Day 3 Miracles of 6th Trip to Bogota, September, 2010

This morning we had breakfast with the board of Fundacion Tayakai, our partners in Colombia. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, dream building, organizing, and good old fashioned communication. We have many miracle projects that have come out of our meetings this week that we have to get started on. I will use my last post to tell you all about them and how you all can help. But for now back to this day. After our breakfast we took a tour of some beautiful old buildings near where we were having breakfast and when we came back to the breakfast room the Goddaughters were waiting there for us. Such a joyous reunion ensued that it is hard to put into words. I can still feel the arms tight around my neck and feel the kisses on my cheek. We spent the rest of the day touring old town Bogota with the girls and generally having a marvelous time. We stopped in a restaurant and had a late lunch and enjoyed wonderful fellowship. Our two translators, Alexandra and Nep, were absolutely wonderful. Finally it was time for the girls to return to the orphanage and we said our sweet goodnights. The board sat up very late strategizing and talking about the new developments God has sent our way through this trip. This entire trip for me has been a miracle. I know I keep using that word but I literally saw the hand of God everywhere building a team between Orphan Hope International, Fundacion Tayakai, and ICBF. At the same moment the spiritual warfare with the forces of darkness was intense and at the same time the fingerprints of our Father were on everything. It was amazing. I hesitate to use a very personal instance to show what I mean but I think it will illustrate very well what this whole trip was like. At one point in the trip, we were in a meeting that could literally make or break our future ministry in Colombia from man’s perspective. I was suffering horribly with my Systemic Lupus and had been the entire trip. My kidneys were aching fiercely and I had been passing blood all day. I am sitting in this meeting and each of us is sharing and I am praying like crazy that I can make it to the end of the meeting and I get a text from my wife alerting me to a turn for the worse in a situation where we are helping an abused girl and my daughters are out on the streets looking for her. About five minutes later I get a message on my phone from my bank alerting me that my direct deposit paycheck didn’t go through and automatic payments are being cancelled and my account is in the red. It was pure grace alone but I literally chuckled, looked heavenward and smiled, and went on with the meeting and God gave us some amazing things in that meeting. I know a few stories from some of the rest of the board that happened that night that are as astounding as well but I will leave those for them to tell someday. My point is that God is mightily at work in Colombia and Satan is not happy about it but he is ultimately powerless to stop it so his only recourse is harassment and as long as we remember where it is coming from and that greater is HE that is in me than he that is in the world, we can smile and go on. Praise Jesus!