Colombian Christian Mission

Last Saturday I traveled to Villavicencio to preach at the church and then spend the week working at the school. I put in a long hard week and was planning on traveling back up to Bogotá by the end of the week. I needed to get back up there to get ready for Paul Odham’s next trip down for a seminar with the school psychologists here in Villavicencio that is to take place the first week of August. I had planned on taking off on Friday morning after my devotional with the teachers and the kids.

We have had our college scholarship program for quite some time now, so it is time to share some of the stories of those who have been receiving benefits. Since Colombia is still a mission field and the churches here are very poor by American standards, most of the preachers support themselves by working at some trade to make a salary and they preach and evangelize because of their sense of calling and their zeal for the Lord and His kingdom here on earth. Yet most jobs in Colombia pay only a tiny wage, unless the person is a professional of some sort.

For many children of the Christians in Colombia, attending college is an impossible dream. Many were born into poor families and normally would never have even been able to dream of attending university. When the family turned to Christ and became Christians, in most cases the children also become Christians and begin to excel in life and they often begin to dream the impossible dream; of attending college and becoming a professional.

When Paul Odham was in Colombia, we presented our annual conferences on Learning Difficulties. This year Dewayne Liebrandt also came down and we video taped all of the sessions, so that people who could not attend would be able to take advantage of the training. This enabled us to teach not only the seven hundred teachers and parents who attended our sessions but through video to extend that teaching all over the jungle/prairie region of Colombia. Everyone could learn from the training sessions by seeing them on videos at their own time and convenience.

For the past three weeks Dewayne Liebrandt and I have been doing some intensive work with the deaf church here in Colombia. It was relocated out of the Normandía church and is now established as an independent deaf Christian Church. This gives the church its own identity and the freedom to develop their services totally in sign language. But it is a big change for them and so we have been working with them to adapt to that new situation successfully. At first the move presented difficulties and it took a bit of time for the deaf Christians to become adjusted.

This past week we had our annual seminars on learning difficulties with Paul Odham, of Orlando, Florida. He graciously and generously comes down each year to help out with these. Even though he is a recognized expert in the field his generosity and selflessness are what motivates him to see such a great need and help to solve it. When so many others were afraid to even come to Colombia, he returns each year with great enthusiasm.

I have been very busy down here this trip working on a couple of special projects. The first one is establishing Bible college classes for the deaf church. Nothing like that has ever been done down here before, so I have been forced to develop the entire methodology for how to work with the deaf on a college level. It is interesting and has been quite challenging as I try to adapt the distance learning model to deaf Christians who have a very limited reading ability. Since the written word is representative of the spoken idea, the deaf typically have only the most limited skills in reading.

This time in Colombia we have a very special project in the works.  Most of you are aware that almost three years ago, together with Dewayne Liebrandt and Deaf Ministries International; we launched the very first deaf church in Colombia. That work has continued to progress and this year should be on its own, independent of the hearing church that it was partnering with. The growth, both numerical and spiritual is impressive. We have seen the hand of God at work in this ministry.

On Friday of this past week, My dear friend and coworker, Dewayne, Liebrandt lost his mother.  Glenna Makela passed from this life into the next after losing her battle with ovarian cancer.  While I have known Dewayne for many years we became very close as we worked together in a deaf church plant here in Colombia.  Our friendship extended beyond our joint ministry as we became hunting buddies and friends in sharing many aspects of life and ministry.

Just this morning I got a very important call from one of the elders in the church in Villavicencio.  The lot next door to the church and school was offered to us for a very reasonable sum of $42,000.  We had tried to buy it once before and even raised some money.  Then the owners jacked to price up to an impossible amount and so the deal fell through.  It has sat there since then with no buyers and so the other day they approached us again.  We still have some money in the bank from that last attempt and that could be used as a down payment.  But we do not have t