2 years have come and gone...(poof)

October 30th marked two years since our family moved to Bocachica. I can remember that day like it was yesterday: leaving the house my kids grew up in; the living room full of friends who would accompany us to the airport to say their goodbyes. It is a day I will not forget. I think back over these two years and can see how much the Lord has shown me; how much I have had to call on Him. I can see how my family has grown, how much my children have learned, and how many more people we now have a love for as a result of working here. We are blessed to be here, and thankful for your role in our lives here. With out your love, prayers, and support this work we are doing here would not be possible. Thank you all for all that you do!

So I was thinking of all the things I miss from the United States and what things I love about Colombia. I thought I would share my list with you all. (They are not in any order) :) 

Things I miss from the States:

1) My church! Antioch has a special place in my heart!

2) Green grass.

3) Grocery stores--ones that have strict rules on how your meat is handled. You would be scared to eat meat here...not all stores have sneeze guards over their meat...anyone can touch it with bare hands....I won't go on!!! :) I miss that and also the variety of products you have in America!

4) The seasons! The weather is normally in the 90's daily...don't get me wrong; it's better than the cold...but at times every day feels like Groundhog's Day!

5) The City Park- What a treasure you guys have in Burlington. Once the ability to visit often is gone, you realize what a gift it is.

6) Hot water! Yes...it has been 2 years since I have had a hot shower.

7) Driving...The views you see while driving, and getting lost in your thoughts. I miss it!

8) The dishwasher....With 9 people in my family we seem to always be doing dishes. 

9) My kitchen table. I remember 4 or so years ago Nate bought me a nice, solid, wood table; one large enough to seat 9 people...no crack in middle, where, if the kids dumped their milk it would collect and spoil in the crack. We saved up for that table. I think my heart enjoyed it that much more because we waited for the perfect one. Well, I again am waiting and saving... I miss not having a table where we can all sit as a family and eat a meal. I know when I get another one it will be that much richer to me due to waiting on it. :)

10) Quietness. There are days I miss the still calm days in NC. where the only noise in my neighborhood was the squeals of my kids playing in the back yard.

Good things to miss. It is good to leave things you are familiar with to give you that extra appreciation of what was once there.

Now...on to the things I love about Colombia. (once again in no specific order)

1) The fruit! Americans: you are missing out on some good tropical fruits. 

2) Our church here! I have been blessed to see how our church calls those who live here to live for Him. The longer I am here the more I see the hearts of the people in our church and their desire for this island to be all that it CAN be!

3) Patacones and Queso...(fried plantains and cheese)  This is my favorite food in the city. I love them!!..and I am very thankful they are cheap! :)

4) For all of you who have visited me here...you will agree Colombia has awesome Coke-a-Cola! Oh yes...given to you in an ice cold bottle and made with cane sugar...it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

5) Arroyo! I think it is the prettiest beach I have ever seen and it is only a 15-minute walk from my house. The best part is normally when we go we are the only ones there; just our family. Our get away on the island!

6) The people. I have been blessed to meet some special people here! I could not imagine them not in my life. I will forever thank the Lord for these friendships!

7) Not having to wear socks or tie-up shoes. Yup; flip-flops are the way to go!

8) Luis and Adriana and family. They are missionaries from Bogota who live right behind us. They are a family of four. Their kids, Juan and Paula, get along so well with our children, and Luis and Adriana have been such good friends to us: ones we can look up to, have mature conversations about the Lord with, and work with together in this community.

9) Pan de Bono: It is a roll made out of yuka flour and grated inside is a salty, olive-like cheese that my taste buds love. And it's gluten free so my husband can enjoy bread once again.

10) Colombia has a laid back approach to things...not the same hustle and bustle as we once had living in the States. Living on an island not having any place to go makes you relax a bit...I must say I kind of like that.

So you see, while I have things I miss from back home, God gave us different things to enjoy. 

Please, if you could take time to pray for us for our next two years living here on the island we would be grateful:

That all we do here in Bocachica would glorify the Lord.

For our water filter project. That as we help those with the need for clean water, we can share the Word with the families, and that seed would be planted.

For our English classes: That the children would come with the desire to learn and the dedication to practice. 

Pray for our kids, that they would continue to stay in good health and that their schooling would continue to go well. 

For our projects around the house: That the honey-do-list would get smaller...vs. longer! :)

Information on how to support us: We are thankful to all who have supported us! If you would like to help our family and the work we do here in Bocachica, please send support checks to Antioch Community Church.  All giving is tax deducible. Giving can be mailed to Antioch Community Church, 1600 Power Line Rd. Elon, NC. 27244. Please write COLOMBIA in the memo line.

To all of our friends, thank you for you love, support and prayers for us. We of course miss you all so much! We think of you and pray for you often.

