Hello all,

We hope that you are all well back in the UK! We have had a fairly busy few days after our break for Holy week.

On Thursday morning we went up to el Pacifico for a worship session, singing songs, listening to a Bible passage that Arnoldo read and praying for the disaster in Mocoa. After a meal at the house of one of the church members, we met up with a family from church to then start a long walk up the mountain – a route called Camino de la vida. It was a hot day and a challenge to get to the park but the views were amazing from the top – we could see the whole of the city. We loved it but were sad to have to leave Jordan behind at the church due to her being unwell. Afterwards we went to the family’s house and had a lovely evening with them. They showed us how to make buñuelos – a Colombian specialty which are very tasty. We loved spending the day with them.

On Friday we went to the conflict museum (Casa de la memoria). It was very interesting to learn about all the history of Colombia despite the sad things that have happened here. Then we met up some of the youth from Redil and they took us to a pizza place and we had a chance to talk more. On Saturday we went to help out with an evangelism event that the Redil church network set up in Parque de las Luces. The event started off with worship, then we set off into teams to do some street evangelism to talk to the people who were walking around. This gave us a chance to listen to people’s stories, pray for them and tell them about our faith. I think all of us were affected by people we met that day.

Sunday morning we woke up early to go to church and pastor Arnoldo preached about grace. It felt really strange for us that they didn’t have any celebrations for Easter Sunday and that there was no talk about the resurrection, but we had our own little Easter celebration in our devotional that evening! The next day on Monday, we had to wake up extremely early as we were going to the national university to help UCU (a Christian union movement) reach out to the students there. We got into groups and spread around the uni with posters that had the question “what would you ask God?” We got the opportunity to chat to people about what they thought and invited them to an UCU event that would hopefully be able to answer their questions. This was a great experience, talking to others about our faith and hearing their opinions on God. The event also went really successfully with many people attending and asking interesting questions.

On Tuesday we were back at the school for a long day teaching English to the girls. We really enjoy teaching them and always leave shattered but happy!

Wednesday morning we went back to the university to help out UCU similarly to Monday, inviting people to a seminar on why God allows suffering, and also a talk about forgiving others and being forgiven, by a man whose life has been affected very negatively by the violence of others in the Colombian conflict. After this it was straight to Rebaño where Alice W led brilliantly a talk on the servant attitude of Jesus. It’s safe to say we all slept very well that night after 3 days of pre-5am starts.

We are so thankful for energy and strength from God in these few really busy days, and I think we are all really struck by the generosity and love people show to us. We have formed some great relationships in our time here.

Please pray that:

• this last week in Medellín goes well even though it’s going to be tough saying goodbye to everyone.
• for the lovely family we’re staying with
• for wisdom for some of the team who are going to be preaching in this coming week.