On Tuesday morning, Pat, Marty, Ken, and Kevin rode up to a church in an outlying area of Cali to meet with all of the pastors who serve in a confederation of churches that are all of the same mind and heart—to bring solid biblical teaching into areas of the city that are either under-served or ill-served. This Q&A session covered such topics as organizational structure to pay for full-time pastors. We shared some of our unique experiences in planting a church that is solely elder-led. We discussed our philosophy of shepherding and our elder candidate appointment process. Over lunch, we had the opportunity to learn about how their churches were founded and about the unique challenges they each face.

We all came away struck by how similar we are despite the miles and the cultural differences. We believe that this could be the beginning of a long-term relationship for us. They specifically have asked us to consider sending teams to the city of Pasto in southern Colombia to bring theological and ecclesiological training to the pastors and leaders at two churches there. These are churches that have recently broken away from the insidious “Prosperity Gospel” movement and their leaders need immediate support as they rebuild their congregations.

After lunch, the rest of the team arrived for an afternoon of ministry. The facility where we met is also a Compassion International center serving nearly 300 children. We gathered in a tiny courtyard with a painfully low ceiling (especially for some of us taller gringos) and performed our drama and sketchboard presentations. Later in the afternoon, we split into three groups and did a Q&A for the children (ages ranged from 6 to 12) much like we did in Guatemala last year—answering questions about our group, about God, about the Bible, and about the Gospel.

This was a great opportunity for us to engage in more direct conversations with many of the children. Finally, we provided face painting and balloon animals and loaded up to leave for dinner after a long day. Our debrief that night included several of our hosts and Javier, the pastor of the church in Cali, who speaks English very well, shared with the group that he was skeptical at first about our group and about our methods but that now that he has seen what we do and how effective our students are in sharing their faith and sharing theological truth, he wants to take us all over Colombia and Ecuador. His crowing compliment came when he said, “you are REAL missionaries, not just tourists wearing the name ‘missionary.'” This team is indeed proving his statement correct.