Love,
The Ariels

My thoughts on Bogota

This past month our family needed to travel to Bogota to renew our visas. However, before I even left the house my mind was preoccupied with how cold the temperatures would be. Once there I realized  there is more to Bogota than just the cold.

So here are my thoughts on Bogota:

1. Oh yes....it is VERY cold. I have lived in 90+ degrees for two years now. When I explain this to friends and family members I wonder if they think my body adjusting to the heat is an exaggeration, But when I say we live in 90+ degrees, that is all day everyday without air conditioning. My body has definitely gotten acclimated to the heat.  I went from 90 degrees to 66! Yikes. We wore on average 4 shirts, pants and 2 pairs of socks daily. I realized that flip flops with 3 young boys is the only way to go...I forgot the work that is involved for a mom when your kids wear sneakers. Oh, the amounts of times I had to stop and tie shoes. :)

2. With the cold weather I along with my girls enjoyed singing a Christmas carol or two...It felt like December to us.

3. I found out that my kids who have walked everywhere for the past two years have land legs.The buses are very full and travel very fast and with it's jerkiness and many stops my kids cried with sea sickness. Needless to say we seemed to have adequate room....I think my kids hanging their heads out the windows gave the other passengers an idea of what was to come.

4. I learned that having a passport for your 7 kids, with which we can leave the U.S.A with all 7 kids and live in another country with a visas issued from the Colombian government to all 7 kids...there can still be doubt with the Colombian government that these 7 kids in fact are all ours. This leaves Nate traveling back to Bogota this week with 7 birth certificates that will be translated by the government and legalized to say that yes in fact we do have 7 kids.

5. People here in South America are just like Americans; they become preoccupied when a large family walks by, they use their finger and mouth the numbers to count our kids. Their actions are so obvious they could just ask the number...

6. I have realized when you live on an island with out vehicles you notice big city traffic at night.

7. Having grown up in Vermont for 22 years I find myself always enjoying the mountains. The beauty is breathe taking. It was a treat for our family to see green grass and clean streets!

8. We were blessed from the church in Bogota named Tu Presencia. They were more than hospitable; every aspect they could think to help us with they did. I am reminded over and over how if I did not listen to the call of being a missionary I would miss out on these wonderful relationships, these gifts with which the Lord has blessed our family with.

9. I have come to the conclusion that a time away does the family good. Now this wasn't really a vacation. We were always on the go, but at night sleeping in one room as a family sharing stories and enjoying one another's company was refreshing. Not having to cook, do chores, and entertain visitors was needed even if it was just for a short time.

With love,

The Ariels

A response to a week in Bocachica

   Rob Mancuso wrote a reflection on their trip here last week click on the this link to read the whole post. He has a good summary at the end, but read the whole post!

   "For me, each trip has a “lesson” or point that God really drills home and makes abundantly clear in my mind and soul.  The lesson for this trip was how important relationships are to God and how much He truly cares about how we love each other.  God laid John 13:35 on my heart right before home group, where Jesus says, 'By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.'"


 

September visitors

 This past week was is a good example of unity for us, we had five very different churches come together to work and serve in various ways here in Bocachica. Very different people with different skills joined in with the community here to build up the body of Christ. It was a great time of fun, work, and edification.
 The highlights for us were reuniting with old friends and meeting new ones. Like we always say it is more vacation than work when a group comes. They say a "team" is coming, but that word sounds cheap and insufficient considering the reality of the people who came. I can not relate in a post all the details of all the personalities present. The week was challenging and rewarding, both work and pleasure. All the work on the state side that made it possible, Nathan and Julie Heafner working to organize all the details. All the gifts from people that made the right hand not know what the left hand was doing, we can't thank everyone involved because we do not know all those who contributed to the work.


 Despite the usual tropical affects of new stomach bacteria and insect bites and plants that cause strange rashes, everyone survived in good spirits. I can't give a full report of all that was done considering we had folks working simultaneously and I don't even know what all was done, I went in between the guys working on electrical and carpentry. We had a few nights of group updates and fellowship to see what everyone had accomplished. I think a vision was cast before some because I heard of plans for next time, how to more efficiently use the time, and how to advance in better ways. This is encouraging because it is evident to me that it isn't dependent on us to meet the goals, they are equal laborers.
I can share a few pictures, but this is a peek at little of what was done, and by no means exhaustive:

Bob and Nathan doing the electrical of one of the widow's houses in the village.

Picture of the guys with one of the widow's who got a new door from Ja Doss and Payton Doss

Damaris and Rob working in El Shadday with the computers.

Ja and Charlene Snead with Eulis the translator visiting a house in the community.
Thank you to everyone involved in all the aspects it took to make this happen.

