Second Trip September, 2009 Day 1

The Lord opened a door for us to go to Colombia this week to spend some time with our Goddaughter and work on some ministry issues with the Colombian government. My 20 year old daughter Rebekah, our compadres in the orpahn ministry, Allen Pate and David Richardson, and I arrived safely last night. This morning the wonderful couple, Sandra & Antonio, the dentist and Engineer who have become our liaisons here in Bogota had set up a meeting for us with the defender of the girls at ICBF, which is the equal to our CPS. We also picked up two workers from the orphanage that know all parties and wanted to be part of the meeting. We were praying very hard for this meeting as we had no idea what to expect. The defender started out by asking some tough questions about our intentions for the girls and as we and our Colombian friends began to explain who we were and what we do in ministry and about our families and our children, the defender began to get very excited and said that she was very happy to meet us and very touched by what we were trying to do. God’s presence in the room was unmistakable. We were The defender asked when she was going to be invited to Texas to come and see what we are doing in ministry. I told her NEXT WEEK 🙂 if she wanted. We all hugged. When we left the meeting the words “miracle” were on several lips including those of our friends Sandra and Antonio. And this was all before lunch! Next we went to a new, tiny, orphanage with 51 boys. They all live in a single house with 6 bedrooms and lots of bunk beds. The dining room was smaller than the breakfast nook in my house. The place was immaculately clean and very organized. The boys do all of the work. They pay $900.00 US a month for rent. The government only pays for food. This is one of the places that we will try to help on future trips. At last we finally made it to Amparo De Ninas, the orphanage, where our Goddaughters live. We pulled into the gate and were hardly out of the van when I heard an ear piercing scream and little Heidy leaped over a hedge and jumped into my arms. It was a moment I will remember to the day I die. The response from the other Goddaughters, Lida, Genari, and Marley were the same. We spent about an hour standing next to the van just hugging all of the orphan girls that we know there and taking pictures with them. When it was finally explained to Heidy and the other Goddaughters that they needed to go pack because they were going to get to stay with us for the rest of the week, they could not believe it. We left and went straight to the mall. Our first stop was a large video arcade and we played air hockey, race cars, motorcycles, etc. etc. It was so fun. I don’t know who were the bigger kids, David, Allen, and Myself or the girls! We left there and went ice skating. Actually all the girls skated while the old guys sat and took pictures and video. It was amazing. Heidy and Rebekah tried to learn and teach each other how to ice skate and it turned into some spectacular crashes. Only bruises, thank goodness :-). Then we had pizza and soda and headed for the hotel. There were many hugs and thank you’s and many smiles from our girls. David, Allen, and I agreed that the hand of God had dramatically guided our day and we couldn’t think of anything better in the world we would rather be doing than this.

Love and Prayers,