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!

9.11.09 Update

As I write this update I cannot help but think of the date on which I am writing. Every time I here 9/11 I still think of that terrible day in 2001 when so many people lost their lives in the terrorist attack. Please take a moment to remember those who were involved and their families. But, as I think of it I also praise God for his mercy and grace. I think about how God was able to use a tragedy like that to bring people to Him and to have so many people find His love through that time.

Now as far as an update from Colombia I really wish I had better news than I do. Jackie and I have a four day break that we were not expecting. On Wednesday there were so many students and teachers gone because of a virus making its way through the school that they decided to close school done from Thursday until Monday. They are hoping to stop the spreading of the virus.

The break is much needed for Jackie who continues to battle her health issues. Right now she is trying to get over the virus and deal with the pain of the kidney stone that she has. She is doing everything she is supposed to but the pain is still coming and going. It is very similar to her kidney infection that she had his past spring.

We also had our staff retreat cancelled for this weekend which we were really looking forward too. But, like I said there are many teachers who need the rest so we are hoping when we go back to school on Monday that everything should be back to normal.

Other than that things are going well. Next Saturday we start our ministry with the street kids in southern Bogota and we are very excited about that.

Please continue to pray for Jackie and her health issues. Also, please pray for our school and all the students and staff who are sick.

Lastly, please pray for all the street kids and orphans that we are going to be working with and for our safety as we travel to some areas which are not as safe as where we are at right now.

Thank you again for your continued support!

Update: 9.7.09

Good afternoon everyone

I hope this post finds you all doing well and enjoying the transition from summer to fall. There really isn't a transition here since the weather here is considered an "eternal spring".

But, anyway, I just wanted to let you know that Jackie and I are doing and still enjoying our time in Bogota, but we do have some prayer requests. We are not sure what exactly is going around the school, but there are a lot of kids sick. For instance on Friday and today Jackie had only 8 and 9 students in class respectively. I also had 9 kids missing in first grade PE today. Please pray that the students (and teachers) would get well soon and be able to get back to school as soon as possible.

Also, please pray for our continued support as we have seen God provide in great ways for us, but we are still a little bit short. We are about 80% supported and just waiting on that last 20% to come in. We praise God that so many people have been willing to be involved in our ministry with financial and prayer support. Thank you!

Continue to pray for Jackie's health as we know this is going to be on going, it would be different if it wasn't something we dealt with back in the states. But, since we are here it makes it a little tougher as far as medical care and being able to take care of her. We thank you for your prayers and we do hope we can find out what exactly the problem is.

We are excited about this weekend as well because we are going on the staff retreat to Villeta in Colombia for a time of team building and getting to know all the staff at the school. It should be a nice break after a very busy start to the school year.

Also, in two weeks we start our ministries and we are very excited about those starting up and look forward to seeing all that God has in store for us as we go.

Again we can't thank you enough for your prayers and continued support. Thank you and God bless!

We've Only Just Begun

We have been here over a month now and the time has certainly flown by. I can't believe that we are almost to the first progress reports!

Even with the time going by quickly we know we have really only started with all the work we are going to be doing. In some ways it has been good to start off slowly (if I can consider school being the slow start). But, it has been great to get into a routine with school and get a feel for all our responsibilities with teaching before we get involved in all the different ministries and extracurricular activities.

We just bought a dining room table for our apartment, which was the last big piece of furniture that we needed. It is not fun eating on a coffee table every night.

Next weekend we are excited about our staff retreat. The teachers, staff, board and administration are going to be going to "hot country" (meaning down the mountain) to a place for the weekend. We will be staying in a hotel in a beautiful part of the country. We are excited about that and getting out of the city. Bogota is starting to grow on me in certain ways, but we are definetly looking forward to going to some of the more beautiful parts of Colombia.

Keep us in your prayers as we continue to try and raise our final financial support. We are not 100% yet, but God has provided above and beyond what we thought for starting the process so late in finding financial partners.

Thank you for your continued support, encouragement and prayers for us, we really appreciate them. Just to let everyone know ahead of time we did book our flights when we come home for Christmas. So, as it gets closer make sure you contact us (if we don't contact you first) about getting together when we are in...we want to make sure we see as many of our friends and families as possible.

Have a great night and God bless!

