I also began to see more poverty . The further south we got, lots of the houses and shops were more self bui