The Hostel. We were searching for a place to host our squad for debrief. We couldn’t find a place big enough for 43 people. Then, Em finds this place called Macondo Guest House. Batis is the person at the front desk that Em first encounters. She speaks a little English. When Ty, Em, and I go to check out the hostel, we tell here why we are in Medellin. She begins to cry when we tell her that we are here to help Medellin. She doesn’t understand why we would leave the comfort of our homes to come to Medellin. She gives us bottles of water. We end up renting out the whole hostel for debrief. During debrief, everyone is so friendly, even though we clog toilets, make some messes, and take some time to get recycling into our heads. But, they loved on us unconditionally. When we left, we prayed with all the staff that were there and they were all in tears. The relationships formed were amazing.
The Meeting Spot. There was not a meeting spot big enough in the hostel for all 43 of us to meet for sessions and worship, plus have a separate space for teams to meet with the leadership team. We searched for two days for meeting spots (Thankfully, logistics got to head out early with the SQL’s for our first debrief). We checked with hostels, hotels, churches, and not one seemed to be able to host us. Then, we found a church that said they would help us! Great! We thought we were golden. Then, they get back to us with a price–$500. Woah! Way out of budget. We were thinking $50-$100. We try to explain to them what we are doing. Em gets them down to $150 with minimal use of their space (just for sessions and worship—we’ll do the team debriefs at the coaches’ and mentor’s hotel). After our first worship night there and telling stories about how God worked through us in Medellin, the people are touched. We pray with them. They want to keep coming back to our worship sessions (and do!). They end up offering the space to us for free because they didn’t want to hinder the work that we were doing. We still give them a donation when we leave because they let us borrow chairs, provided us with coffee and water, and let us use their amazing space.
The Transportation. Our host in Colombia provided transportation from our ministry to the hostel FOR FREE. They told us they appreciated all that we had done this month. There was something special about our group and they wanted to bless us. WOW! But God doesn’t stop working there! We are trying to find a bus to Quito and cannot find any. We ask our host to help us out and finally find a bus that will take us all the way to Quito. PERFECT! Oh wait! There are 43 of us and only 42 seats! Oh man :(. But wait! There is a seat next to the copilot we can use. Also, because we have that person up there to help keep the driver awake, they are going to take about TWO MILLION paseos off the price! Is your jaw dropping yet? Plus, all of this is now $1,000 under budget!
But the saga continues! We are stopped two times by police in route to the border. The first time was a breeze. They look at our passenger list and bus credentials and let us go. The second time, the police officer wants to see all of our passports. Not a big deal, but potentially takes a lot of time. I’m currently sitting up front as the copilot on this leg of the trip. So, of course I’m the first passport he looks at. He looks at it, says something in Spanish and then gets off the bus. Val was sitting up front (one of our Spanish speakers on the squad) and starts laughing after she asks the bus driver what happened. The police officer said he didn’t need to look at any of the other passports because I was so beautiful and he basically “fell in love with me”. God is a funny man.
We continued on and God continued to work. After we get done “leaving” Colombia (a few hours later—we had to get off the bus, and go to a “station” and get “checked out” of the country) we come back to the bus and there is a problem.
A new law changed right at the beginning of February stating the bus had to have some kind of special paperwork to go into Ecuador. The bus was rented from Bogota, so there was no way to get the paperwork. So, the bus company had called an Ecuadorian bus company and we ae a look at the bus to see if it would work. We didn’t have to pay any money because it was the bus company’s fault. The bus looked good, but there was no bathroom. Which, for the 5 hours we had left, wasn’t a big deal. They said they would stop whenever we wanted.
We proceeded to “check in” to Ecuador and met the bus on the Ecuadorian side and got all of the luggage transferred over.
From there, it was smooth sailing and we landed at the Quito bus station safe and sound after about 32 hours on a bus.
For sure, God’s hand of mercy, grace, faithfulness, and protection was with us through all of this.
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8