Update: 8.27.09

Alright so we are almost done with our third week of school and it is crazy to think how fast it is going. I can't believe tomorrow is Friday, especially since this was our first full week of school.

Anyway, tomorrow we are leaving for a Student Council retreat. It will be Jackie and I as the advisors and the representatives from the student council. The idea is to get out of the city and plan the whole year. Some of the things on the agenda are:
- Ways that the student council can reach out to the community (service ideas)
- How the student council can affect the whole school, rather than just the high school
- Fundraising events
- Lock-ins
- Banquets
- and plenty more (pretty much there is something scheduled every month

We found out what exactly our service projects are going to be for the school as well. Jackie and I will both be going with the 10th grade class to go to one of the poorest communities in southern Bogota to evangelize to the street kids and some other families. I am super excited to get down there and work with this ministry. Then on the fourth Saturday of every month I will be going with the high school guys to a farm where we are going to work with street kids that are brought to this farm to learn how to enter society (it is a ministry that is run by one of the teachers at the school) and Jackie will go with the girls to a ministry for pregnant teens in Bogota (some as young as 11).

School is going well and I think we are both getting more comfortable with what we are doing. I am enjoying being with the little kids a lot more than I thought. Jackie also had one of her best lessons so far the other day in Science. She did a fossil activity and she said the kids loved it so it was awesome to see how happy she was after that.

We are also still settling into our apartment, we did get internet but we are having problems setting up our wireless, so hopefully we get that fixed soon so I can update more.

Please pray for the Franklin Graham festival which is in Bogota tonight through Saturday. Also, continue to pray for Jackie's health, she is still having stomach issues and today she woke up feeling bad (she went to school though and stuck it out). We are just not sure why she is having so many problems - altitude, food, water????? The water is actually okay to drink in Bogota from the tap but we don't really do that a whole lot. So, anyway just pray that things get better for her.

Hope everyone is enjoying the last days of August! God bless you all and I hope to update you more tomorrow!

We moved!!!

Well, after 2 1/2 weeks we were able to finally move into our new apartment! This is where we will be living for the next year, so we moved in and started making it home yesterday. We were able to purchase some stuff from the school and another teacher, as well as getting some furniture from free the school. As soon as we get everything set up we will try and send some pictures.

Alright so what else have we learned while we have been in Colombia?

- Plastic is expensive - everything that you buy that is plastic is a lot more expensive than the states...almost all pop and other drinks comes in glass bottles

- Towels are also expensive..much more than the states. We brought some down with us since we heard they were expensive (good thing we did!)

- Car alarms are very sensitive here - I have counted for the last few days and we are averaging hearing about 12 different alarms a day (not counting our time at school since there are not many cars around us at that point). By the way we woke up at 5:15am this morning to two separate alarms.

- Peanut Butter is a luxury down here - I think all peanut butter is imported because it costs about $8.50 - $9.00 for a little jar (needless to say Jackie and I are hitting up Costco when we come home from Christmas and we are going to bring a big jar home!)

- Fruit is very very very cheap here! You can buy about a weeks worth of fruit for the two of us for about $10-$15. Just the other day we bought a pineapple, 3 granadillas ( a Colombian fruit) and 8 bananas for about $2.50.

- You can get all the fresh bread you want! - Everywhere you look there is a bakery making fresh bread. Right across the street from our apartment there is a bakery (that we have gone to a couple of times already) where we bought 4 croissants, 2 rolls, 2 arepes and water and a pop for $3.50!!!!

In the end a lot of the money balances out since there are some things we are used to back in the states that cost a lot more here. Then you find the Colombian treasures that are cheap by American standards.

School is busy! We are just into the second week and things are starting to slow down a little bit since we are getting used to how everything works around here. One thing I love is how everyday I walk through the school (inside and outside) and I know every single student (except for the Pre-K and Kinder students). Not to say I have every name memorized but I am getting there.

It is great to teach PE but I am also really enjoying being about to be in the classroom to teach Health.

Jackie had a great birthday this past weekend for a couple of different reasons:
1. We moved into our apartment
2. She was able to talk to her family
3. It was a long holiday weekend
4. On Tuesday we had a little birthday for her at the school - they brought in a cake and a bunch of the students and her aide gave her gifts which she was not expecting.

