Preparations for our January 2012 mission trip to Medellin, Colombia

As the year draws to an end the team is hard at work making our preparations physically and spiritually. We have been meeting to plan and pray once a week now for months already. We also had a wonderful retreat weekend (at Pastor Rick's house!) during which we focused more on our spiritual readiness, but also could do some of the preparation for our ESL (English Second Language) classes.

There is still quite a bit to do! Becky, Rick and Barb's daughter, who is a trained ESL teacher has been working really hard to write and design new lessons that we will be using when we go in January. She joined her father to go there in August, and gained wonderful insight in how these lessons will work the best. On our side we have been going through each individual lesson to see how it works and to make any necessary changes as we try out the games that comes with it. The whole concept is based on playing games that will allow the students to use specific target language, while making the learning fun. At the same time it gives the students opportunity to get to know each other and the teaching team. This has shown over the last two outreaches to lead to unique opportunities to have personal meetings that may open the door for spiritual discussions. We depend upon God to make this happen, as we do our best to present a quality program.

Please pray for us as we prepare ourselves. Pray that God's mercy and grace will keep guard over us and our families, and that everything will work together to allow us to go to Colombia in January.

Pray for open hearts and open doors in Colombia. Pray that the people will be receptive to the Gospel.


Also pray for the new church that is being planted in Sabaneta. Pray that our Father will bless and protect the leaders, Diego and Claudia,  Jairo and Jennifer.

Mealtime during our retreat weekend

Rick explaining to our families how well our retreat is going...