A good break!!

It was really nice to start the New Year with a holiday. We had a week away, with nice weather, all of the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. 20 people staying in one 4 bedroom house- didn't sound that relaxing but with great weather and a swimming pool out the front door, the kids easily entertained with each other. It was a good break. The kids especially loved playing and swimming with their cousins each day.

All the kids on the trip.

Gaby and her cousin

Simon

The town we went to is a tourist town, lots of people everywhere. It is not modern and there is a lot of obvious poverty. We went into the town center one day and saw a lady, with a young baby, her partner and another child earning money by looking after parked cars on the street. This is a common practice all over the country – what stood out was that they were looking after 3 parking spots. Usually one family would look after a block or half a block. The drivers of the parked cars gives them a few pesos for keeping thieves away and putting cupboard on the windows to help keep the car interior cool. We then went back to the compound where we were staying outside of the town. It was hard to grasp the total extremes.

Getting back to Bogotá it was easy to tell that the city was still nearly empty. Very few traffic jams, people and pollution. City officials say 4 million cars had left the city over the holiday period.

The weekend after our return Carlos headed off to a three day church camp. He is one of the volunteers of our church who are getting ready for a major outreach/evangelistic camp for over 500 youth from low income schools in Bogotá.

The beginning of a New Year involves a lot of planning and organizing in the ministry. Financial reports for the previous year, programming ministry events, getting kids enrolled in school, are just a part of the process.

God has started to answer a prayer request that we have had for years in the ministry. The area of working with the families of the children, both those in full time care and those in the school and drop in center has been in need of strengthening. This year we have a team of people who will be working with these families. They will be running regular parenting workshops as well as doing one on one counseling and discipling. Katrina has been working on the guidelines for this work, please pray for good communication with the families team as this work is key in having the families reunited and serving God together.

The work on the repairs on the houses has been happening but is going a lot slower than hoped. The work of remodeling the drop in centers auditorium has had hold ups in the paperwork. We hope it can be started on by March.

We have really enjoyed having BJ from Waipawa in Kiwiland with us. We met him while we were in New Zealand over a year ago. We kept in contact since then and now God has called him to serve with us short term. He has the traditional Kiwi ability of fixing things and has done some much needed repairs. He is very popular and considered a heroe as he killed the rat that was living under a sink. We had planned for him to work mainly on the auditorium remodeling but we are very grateful for his initive and ability to turn a hand to anything.

BJ Craig

We would ask you to pray for our families health. Gabriela has been very sick the last 4 days with vomiting and diarrhoea. The bug then hit Carlos and today Simon.

The New Zealand exchange rate has affected our finances greatly. A year ago we receive the equivalent of 1700 colombian pesos for every Nz dolar, today it is nearly 1100 pesos. We are tighten the belt as much a possible but there are fixed things such as rent, school fees that we can't not pay. We would appreciate you prayers in this area.

With love,

Carlos and Katrina

Some Colombian trivia

Guanábana Tree

This tree in English is called soursop. An evergreen tree native of South America. It grows in areas of high humidity and warm winters. It tastes like a sour citrus mixture of strawberry and pineapple contrasting with a creamy flavour reminiscent of coconut or banana. We like to drink it as a juice.

Orchid

The orchid is the national flower of Colombia. They come in every colour of the rainbow and combination thereof. They also come in every size. It is believed that there are more than 20,000 occurring species. They grow on trees or rocks as air plants. They are not parasites and use the tree or rocks for support only. They get their nutrients from decaying plant material that lodges in the bark of the tree and water that drips from the tree leaves above. It doesn't require soil to grow.