On Wednesday we began a three-day work in neighboring town of Yumbo. The pastor of the church there, Cesar, arranged for us to spend the day in two different public schools on Wednesday and on Thursday. But because of the World Cup game on Friday, school is cancelled so our plan is to work in a local park in Yumbo in the morning and head back to Cali before the game starts at 3:00.

Similarly to what we did in San Mateo, Guatemala last year, our plan was to present our skits and sketch board to the entire assembled student body and then to go into the classrooms and do Q&A with the students. The morning session on Wednesday was primarily 1st through 4th grades so we made our presentations and instead of going into classrooms (since these students were too young to engage in Q&A) we were allowed to give them balloon animals and do face painting. We created an assembly line of face painting with most all of the boys opting for the Colombian flag and the girls for a heart or a butterfly. Our team created hundreds of balloon animals and swords and it was “game on” for the swashbuckling. Marty Kronz vs. every kid in the school. The kids won but we think Marty let them win.

We were able to secure a nearby recreational facility where we could eat and sit and relax before the afternoon session. It is far more hot in Cali and Yumbo than in Medellin and we need to make sure everyone is hydrated and no one overdoes it.

In the afternoon, we returned to the same school and this time we had a smaller, older group of students (they do double sessions in the schools). Again we did our presentations (the students are doing a TREMENDOUS job with the presentations). After the presentations, we set up one table for face painting and one station for balloons for the few very young children there. The rest of the students returned to their two classrooms and we divided the teams to go into the classes and do Q&A. At first we couldn’t get past the simple, “do you have pets?” “do you have a girlfriend?” questions. But our students did a great job of pointing the answers back to the gospel and eventually the questions got deeper and more meaningful. Pastor Javier from Cali was in our classroom and did a great job of interpreting for us. Each of our students got the opportunity to weigh in on many of the questions ranging from “how do we know the Bible is true?”, “is Christianity the only way?” to “why is sex reserved for marriage only?” In our debrief sessions, several of our students have repeated that they believe this trip has prepared them to answer these questions such that they feel ready to engage their friends at home. This is one of the reasons for these types of trips. We want to see our students extend the mission beyond the one-week experience in Colombia to an every-day experience at home. Thank you for making this happen.

Wednesday was a long day but it wasn’t finished when we left the school. From there we returned to Cali to attend Wednesday night services where the students led two worship songs and Ken taught a lesson on evangelism taken from the story of the Rich Young Ruler. This was followed by a Q&A where the members of the church asked several excellent questions and many of the members of our group were able to participate in the answers.