Jackie is also enjoying her classes and she has really impressed a lot of the staff here with how good she is with the students and in the classroom.

Anyway, we hope everyone is doing well and we can´t wait to update you more, especially once we start our work with some of the ministries down here in Colombia. God bless you all and have a great rest of the summer!

First couple of days of school

Alright so things have been crazy the last couple of days. My schedule is all over the place and I never quite know how to organize everything. For instance Tuesday and Wednesdays are my busiest days (in a school day that has 8 periods I have 7 classes on Tuesday and 6 on Wednesdays). Also, it is very rewarding and exciting but also challenging to go from teaching 1st graders to 12 graders in just one period and then back to middle school.

Even though it has been crazy I have been loving it. I have been putting a lot of work into trying to change the curriculum for PE as much as I can so we can get the most out of our students.

Jackie is doing well and loving teaching more then aiding. It is nice to have her own classroom and she is starting to get to know the students better. She doesn´t seem to be nervous like I think we expected since she does have a tendency to worry, but she looks very comfortable teaching.

We are both excited about the school year and look forward to updating everyone on what is happening. Next month we will also be starting all of our ministry work as well, so we can´t wait to let everyone know about what else we are doing.

Moving update:

We are moving on Saturday now (hopefully!), but we are not very confident since our moving date has been changed about 4 times. We will move in eventually though, so thank you for your prayers for finding and moving into a place.

Prayer requests:
Financial and prayer support
That we would continue to have a smooth transition into the school year
That we would continue to get over the culture shock and missing home
That our move would go well

Thanks everyone and we will update you again soon!

First (half day) of School!!!

Before I tell you about our day I just wanted to take a minute to ask all of you to pray for our continued financial support. We are not there yet and we are just praying that we will be able to raise enough support for our housing and other expenses while we are here. Thank you.

Alright, so we are starting out slow at school. We had 2 hours on Friday, a half day today and our first full day tomorrow. So, today I just got ready again for class to start since the students only have their 6 core classes on half days. But, Jackie was able to see all of her 5th and 6th grade classes.

She was cracking me up when she came in after school when she said, "I love my 5th grade class and the 6th grade class is going to be the death of me." It was funny because she said the 6th grade class just talked so much and she is going to have to work on that. I told her it will get better and it will just take some time. But other than that she had a good first day of school and hopefully she will continue to have a smooth transition.

We were also asked to be the student council advisor's which we accepted. We are looking forward to working with the students in this capacity.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day for me since I have PE for 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th/8th and Health. My schedule is crazy with all the classes on different days since everyone has PE 3 days a week. The good thing is they combine the 7th and 8th grade together as well as 9/10 and 11/12.

Thank you for your continued support! God is doing great things down here and we are hoping we can be a part of His work.

Downtown Bogota and Monserrate

Today we went out with some people to the school to downtown Bogota and up Monserrate which is a mountain that is right next to the downtown area. We took a cable car up the mountain (about 10,500 ft) and visited a catholic church on the top of the mountain as well as some shops that are up there. Once you get up the mountain you can see most of Bogota and then you look on the other side of the mountain and it is just green.

Anyway, if I get a chance I will try and out some pictures up, until then you can see them on facebook.

Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

First day of school!!!

Well, we just finished with the first day of school...although it was only 2 hours long. Basically all the students just met in their homerooms and got textbooks and signed the honor code, etc. After that was over we had an all school picnic. Most of the kids were here and a lot of their families came so it was a pretty big picnic which was awesome.

Now we are just working on some stuff for the first week of school on Monday. We are also hoping to be able to move in to our apartment on Monday as well. It is a holiday here in Colombia so a lot of things shut down, which is why we can´t move in this weekend.

Thanks to everyone for praying and keep us in your prayers as we try and get the rest of our support.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Welcome to El Camino Academy

Well everyone I just wanted to take a minute to put some pictures up of El Camino Academy.

There wasn't a whole lot of exciting stuff happening today, but we were able to get a lot of work done. Jackie is going to start decorating her room as much as she can tomorrow, which will help her feel more comfortable in the room.

Tonight though we were able to go out with 6 of the new teachers and one of the other staff members to a place in the mall called Crepes and Waffles...it is a very popular restaurant down here in Colombia.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures!



