In March, I was invited by my friends Steve Phillips and Michael Ellis to do the boot camp school for Nehemiah Ministry International at Rey de Reyes church in Cali, Colombia. I was privileged to stay with one of the inspiring youth leaders Jonathan Calderon. It was truly a life changing experience as we went through the counseling material as a community. It was exciting to be a part of a church community, with closely nit small groups, which is alive and growing. I was amazed by the love of the people for one another in the church. After the course, I had to take the offer of my friend David Cruz to go back and stay with them for a few more weeks. We celebrated birthdays together, went to small group meetings together, went to the streets of Cali to promote Jesus to the people, and enjoyed a weekend leadership retreat.
After the course at Rey de Reyes, I traveled to the three frontiers of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia in the Amazon. I soon connected with a mission called AmazonXpeditions through a friend. I met the son of the founder David Gonzalez, and I was amazed by his passion to use all the resources he could to bless people out on the river. I had the chance to join them in going out to small communities on the river bringing food supplies and water purification systems. There is something truly satisfying about being able to bring food to people who need it. Going out on the river with them to do missions was the nothing less than the experience of a lifetime.
During my time there, I had the privilege of staying with the Ticuna people in a little village close to Leticia, Colombia. They would smile as I would walk through their village of houses built on stilts paved by muddy paths. I spent a good amount of time with one boy named Fabricio. He was very nice, smart, and friendly, and he enjoyed showing me around his little village. But I soon noticed that he like many of the others would come to a feeding program, because there just wasn’t enough food in his home. It made me think about what James wrote about in the New Testament, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27 ESV).
After my trip in the Amazon, I was privileged to stay with pastors Jairo and Doris Niño in Armenia, Colombia. I met them through pastor Penn Clark a friend of mine. We spent time together and went through the inner-healing and deliverance material together again. They taught me many things through their experiences in the international field. I loved staying with them. I really enjoyed their loving family, warm hospitality, time of fellowship, and their church. I saw the needs for music ministry, and media ministry, and discipleship among the youth, and which all add to my desire to go back in the future.
The trip was life changing. The course on inner-healing and deliverance was really good. I made some great friends and I was able to participate in some great missions with the indigenous people in the Amazon.