Chocolate and more

I love this quote from a while back, and thought of it when we received all the gifts from the Antioch Church back home. One of the highlights of the many things we got is chocolate. So for enjoyment:
    Posted by
The Fire and the Rose: A theology of chocolate

 

A Theology of Chocolate

1. Chocolate is a gift of God. Like rainbows, manna, tobacco, beer, and coffee, chocolate is an expression of divine favor toward humanity. “Every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17).

2. Chocolate is an event of human freedom accompanied by God (concursus dei) within the covenant of grace. Chocolate is not part of the original creation. The raw elements are found in nature, but human action had to bring these together in order to produce the glorious bar of chocolate that we now enjoy. While human autonomy often leads to the destruction and perversion of nature, chocolate is a testament to the divine accompanying of human action within the covenant of grace between God and humanity.

3. Chocolate is a christologically grounded reality. The Christ-event is an event which reconciled the world to God (2 Cor. 5:19). According to Ephesians, this event “has broken down the dividing wall” between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14); according to Galatians, all of us are now “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28); according to 2 Corinthians, “everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). Chocolate is a manifestation of this reconciliation. Chocolate unites people from around the world in appreciation of its artistic and God-given taste; it carries on its own “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18) by resurrecting dead taste faculties and offering nougat-filled glimpses into the grace of God.

4. Chocolate is a concrete manifestation of the coming eschatological kingdom. In the coming kingdom, the Lord will reveal the new heavens and new earth in which “death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). Chocolate is a taste of the coming regnum dei. In anticipation of what God will accomplish for all, here and now chocolate “wipes every tear from their eyes.” Chocolate is thus a proleptic realization of the New Jerusalem, which “has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel” (Rev. 21:11). In its own small way, chocolate ushers us into the presence of the eschatological community, where we will gather around the messianic banquet table and feast together as the one people of God.

   by David W. Congdon

Friends~family

  "I believe that we ought so to love and trust God in our lives, and in all good things that He sends us, that when the time comes (but not before!) we may go to Him with love, trust, and joy. But, to put it plainly, for a man in his wife's arms to be hankering after the other world is, in mild terms, a piece of bad taste, and not God's will. We ought to find and love God in what He actually gives us; if it pleases Him to allow us to enjoy some overwhelming earthly happiness, we mustn't try to be more pious than God himself and allow our happiness to be corrupted by presumption and arrogance, and by unbridled religious fantasy which is never satisfied with what God gives. God will see fit to it that the man who finds Him in his earthly happiness and thanks Him for it does not lack reminder that earthly things are transient, that it is good for him to attune his heart to what is eternal, and that sooner or later there will be times when he can say with all sincerity, 'I wish I were home.' But everything has its time, and the main thing is that  we keep step with God, and do not keep pressing on a few steps ahead- nor keep dawdling a step behind."*
 This was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer when he was incarcerated by the Germans during World War Two. In the context of this passage he was talking about the longing he had for family that he had been separated from, and distance in relationships over time. It was also Christmas time when he was writing this to his friend Eberhard.  Bonhoeffer uses the verse from Ecc. 3:15 as comfort: "God seeks again what is past." God holds time, and the relationships we have, I was reminded of this today when thinking of this past week.
  Today is Tara and I's 15 year anniversary of marriage, and we are together with our family which is a blessing. On the other hand our family had friends that we have known for a year leave, and we will probably not see them for a long time. It is an emotional time for our family to see friends leave, but this verse is a comfort to know that God holds all those experiences (in some translations God seeks what has been driven away). This, I think, will especially get truer as we get older and our memory start to gray these vivid times that we are in now.
 It was exciting to get to know Tine, Patrick, and Dani, missionaries from Germany, this past year. We got to know their strengths and weaknesses and they truly became like family. We heard about their young heart's dreams, shared in their growing up, and enjoyed their energy and help. So after a year, a bond is forged due to their separation from the familiar of their family and friends, and our family had adopted more family. We got to see them grow in the Lord as well as a result of the closeness.
 The truth and greatness of God holding these relationships is that we can live and enjoy to the fullest right now even if it short or long term. Not to rush them on or linger behind; "so that when we are seized by a longing for the past- and this may happen when we least expect it- we may be sure that it is only one of the many 'hours' that God is always holding ready for us."*
  We are going to live to the fullest here in what the Lord has given us. A bit of sadness for the Germans leaving, joy for 15 years for marriage, and excitement for our church coming from Antioch in a couple of weeks; not wishing for any part of this pass to quickly.
 Thank you to all who pray and support us here, and all those people from around the world who's lives have intersected with our family.
 
 *Dietrich Bonhoeffer,  Letters & Papers From Prison, pp.168-169

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