Last Update from Colombia

Hello everyone

It is with much hesitation as well as relief that I write this letter to you. As most of you know, I have been dealing with debilitating migraines here in Colombia. It is not that I am just experiencing the migraines; it is that they are much more frequent and are hindering my ability to live a normal life.

For those of you who do not know, I had my first migraine last November and from that time until we left for Bogota I had about 8 or 9. Since we have been in Colombia, I have had 17 as of this past Friday. I have missed 8 days of school, church, ministry days and the teacher retreat. Besides the excruciating pain I have from the migraine, I also am extremely sensitive to light and sound and I have very bad nausea. I will throw up anywhere from 10-30 times throughout one migraine. Therefore, we worry about dehydration on top of the migraine. I have had trouble sleeping as well as dealing with a lot more stress, which is also not good for migraines.

The school has known about the migraines and the situation we are in for the past month or so. I have received multiple suggestions on what to do as well as seeing a neurologist here in Bogota. I have tried different medications, but none of them seem to be working. In the end, it seems to be the altitude is the cause of the increase in frequency.

All of this has led to constant communication with the school, talking with our families and friends, and prayer. This past Friday, when I got my last migraine, I broke down in tears with frustration and told Jackie that I couldn’t do this anymore. The first time I had a migraine I could not imagine experiencing what I went through on a regular basis, and now I am experiencing multiple migraines every week.

Therefore, Jackie and I have made the decision that we will be returning home. The adjustment back to sea level (rather than 8,500 ft.) will hopefully get me back to normal. We have notified the school that our last day will be on November 12 and the last responsibility we will have is to go on the high school retreat on November 12-14. We will probably be leaving somewhere between November 16-18. Since we have been communicating with the school, they have already started to prepare for our departure and there are some possibilities that there will be both a PE teacher and 5^th/6^th grade teacher who will be able to step into our places, which is a huge answer to our prayers.

Obviously this has been a very tough couple of months, honestly a lot harder than our decision to come to Colombia. We love the students down here and have developed great relationships with them in the short time. It has been hard on them as they have become more aware of the possibility that we would be leaving. We will be letting all the students know next week about our decision, and we are not looking forward to that time. The friends we have made while we are down here are another reason why this is going to be so tough.

Please pray for us as we start wrapping things up here in Colombia and saying goodbye to all the people we have come to love. We also need prayer for when we get back into the states. We will come back without jobs and with our house still being rented by Jackie’s friends.

We are planning on staying involved with the school as much as possible from home. In fact, the week we return to the states, we are going to be meeting with the director of El Camino Academy at a few colleges (Wheaton, Moody Bible and North Park) for recruiting fairs. We have nothing but good things to say about the school, and if we can help in this way, it will be great.

Jackie and I want to thank all of you for your prayers, e-mails, care packages and encouragement while we have been in Colombia. It is great to know that so many people back home missed us and were thinking about us while we were here. We do look forward to being back home and bringing all that we have learned back with us. We don’t have all the answers for why God called us down here and now bringing us home, but we do know that there are so many lessons we learned and things that we can use for a lifetime.

We look forward to seeing all of you when we come back home.

In His service,

Kyle and Jackie Bjerga

Update 11.1.09

Good evening everyone

We apologize for the lack of posts in the last few weeks. The main reason for this is there has not been a whole lot happening once my dad visited and returned home. Basically our health has been the reason for the lack of posts, since they have been hindering us from doing some of the things we want to do.

My dad came to visit us on Oct. 14-19. We had a great visit with him and couldn't believe he was down here and living with us! He was able to experience quite a bit in his short visit, but we were just happy to be able to have him here and see a little bit of what we have been experiencing. The first and second day he was here there was a ton of rain (we have had very little rain since we have been here) but for those couple of days it did not stop raining. So, the next day when dad was going to come to school with us our teacher bus was about an hour late because of flooding on the highway. The sewer system isn't great here and can't really hold a lot of water, so the main highway in the city was flooded. It also ended taking us about 1 1/2 hours to get to school (when it usually takes 15 minutes). School start a couple hours of late and then they kids left at 11am since over half the school was not even able to get to school because of transportation.

