Colombia Mission Trip 1-2013 Day 7

IMG_0868Saturday, January 26, 2013 was indeed a blessed day. Most of the team had to go home but as Pastor Timothy says, “The Mission Possible trip still continues” and so after dropping them at the airport we caught a bus to La Calera, a beautiful little town in the mountains just outside of Bogota. Brooke said it looked like a town out of the movies. There is a unique orphanage up there that consists of 6 separate houses with 10-15 young people in each and a married couple in each. It has more of a family structure this way and the teens we met there are very happy. One of those precious teens is our own Goddaughter, Heidy. She was waiting at the gate of the house and when she saw us come through the gate she screamed and ran and jumped into my arms with a gran abrazo. The last seven months are the longest I have gone without seeing her in 4 years. She was so happy and looked so good. The mountains and the house and the friends she has made have done very well by her.

IMG_0876Her 17th birthday is in ten days so we took a walk down to the little town square and had a birthday lunch and presented her with our birthday presents we had brought. She was so happy. Then we went to the little store off the plaza and bought some things for all the girls in her house and some necessary items that Heidy needed. It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day. The sun was shining and the air was fresh and we were spending time with our girl. What a blessing. As many of you know we tried desperately for two years to adopt Heidy and our other Goddaughter Ginary but could never get all the legal entanglements worked out. But God has watched over them and taken good care of them and I know someday we will be together. I told Heidy that when I am old I am moving to La Calera and I’m going to sit in a rocker on the porch and drink my Colombian coffee and eat papaya and she is going to have to take care of me. She laughed and hugged me and said, “I will Papi.” She told me all about the Christian Bible study that she attends on Wednesday nights and the church she attends on Saturdays. I’ve never seen her so happy and so healthy. Praise God.

IMG_0885Then it was time to go and we hugged and kissed goodbye and we headed down the mountain in the little bus to visit with our pastor friends and spend the night. On the way we stopped and bought a bunch of groceries to surprise them with because planting a new church this year in a rough part of Bogota has been hard on them but God is bringing souls into the kingdom down there.

We had a wonderful dinner with Pastors Lucas and Doraynne and laughed and talked about the kingdom and all that God is doing and then turned in. Thank you to Relationships for Christ and their Mission Possible program and Mission Critical International for this blessed week. Praying for God’s power on my sermon tomorrow at Iglesia Libertad and our precious pastor friends Hector and Liliana and their family and our last day in Colombia for this trip.

Thank you for your prayers.

Matt Bullen