First Day

My day today started pretty early. I left our family´s home in Bogota at 730am and headed to the airport in Bogota. After a short flight I was in Barranquilla. While on the plane I was reading a book I got right before I left titled, ¨The Audacity of Hope¨ by Senator Barack Obama of IL. I have been interested in his rise into the senate for more faith based that political reasons, he served in the South Side of Chicago where I went to seminary, and I just heard his minister give a sermon last week at the Fosdick Convocation at the Riverside Church in NYC. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright gave this amazing sermon and Senator Obama is getting a lot of press in the US, but he is also doing some writing most recently for faith based journals like Sojourners. He´s making some interesting connections between faith and politics and I thought I´d read his book on this trip, along with a few others I brought along. I was reading it on the plane and a Colombian man next to me struck up a converstion in half Spanish, half English. He wanted to look at the book and had heard about Senator Obama. We talked a bit and the Colombian announced to me that he wouldn´t vote in the US for a democrat, they are the party all the wars start under! As with most Colombians, political opinions are strongly held and the conversations can get going very quickly. I really didn´t want to start one on the plane today but it was interesting and got me using some vocabulary I wasn´t all that well versed in which was a good thing!

I landed in Barranquilla and the two other accomanpiers for the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Rachael and Billy met me at the aiport. It was great to see them after hearing about both of them and they both instantly made me feel at home. We head back to the IPC campus where I was shown to a small apartment where I´ll be staying that is right off of one of the classrooms at the seminary. Barranqilla is on the coast so it´s about 90 degrees and humid all the time here. HOT!!!! We headed out for lunch and enjoyed some great conversation and discussion about the places we´ll be working with over the next two weeks. Rachael is in her last three weeks of a three month term here and Billy is here for just a month, so Rachael is a pro and has lots to share. I can tell that the trip will be very worthwhile, that lots of things will come up and that a great deal of learning and sharing in faith will take place.

The campus of the IPC is beautiful. Like other Colombian universities, the classrooms are all off terraces and are open air. Wooden shutters are pushed open to allow some cross breeze to circulate through the classrooms. There are many tropical birds flying around and about fifteen minutes ago they were engaged in some sort of a fight or something, there was a few screaming away, but it is a beautiful sound. The campus sits in the middle of an urban neighborhood, down the street from the Barranquilla Cathedral which from the outside looks impressive. This is a holiday weekend in Colombia so the start up will be a bit slow today and tomorrow, we´re going to an on campus concert of Christian music tonight and there are no set plans for tomorrow. We will start up in earnest on Tuesday when a local church worker gets back to begin setting up the schedule. Some things are already pre planned and it looks like I will get to see a variety of ministries here on the northern coast.

Once again today I was hit with the contrasts of Colombia. As I was leaving Bogota I went down Avenida el Dorado the main road to the El Dorado aiport. On that road you go by the impressive and somewhat overwhelming military structures, the main office for the police and the army. Along many of the mountains that surround Bogota are various telecommunications outposts, many of them belonging to the Colombian military. Billy and I went to the supermarket and the police where there having people walking out looking at a most wanted type of poster with about 25 faces on it. At the same time we walked by the Peace Park with a man holding a dove in hand statue and are with a church that stands for peace above all else. Like my conversation on the plane, the lines sometimes seems clear, the opinions and preferences strong. I am looking forward to getting started to seeing what paths are yet to be opened up ahead of me.