Other than that day everything went as planned...dad was able to see Jackie and I teaching at the school on Friday as well as spend some time with our friends here on Friday night. We ended up having a pumpkin carving party for most of the new American teachers that were here and that was a lot of fun. My dad and I ended up having to carry a couple of 30-40lb pumpkins about 1/2 a mile to the place we were at (a lot of pumpkin seeds in those things).

We were also able to take him to Monserrate and downtown Bogota as well as he was able to come to a church service at the church we are attending. All in all it was a lot of fun and he was able to see and experience a little of Bogota. He was also able to try some of the foods (like the fruit and bread and I think he was a fan).

Other than that for the past couple of weeks we have been laying pretty low. I have had 11 migraines in the month of October and I have missed 6 or 7 days of school. All in all I have had 15 total migraines (as well as one that lasted two days) and it has really hindered us in what we wanted to do down here at the school and the community. I have tried a few different medications as well as visiting a neurologist down in Bogota. The best guess we have is that the altitude is what is causing the migraines to be more frequent.

Therefore, since the medication does not seem to be helping (I had 3 migraines this week) there is a very good chance we will not be able to complete our commitment of 1 year here. It is discouraging and something we are really not wanting to do, but in the end we need to do what is best for my health. Every time I have a migraine I am out for the whole day and every one includes sensistivity to light and sound as well as vomiting many times (I won't mention how many times). So the next couple of days I also am not feeling well and then I get another one. I would say in the last month I have had maybe 7 days where I felt great and the rest I either had a migraine or was trying to get over a migraine.

Please keep us in our prayers as we make this decision as well as trying to figure out what we are going to do when we do come home. There is a lot going on now and we are just trying to take it a week at a time, but in the end we need to do what is best so that I don't have any long term effects.

Thank you for your prayer and support!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update 10.11.09

Well this update is going to be pretty boring since we have not really done a whole lot the last week. This whole past week we were off of school (mandatory week off by the Colombian government) and a lot of people go out of town. We had to work Monday - Wednesday at the school and get a lot of stuff done, but the students weren't there.

The second quarter starts this week and will end right before Christmas break.

We do have a few busy weekends coming up. My dad (Carl) is flying in Wednesday and will be here for 4 days, so we are going to try and expose him to some of the stuff in Colombia. The next weekend we have the teacher retreat and then on Halloween we are having a banquet with the high school.

We also have parent teacher conferences coming up as well so please pray that those go well.

Prayer requests:
The students at the school - the more we are down here the more we realize that in some ways this ministry to these students is even more important and a little tougher than we thought. Missionary kids, pastor kids and most of the other students in the school have a lot of issues that are very unique to their circumstances. There are a lot of identity issues and that can cause some spiritual immaturity.

Our health - Jackie is having some more pain with her kidneys and we are hoping that we can get some more medication. We are not sure if it still the kidney stone or something else. I have been struggling with migraines (debilitating ones that are taking me away from doing some of the things we wanted to do down here). It is discouraging and we just ask that God gives us the strength to get through.

Hope everyone is doing well back home!

Update: 10.3.09

The first quarter is over and it has flown by. I can't believe we have been here for over two months and we are already down with the quarter. We have this whole next week off from school, since Colombian law states that there needs to be a week break after the firs quarter. However, we do have to be at school Monday through Wednesday for teacher work days, but then we will have a nice break after that to get ready for second quarter.

Today I was able to do a ministry day with some of the students from school which was a blast. We drove about an hour out of the city to a farm on the top of the Andes Mountains. The farm is part of a ministry here in Colombia that reaches out to troubled youth. A lot of the youth at the farm are either on the street or the next step for them is the street. So, the farm is a place that is away from everything else and is a place where they get all the basic needs and love that they need. It is a pretty cool and unique ministry and I was happy to help out.