Jackie's classroom (not decorated yet)



The teacher's office and Jackie's classroom



Upstairs hallway for junior high and high school and The path leading from the new building to
the old building


Jackie working at her desk and The basketball court



One of the two quad areas outside and The addition to the new building

3 Days until the Students arrive

We are getting anxious, nervous, excited and ready for the students to get to school in a few days. I think we have had so many meetings and so much time to work that now we just want to get started. It has been great to here all the speakers, find out all the information about the school and start to meet those we will be teaching with, but it has been weird to be in a school all day long without students.

It has been awesome to see what missionaries have been doing down here. Every morning a different board member (most of whom are missionaries) tell us about their ministry to the people down in Bogota. Here are just a few quick highlights of some:

1. Reaching out to the recyclers - these are men and women who pull around or ride carts with horses and the pick up things to recycle. They mostly live in a community together and they have a lot of drug trafficking and teen pregnancies in these areas. This one couple has been going to this community, developing relationship with them, bringing the students from ECA to help and telling them about the gospel
2. Giving loans to the poor - this ministry supplies loans to the poor of Bogota to start their own businesses and get on their feet. Hopefully they will then pay back their loan and be able to have a business that flourishes.

There are many others and we cannot wait to help with some of them as we get more involved in the school.

Alright so what happened today? Well after our meetings and orientation at school we met up with a couple from a church down here that we might be working in. The funny thing was they have a neighbor who works for a publishing company that is putting out some curriculum for students to learn English...so...they need some native English speakers. We went and tried out today and we hear in a couple of days if we need to go in and record some scripts. Jorge joked with us that we have only been in the country for a week and we might be famous...hahaha. Anyway, it was pretty funny, since I did my regular voice and the other voice was supposed to be a crocodile speaking (obviously this is for kids), but I have no idea what a crocodile would sound like. It was fun and we will let you know if we get the "part".

We are hoping to move into the apartment we selected by this weekend, but at the latest sometime early next week.

I can't believe we are in Colombia!

Those were the words Jackie and I said to each other about half way through the day. Some hours of the day if feels like we never left home and other times, like today, everything feels so surreal. One reason we had that feeling today was because we drove through more of downtown Bogota, experienced our first church service and drove through the mountains. Needless to say it was a full day.

We went to the Pinzon's church, where they did worship for 40 minutes without stopping, then we took communion and prayed and ended with the sermon (all in all the service took 2 hours). Yesid (Mr. Pinzon) introduced us as his guests in front of the church. After church we went to a BBQ chicken place which was pretty good and we had a traditional desert from Colombia (a plantain with cheese in the middle and some sauce from a Colombian fruit...after we were done we wish we took a picture because it was like a foot long!

After lunch we went to the house of one of the church members, Mercedes, who is battling cancer. She was a sweet older woman and Yesid led us in another communion. After that we stood around this lady and put our hands on her and prayed.

*** A couple of interesting things about the church and being at Mercedes house ***
1. Jackie and I thought our church prayed a lot...but the Colombian people love to pray and pray for a long time.
2. The church was extremely emotional and the ushers had to start handing out kleenex during the first song. The emotions didn't just end after the music, they carried over into the prayers.
3. When the pastors or other leaders pray all you can hear are people in the congregation also praying.
4. At one point someone in the congregation shouted "Cristo vive" and the rest of the congregation also broke out into repeating this.
5. Needless to say the Colombian church is something everyone should experience because it really makes you realize how important their faith is to them...we could all learn a lot from them.
6. I am really going to have to study Spanish hard so that I can understand more of the sermon (Jackie was trying to translate for me, which helped a lot)

Once we left Mercedes house we started our drive up the Andes mountains (I included some pictures below). The drive totaled about 2 hours and it was amazing! We got to see most of Bogota from one look out point and then saw different towns and such as we drove through the mountains. After that we went through the town of Chia where we stopped at a mall and got some ice cream at a place called Crepes and Waffles (which according to the family is one of the American teachers favorite spots to eat).

Now we are home and getting ready for the second week of orientation...enjoy the pics!

Jackie and I with Bogota behind us
Jackie and I with the Pinzon family
Mountains!
Mountains and lots of cows...they are everywhere!

