Pirates and Paul

A crumb of comparison between ourselves and the apostle Paul, is the uncertainty of travel. I've just spent a couple of weeks in the UK, and journeying back to Colombia I missed the London-Miami connection, so had an unexpected overnight at Heathrow, and arrived a day late minus a case with clothes and students' essays.

Landing in Medellín airport in an evening means you risk encountering the urban equivalent of pirates: gangs of high speed motorcyclists specialising in international arrivees. So I stayed at its airport hotel in order to travel into the city in daylight.

To rectify my clothing shortage I bought a T shirt, which has a bull's head on and written underneath in red, yellow and blue: "Colombia" - not sure if Olwen will take to it, but she won't be back for 2 weeks. Over breakfast I read the day's El Colombiano and in it there was an article on our part of the city. Not about its 59 gangs but about the main road at the bottom of the street. It's called Via al Mar or "Route to the coast", which is a bit optimistic as that's 12 hours away. But this route is evidently a strategic corridor for the movement of illegal guns and drugs in and out of the city. And its lightly policed, who are usually corruptible anyway.

Medellín may not be too different from violent and corrupt ancient Rome. How Paul managed to achieve so much in such a world is incredible. El Colombiano also had an editorial on Jesus' teaching about faith like a grain of mustard seed: I'm still working at that, and maybe progressing, the case arrived the next day.

Unable to find help elsewhere: roadside prayer near Via al Mar