This is Bogota, Colombia!

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I love living in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. A truly international city, it feels quite different than Greenville, SC - mainly due to the estimated nine million residents. I live in a house in the north of the city, which is the safest part of Bogota. It is also close to ECA and near most of the school’s faculty. Everyday I leave my comfortable home and as soon as I close the door behind me, I brace myself for the noise of cars, buses, transmilenios, crowded streets, people asking me to buy things every ten steps,beggars asking for money, people shouting for me to get on their bus,and the mad rush of the city at 6:15am. I pass many street vendors selling fresh bread, arepas, or black coffee. I dodge trash and breathe in tons of bus fumes. I hold my purse and book bag tight and try to look like I have lived here for years. I reach my street where I wait for the teacher van to pick me up (or sometimes find it waiting on me) then we zoom in and out of traffic until we reach ECA all before 7:00am.

Today is my favorite day of the week. Everyday the staff has a meeting that starts at 7:15. This is nice, because at the end of the day all you have to do is finish your work and leave school. Wednesdays we worship. No one mentions paperwork that is due or tomorrow's modified schedule, we just stop and worship for thirty minutes before we start our day. We sing in Spanish and English. Our staff has amazing musicians, so we have a full band and we sing loud enough for everyone entering school grounds to hear. Some of the high school students join us and you can hear the elementary kids laughing and playing outside the auditorium between songs. It definately sets a different tone for the day and I am always reminded of my purpose at ECA and for living in Bogota. We stop worshipping right before the bell rings and all the teachers rush back to their classrooms, weaving in and out of loud, laughing students. The bell rings and 23 beautiful children enter my room. I get a hug and kiss from each one and a "Good Morning, Miss. Parrish I have missing you or I love you." Sometimes their English mistakes are so cute I can't correct them. After the sweet greetings I start rushing them to unpack and get in their seats so we can start our day. We pray, we sing, we learn, we eat, we play for 7 hours. Then I gladly send them on their way home, because 23 kindergartners wear me out. The best part is that each day I get to share truth, talk about how Great our God is, and shape their character. I quicly go to my spanish class, finish up work in my classroom, and then get on the same teacher van to go home.

I had a very different picture in mind of what I would be doing when I first moved here. I thought I would be working with poor kids, street kids, kids who hadn't heard the gospel before. I was wrong. I get to do that some on our ministry outreaches, but with most of my time I work with students from very wealthy families, many of the families in full-time ministry. After the first quarter, when I had all my parent teacher conferences, I was blown away at the amazing ministries that they are involved in. I have one mom who grew up here as a missionary kid. Her dad was kidnapped by the FARC when she was very young. After he was released he started Christ for Colombia, a huge ministry that reaches out to thousands and thousands. She married a Colombian man who works for Voice of the Martyrs here in Bogota. One couple has a children's ministry with over three thousand children and young adults. They take their students on mission trips to the US every year to reach the Latino community. Pastors, couples planting churches in small cities outside of Bogota, couples reaching the poorest parts of the city. My parents are amazing. Over and over they thanked me for coming here and investing in their children's lives. They invite me to be a part of what they are doing and spend time with their families. Even though it isn't what I imagined, I think it is better, because I get to be another person in their child's life that is teaching them what it means to live for Christ and be aware of world around them. I get to partner with their parents to prepare them to reach the poor, the people living on the streets, and the people who have never heard truth before. Discipleship.

Our school has stopped ministry outreaches for the month of December to give students a break and the people who spend so much time planning all our outreaches. Each grade is collecting items that their ministry is in need of and those will be delivered before Christmas. Before our break started, many outreaches occured. The past trips to the Teenage Pregnancy home were wonderful. One time we did a beauty/spa day and gave manicures/pedicures and did make-up to give the moms a treat. Another time we just shared testimonies that were so encouraging to me, God can change people so much. I love to watch the middle school and high school girls in action there. They beleive the young moms are heros for not having abortions and that is exactly how they treat them. There is no judgement, only love, and it is neat to watch their relationships develop and deepen with girls that they dont have much in common with. God has surprised me with giving me a desire to spend more time with the high school students. This is odd because I usually find high schoolers extremely annoying and self-centered (which reminds me of exactly who I was in highschool, but worse... it wasn't pretty). There are three girls (one of them I disciple) that I have been very intentional about spending time with and trying to plan things outside of school to get to know them better. All of the high school students amaze me though. Last week they ate on less than a dollar a day for World Hunger Week. They waited to eat breakfast at school and at lunch they cooked very cheap meals together. They went home with a snack for dinner, very different from their usual meals. They did it with barely any complaining and grew so much. I don't know if God is changing my heart or these high school students somehow escaped that annoying stage that all teenagers seem to experiance, but I look forward to seeing how God will use this new interest in my life down the road.

Life has been busy and I have seen God moving a ton. I am so thankful to be here and I was reminded of that last week during Thanksgiving. I praised God for everyone who has encouraged me, supported me and prayed for me. For all the friends and family who stop to think about me and make it a point to keep in touch so I don't feel so homesick. I hope you all had a wonderful time with your families and praising God for all your blessings. My first Thanksgiving away from home was a little bit sad, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I cooked a big meal that I think would have made my Grandma proud for my roomates and friends the weekend before. We didn't have turkey because it is too exspensive here, but other than that it was pretty authentic. On Thursday morning at 3am, I jumped in a jeep with another teacher from school and one of her friends named, Edgar, that I have never met before. They took me to the second largest city in Colombia, Medellin. It was warm and beautiful. It used to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world (during Pablo Escobar's reign in Colombia) but has changed a ton in the past twenty years. We still had to be careful, but we felt safe and had the best time. We drove most of the day on Thursday and when we got to our apartment Edgar bought us turkey sandwhich meat and we had a little celebration. I love any chance to get out of Bogota to see how beautiful this country is. We explored and it was fun to get to know Giselle better and make a new friend. Edgar is amazing because he started his own ministry in the south part of Bogota just a few years after he became a beleiver. It is for street kids and it is growing and growing. I am going to check it out soon.

To everyone who played a part in making my 27th birthday at the beginning of the month the best birthday ever, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! I celebrated all week long with my students, families from school and friends. I felt so loved and appreciated the emails, cards and presents that were sent that week. I can't wait to see everyone in 2 and 1/2 weeks to celebrate Christmas!