Financial Prayer Request

Please be praying for our financial support and that God would provide the funds we need. We are about 70% there. Also, pray for the financial support of the other teachers here since not everyone is fully supported just yet.

Thank you and have a great day,
Kyle and Jackie

Bogota - Day 4

I'll begin this letter by telling you that we had a great night last night. We ate dinner with our host family and we had a long conversation with them about a lot of different things (Jackie obviously did most, okay all of the speaking in Spanish). But, we had a lot of fun learning more about them and they learned a lot about us.

This morning we took the bus again (this time we were able to find a seat). We have started off every morning of orientation with a devotional from one of the board members which has been awesome.

Today we were able to find out a lot more about different ministries that we will be involved in. Since I am going to be discipling the 10th grade boys at the school I will also be involved in the 10th grade classes ministry. The ministry is to one of the poorest parts of Bogota (on the south end). We will be working with a lot of street orphans and other poor families. Jackie will also be involved in the 5th/6th grade ministry but she is not sure what that will be just yet.

So those specific class ministries will be on the third Saturday of every month and then on the fourth Saturday of every month there will be general outreach opportunities for all the students. We are really looking forward to these opportunities.

Tonight we went over to the McCollums for dinner with 5 other teachers (Robyn, Marissa, Rose, Melody and Suzette). We ordered Domino's (which I never thought I would be excited to have, but I was!) and it tasted exactly the same as here. It was a great time of sharing about how we all ended up down here in Bogota.

No big plans this weekend other than getting things ready for school. Hope everyone is doing well and keep checking the blog...down below are some pics for you to see!

Here is the view from the back of the school. You can see the Andes mountains as well as some students playing on the basketball court. The one of Jackie and me is in front of the entrance to the old school building.

Colombia Day 3

Good evening everyone

Today was day three of orientation and things certainly didn't slow down. Especially since Jackie went to see a cardiologist today to get some tests done so they can keep up with her health and make sure everything is okay. No worries at this point, it is just precautionary.

After she got back from the doctor we ended up going to check out some possible places to live. We found one apartment that we liked a lot and the two other places we looked weren't bad, but we are not sure if we would want to live there. Anyway, we are probably going to look at more places tomorrow and see if we can move sometime this weekend or next week. Please pray for a place though since it would be a lot easier for us if we were in our own place once school starts.

Tomorrow we have more meetings and more work time at the school so hopefully we can take advantage of that.

I also found out I am probably going to be discipling the 9th grade boys this year which I am really looking forward too.

Hope everyone is doing well and we'll update you again tomorrow. Thank you for your prayer and support! God is doing some great things here in Colombia and we pray he uses us to continue in that work.

Our big adventure for today was the public bus transportation. It is a pretty crazy system and something that you would have to experience. Let's just say you feel like you are receiving a full body massage from everyone in the bus if you are standing (which we were!). People just move to the back of the bus and you ring a bell when you want the bus to stop and they usually stop somewhere within a block of where you wanted to get off. Then they just pick up whoever wants to get on from the street and you can only take specific buses that will go where you need to go. It was certainly an experience and one we will get more used to the longer we are here.

Colombia: Day 2

Hey everyone

Well, today was our first really intense day of orientation...I think we are on information overload, and there are only 6 more days of orientation left!

Cultural Experiences thus far:
- All the lights for the bathroom are on the wall outside of the bathroom...so if you forget you close the door and you are in the dark
- At the school we must throw all toilet paper in the trash (the pipes at the school are not wide enough for everything)
- You do not slam the car door shut, you must do it respectfully and if you have to open and shut it again since it wasn´t closed that is better than slamming it
- You can get your blood type done at a dentist office (which I had to do...I am A positive if anyone cared)
- Some streets have lines marking the lanes, others don´t, and even if they do no one follows them
- Blinkers are used on occasion and not necessarily telling you where the person is actually going
- A lot of Colombians wear doctors masks when out in public (not sure if that is because of the pollution or what)
- Buses don´t stop necessarily, it is more of a rolling stop and if you get in great and if you don´t oh well
We are still trying to figure out pesos and such.

Tonight we are going to be going over to the McCollums (the secondary principal) and his wifes home. They are from Buffalo Grove and Bob was the assistant principal at Glenbrook South High School. This is their second year here and they have two daughters at the school. We are going to eat with them and they are going to take us to the mall to do some errands.

