Begun in Faith

 There have been three moments in my life when God clearly spoke and changed the direction of my career. The first was when I was fourteen. I already knew I wanted to be a teacher. I loved school and loved explaining new ideas to people. One day, as I was daydreaming about my future, I had a vision of myself teaching school-aged children in Africa. It wasn’t like a normal daydream. It was burned into my mind. It was important. I felt God was telling me to prepare myself to be a missionary. I waited six months before telling my parents what I had been thinking about. They were passively supportive, genuinely wanting my life to be used by God and hoping missions was a phase I would grow out of. The second was when I was 20. I was in a class in college listening to a lecture on cross-cultural tensions in the Boise area. It was my junior year. I was majoring in Elementary Education and minoring in Christian Missions. As the presenter spoke about gang activity and high risk Hispanic yo

Within a ten day span this month, we had a 50 th birthday celebration, visited a newborn baby, had a baby shower, prepared for a wedding, and one of our disciples signed the papers to rent her new apartment. Living life together is more than just Bible studies and prayer meetings. It’s actually living life together, and it’s awesome. Here are some of the life events we’ve been a part of this month. In this picture, poor Yesica still doesn't know why she's been called to the front of the church.  Her boyfriend, Marcos, had worked with Juan, one of my teammates, to prepare a marriage proposal  video. She said yes and we are very excited for both of them.  Soccer is life and life is soccer. What more can I say? The day that Pastora Jaci had her ultrasound to find out the gender of their baby, Pastor Junior was preaching at a convention in Brazil. We found out at 11:00 in the morning that Agatha is Agatha and not Caleb. Several women from the church conspired

Our main goal in Cordoba is to make disciples that make disciples. This is part one of a series on just that theme. I'm starting with an example: my dear friend Sol Barrera.  About a year ago, Sol, like so many, had gotten stuck in her relationship with God. She had an idea of what God wanted to give her (hope and strength) and an idea of what He expected from her (moral living, church attendance) but never grew past her initial commitment to God. She was raised in a Christian household, but her family were serial church hoppers, never staying anywhere long enough to get involved. Until God brought them to us. We were ecstatic to have the Barrera family as a part of our church. We got them in an Encounter and leadership classes as quickly as possible. Sol’s parents and younger siblings were just as excited as we were, but Sol seemed to hang back. We didn’t realize that she was savvier than we. She knew it was only a matter of time before something would happen and they w

I have referred back to this picture a couple times now in my blogs. It was a slightly awkward moment at the end of our big event “Hope for Cordoba” when the preacher (Pastor Ferney from Colombia) asked anyone who was there for the first time to come forward. The event was held in a concert hall rather than the church, so technically we were all there for the first time. There were many present who had never been to our church, but only these five timidly made their way to the front where Pastor Ferney surprised us all by praying the prayer of salvation with them. I’ve now been able to tell the stories of Erminda (on the far right) and Erica (in the middle). Two of the others were visiting from out of town, but now it’s time to tell the story of the man on the far left, Jorge. I had a short conversation with him right after this picture was taken. He had been handed a flyer by one of our visiting Olivet students earlier in the day. Desperate for hope, he braved the biting cold to com

This week, we, the Cordoba church plant, held our first service in our own church building! Since we signed the papers and got the keys on August 7, we’ve been working to transform this gorgeous home into a functional church. We’ve torn down a wall, installed a new water heater, created an upstairs kitchen, unburied the back patio, and moved and cleaned more things than we can count. (We’ve also hosted a short term team, ran a VBS, and did all our normal ministry activities because we hate sleep.) All this was possible because God is merciful and our church members have servants’ hearts. Several of them were in the building each day moving, painting, rewiring, and installing according to their various talents. It was a race against the clock as we needed to finish everything before our Encounter retreat began early Saturday, August 30. The Encounter is two days of intensive classes, prayer, and seeking God for our new church members. A week before the Encounter, we had eleven peop

We bought our new church building on Thursday the 7th, started cleaning it on Friday, moved the pastors in on Monday, and received a short term team from California on Tuesday. Because of planning complications, the team was only five members-the perfect size to help alleviate our chaos without adding to it. They toured and prayed over the city on Wednesday, then dove into a VBS program from Thursday through Monday. We have never done a VBS here in Cordoba and, judging from people’s reactions to our invitations, they are not a common community event. We had seven kids the first couple days, but after the kids/parents began to understand what a VBS is, attendance jumped to fourteen-sixteen the last three days. The lessons and activities were a huge hit. The kids were on a two week winter vacation from school; like we have in the States but without Christmas. We are looking forward to planning a VBS for the summer vacation in January. The highlight for me was showing our church members

Almost exactly one year ago, we signed the papers and started moving into our church. Even then, we knew we had to leave that building as soon as possible. Because of inflation, rent increases at least 15% every six months. That means our monthly rent that was $375 a year ago became $430 in January and would be $500 next month. Would be, but it’s not. We had our last service in that building yesterday and are racing to finish the remodel on our new building this week before the Encounter retreat and inauguration of the new building this weekend. The new building is OUR building. With funds raised through alabaster offerings, 40/40 donors (you), and Extreme church fund-raising, we bought a building three blocks from our original church. Front of the new church building The first adventure was finding and choosing a new church. For six months we kept our eyes peeled for For Sale signs whenever we were walking through the city. We called countless real estate agents and toured a