Missionary Gas

I was supposed to have cancelled my classes for the last couple of days, but didn’t bother because I didn’t think it would happen - but it did. These days have been absorbed in working out how to train 35 pastors and 400 leaders of a church that started in Honduras and is now in Latin America’s main cities. There are 12 of us on the committee including a Costa Rican, Brazilian, Argentinean, Honduran, Peruvian, North American and Colombians. The denomination is administered from Miami. Jenny Boyd from Falkirk also arrived last week, but she’s not on it. There’s plenty of other things for her to do. Typically in South America, churches expand, even into thousands of members. And pastors, with no theological training, work using their wits, basic education, scripture memorization – and strong faith. As I explain this, it makes you wonder how much we can help, but we’ll try our best. Photo: Jenny starts to learn Spanish

As I said it can only be downhill for the new President, Manuel Santos. On Monday his vice-President had emergency heart surgery, on Wednesday FARC detonated a car bomb in Bogotá and on Saturday morning …. I forced myself to get out for some exercise. It was 6.30 and I’d just left the Seminary gates when two youngsters on a motorbike drew up. They pointed down at something: did I have odd socks on? No, I was being robbed of my wedding ring. Funny how under pressure you do the wrong thing. I said, “Nope”. The assailant told his pillion passenger to get out something. As he started to unzip his fake-leather bum bag I suspected it was a revolver. Fortunately he hadn’t shared my miss-spent youth watching Lone Ranger films with its fast-shooting. By the time the bum bag was unzipped I’d got behind the Seminary gates. City life has become notably more dangerous for everyone, we’ve even had to change our route to the supermarket. I confess I don’t always do...

It was strangely quiet on Saturday. The newspaper boy complained that after 4 hours he still had 35 tabloids and 3 Colombianos to go. I’d bought my Colombiano , but didn’t feel sufficiently charitable to buy his 35 tabloids. It was the 191st anniversary of the Colombian army and also the annual classic car parade. But there was another event. Hospitals were on alert, gas deliveries were banned, so were motorbike pillion passengers and the carrying of guns. A new President was being installed. Manuel Santos kept foreign Presidents waiting in the rain by arriving 30 minutes late for his inauguration. It was attending Mass just beforehand that caused the delay. Probably he’d to do extra penance because of his participation in a pagan blessing by tribal groups in the Northern Andes. Outgoing President Uribe built up a 70% approval rating. Santos starts on that, so it can only be downhill from now on. He should have got the Pentecostals in, that pagan...

This is Medellín’s festival week: horse shows, flower parades, and even a black gospel choir from the States. I went to hear the choir perform in a large shopping mall in the north of the city: enthusiastic, talented and with hardly a word of Spanish. “Oh happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away” reverberated down the mall, and around my head for the rest of the night. Travelling home on the Metro train the man beside wore a red, throw-away sombrero, on it was the slogan “Everything deserves a Pilsen”. Pilsen is a popular beer. Declining his advice, I walked the 20 minutes from the Metro station to our Exito supermarket. And there a live Caribbean band played us down the aisles and got our feet tapping in the check out queues. I felt I was living in a Simpson’s cartoon. Arriving home I scanned the news headlines: Pakistan floods kill 800; Germany mourns dead; and Bogotá denies war plan. Reality is a sobering experience even without a Pilsen. Olwen ar...

This week a circular was sent out to the Seminary’s employees about the sugar bowl and related matters Colombian’s take their coffee seriously, strong and sweet. There is a communal coffee machine and it appears some rascal has been taking the sugar spoon off to his office, causing a crisis. The Seminary is now in a time of forced austerity: don’t use too many disposable cups and no photocopying of syllabuses. In June it received a ₤40,000 loan from the OMS Missionary Society which would have lasted a couple of weeks. There is now talk of employing a Fund Raiser. The first years are a super bunch; all sit near the front and have loads of questions. The 4th years, more knowledgeable, sit near the back but the questions still keep coming. Financial crisis or not, people want to be taught, and the Seminary cannot shut. Even if you had a blackboard in the middle of a field, people would turn up. There is a sense in which an inter-denominational Sem...

As the plane touched down in Medellín, the lady next to me clapped loudly. Unfortunately this was premature for we then bounced down the tarmacadam causing her to genuflect more times than a nun meeting the Pope. As is normal, one of my cases was missing. In the mayhem of airport arrivals, the Señorita wrote down my details in longhand and entered them in a big black ledger. Beside me, a missing-case, jittery, North American, shouted down his cell phone, “I’m in Medellin! And there’s no computers here!”. But they do have people and the following day they took me quickly to a long line of bags, where at the very end was mine. I signed their big black register and left. It was Independence Day yesterday (Tuesday): 200 years ago the Spaniards were ousted. A new book says the commemoration illustrates the shortest Latin American story : “When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there”. In other words, caudillos still dominate, the many are controlled by th...

Going bankrupt in a Latin American Bible College is different. After meetings and investigations an email went out today announcing a reduction in discounts for staff accommodation. Taking drastic action just doesn’t seem to fit into a world where it’s sunny all day, and from your office you hear the birds and someone singing to a guitar. I guess mañana something will be done. What has been remarkable has been the time given to prayer. Mornings have been spent in it. The Board of Directors divided its time to include chunks of intercession. Students have met during the 10 minute slots between classes. Belief in miracles is strong, and so everyone makes plans for the coming semester. As an unbeliever in Pentecostal economics I shake my head, struggle to sleep at nights, but maybe the day of my conversion is coming. Have a look at the latest YouTube on Medellín and see what a different world we live in. One of our Colombian lecturers is singing in the backgrou...