We are trying to use our Spanish and we have to when we are with our host family, but I think we will get more used to it and I will take advantage of the Spanish lessons!

Please pray that we can go look at the apartment we will be staying in and hopefully we will be moving in this weekend! Hope everyone is doing well!

First day in Colombia

Well, we had an adventerous and busy first day in Colombia. We are leaving with the Pinzon family, who have been very generous to us (though communicating is tough). They live in a beautiful home in Bogota. Hopefully in a week or so we will be moving into our apartment which is a lot closer to the school.

Jackie will be happy once we have our own place and we can work on our schedule, since they do things very different down here with eating and sleeping. But, we will be fine for the time we are with the Pinzon's.

This morning on our way to school the car tire looked like it exploded. Me and Mr. Pinzon ended up changing a tire on the side of the autopista (highway) which was a very unexpected and dangerous experience for the first day. But, we ended up getting to school safe, and even though we were late at least we were there.

There was a full schedule for us today, including: a tour of the school (the old and new building), lunch (chicken and rice), going into downtown Bogota to get our Colombia ID cards, etc. Everything went fine with the ID cards which means we are now legal in Colombia.

We will have more information in the next few days once we find out more about our schedules, living arrangements, etc.

Keep praying for us as we continue to get used to being away from home and starting our year in Colombia.

Colombia Today

Hey Everyone

We are leaving for Colombia today and we should be in by 9pm tonight after a couple of flights and a lay-over in Texas. We are excited, but also nervous, since we will be living with a family for a few weeks before we move into an apartment. The daughters speak English, but the parents speak very little, so hopefully our Spanish (especially mine) will improve and I will be a fast learner.

Some prayer requests we have are:

1. Continued prayer and financial support - since we are about 60% funded.
2. A smooth transition over the next couple of weeks - moving, getting settled, teacher orientation and getting ready for classes to start
3. Safety during our travel to Bogota and within Bogota as we get used to living in a new city
4. Home sickness - it hasn't hit us yet but it probably will

Thank you again and I hope the next time I write there will be a lot more to tell you about in Colombia...maybe some pictures as well!

1 week until Colombia

Well, Jackie and I just returned from 8 days with the high school youth group in the beautiful Rocky Mountains and we had a great time. Now we only have one week until we leave for our time in Colombia.

Our prayer requests are for safe travel, continuing to get support from our family and friends, housing in Colombia and getting adjusted to the culture and school.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayer and we can't wait to tell everyone what we are up to once we get to Colombia.

Update: 7/1/09

Good morning everyone

Well Jackie and I met with the director of ECA on Monday night and we had a BBQ with a bunch of old, current and new teachers from ECA last night. It was great to see so many people and ask questions about the school and community.

Again we are just waiting on a couple of things that we still need prayer for and that is that we get all the paperwork we need so we can go downtown and get our visas. Also, we are still needing almost all of our support.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayer and we look forward to letting everyone know when everything is finished and we are ready to go.

Update: 6/22/09

We have a couple of prayer requests as of today:

1. That we will be able to raise support for the trip (we are talking to the church and Sunday school classes at Grace in the next week or so)
2. That all the paperwork we need to go get our visas will get to us soon
3. That we will be able to get set up with an apartment in Bogota (we are working with the school to accomplish this)

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers and we look forward to updating everyone as we get closer!

If it is God's plan for us to go we will be leaving in 35 days!

El Camino Academy

Again, I am hoping that through a couple of different technology avenues Jackie and I will be able to keep everyone up to date on what is going on in Bogota. But, first we have to get there! Our tentative date for leaving is July 26th (this is for 10 days of orientation before the school year starts). We are trusting that God will provide the financial support that we need in order to cover our start up costs.

A couple of prayer requests we have of today are:
- That we are accepted by El Camino Academy by the end of the week
- That we raise our prayer and financial support for our start up costs and monthly needs
- Start praying for Jackie as we are hoping she does not have any physical problems with her heart due to the altitude
- That we receive our passports in the next week and that all our visa paperwork goes through without a problem
- That we find someone to rent our town home for the year

We will let you know how the process is going. If we are accepted by the school then we will receive the information we need from the sending agency in regards to our financial support.

Thanks and have a great night!