Basically our job was to help clear some of the land so they can build a fence and allow the animals they raise on the farm to have more room to graze. All of us received machete's and spent the day clearing through a lot of bamboo and other trees that were in the way.

It was a beautiful day on the mountain, there was fresh air, a lot of work and a good time had by all. I am hoping to be able to go back again to the farm in a couple of weeks.

Update on Jackie's health:
She is doing much better and she is almost finished with her medications. Once she is done with the medicine we will see if she remains healthy. Please keep praying.

Other prayer requests:
We are at about 85% now for support.

My dad, Carl, is coming down to visit us on Oct. 14 - Oct. 19. Pray for safety for his trip and while he is here, we can't wait to see him and give him a little taste of Bogota.

Continued health and safety while we are here.

Thank you all very much!

Update: 9.26.09

Good afternoon everyone

This past week at school was a busy but very productive one.

But before I get into all of that I wanted to let everyone know that Jackie is doing better with her health issues. Currently she is taking 7 different medications. They think everything that she is dealing all relates to the same thing....stress! We are not shocked by this, but what the doctors here don't understand is that Jackie has been dealing with a lot of these issues for a long time. However, we do believe that stress is probably one main reason for the severity of her issues lately. I mean I guess stress is to be expected when you are a first year teacher, you move out of the country, leave family and friends, switch churches, new culture, etc. Hopefully as the year progresses Jackie will start to feel better. Please keep her in your prayers though.

This week we were busy at school as usual with a couple of more things added on. We were able to speak in High School chapel this week and we spoke on Dating and Relationships. The kids responded well to the talk and we really enjoyed being able to share our story and advice with them. It has led to some really good conversations with the students so we were thankful for that.

We also had our student council flower sale to raise money for our retrearts and different trips. Things went really well. The funny thing is that we bought 600 carnations for $12.50US and then about 125 Roses for about $20 US. Flowers are sooooo cheap here.

Today we just had our Fun Fair at school (food, games, competitions, kareoke, etc.) and all of the proceeds go towards the new addition on the school. It was a lot of fun and a lot of families were here. The interesting thing is having Military Police at your event...I guess that is normal in Colombia.

We are looking forward to this next week because it will be the end of the first quarter for us. It is amazing to think we are almost done with the first quarter though and we have been here for over two months now.

Some prayer requests would be for:

This Saturday we have a ministry day with one of the families at the school.

Jackie's health

We are still at about 80% financial support.

Our impact on the students here at the school.

Update: 9.21.09

I apologize for not updating sooner, but there really hasn't been that much to update you on. The reason is we were not able to go to our ministry work on Saturday. I was in bed from 1:30am Saturday morning until about 8pm that night with another migraine that wiped me out. That is the second one in two weeks and it has really stopped us from doing some of the things we wanted to do.

The other big news is that Jackie is still having a lot of trouble with her health. Things were of a concern enough that the nurse from the school took her to a gastro specialist to go through a battery of tests. She has to go back on Wednesday for another test as well.

Other than that things are going great. We are still really enjoying teaching and we are actually speaking in Chapel this week. We are talking about our relationship since it was just the Colombian Valentine's day this past weekend, so we are looking forward to that.

Prayer requests:

Our continued health and Jackie's test results to give us an idea of what is going on with her health problems.

Our support has been holding steady for awhile, so please pray that we would continue to get the support we need for our time down here in Colombia.

Our continued work at the school and with the ministries...even though we weren't able to go we are still looking forward to getting in there and helping out to the best of our abilities.

Hope everyone is doing well and if you want to write us an e-mail or anything here are our addresses:
Kyle - passion4thegame8@aol.com
Jackie - jackiebjerga@gmail.com

Update: 9.18.09

Make sure to check back tomorrow because I will update the blog then. We are doing our first service to the poor community so I am going to want to wait to update you on the past week until we get home from that.

Thank you for checking the blog and I apologize for not updating it more frequently over the last couple of weeks.

Thank you!