Ibagué!

This weekend we went to a city called Ibagué to visit a local UCU-group, three or four hours west of Bogotá in bus. We had two presentations about ourselves, our testimony, our school Hald International Centre and about UCU. It was a great meeting with the people from Ibagué! We really felt the hospitality and their kindness, and we felt God was working through us to inspire the group! How great is our God!

Preparing for handing out flyers and talking to students at the University of Tolima.
Carmen who works for UCU Nacional was also with us! 

In action

 We were only in Ibagué for about 24 hours, but we did a lot! Ibagué was a great experience. 

We pray for growth and courage in the group! 

Hugs from Rebekka and Mari

¿Qué le preguntarías a Dios?

The organization we work for is called UCU - Unidad Cristiana Universitaria. It is a Christian student movement, and exists in many cities in Colombia, with the main office in Bogotá. UCU works to create spaces in the universities where students can gather to talk about faith, read the Bible and pray together. Here in Bogotá we also have reunions every Wednesday and Friday in "Casa UCU", with worship, prayer and Bible-study.

UCU is a part of the worldwide organization IFES - International Fellowship of Evangelical Students; so is the Norwegian organization Laget (NKSS - Norges Kristelige Student- og Skoleungdomslag). Laget and UCU serve the same purpose and share the same goals, we all work to bring students to Jesus!

This week we have been inviting new students to UCU! We put up a stand, handed out flyers and gave people free bread and sweets. We also asked the question: "¿Qué le preguntarías a Dios?" - "What would you ask God?". Through this we got many interesting answers and conversations. We had a great experience participating, promoting UCU and meeting students! Let´s hope and pray that this year will bring many new students to the fellowship of UCU!

Highlights of the last month

It´s been a while since we have updated our blog, so instead of writing a 10 paged post, we decided to give you glimpses of what we have been doing and of what´s happened the last month through pictures:

Colombia celebrates "Little Candles´ Day" the 7th of December.
We joined the celebration after rehearsing for our Christmas concert.

From the 7th to the 9th of December, we participated in a retreat in Casa UCU with great people from all over Colombia! We learned a lot about the Bible, discipleship and UCU.

Eliza and Rebekka making Norwegian breakfast for the participants: havregrøt!

"The band" (and Yesica from Cartagena in the middle) almost ready for the concert.

Christmas concert with UCU!

BRAZIL: from the 11th to the 22nd of December

On our way to infield in Florianópolis.
Infield is our follow-up course with other students and teachers from Hald International Center.
This includes reflection and conversations about our stay so far, personal progress and goals for the next months.

Walking in the streets of Florianópolis

We also went to the beach! Some of us preferred not to get more sunburned.

The last night in Florianópolis.
During our stay, we got to know the former Hald-students Julia and Gregory!

Vacation in Rio!
Mari, Rebekka, Lars and Tobias (other Hald-students living in Brazil) survived four days in the big city,
thanks to ABU-students who were our private guides.
(ABU=IFES in Brazil)

We met Jesus.
He was a lot taller than we expected.

Met former Hald-student Debora and her fiancé Leandro,
and had a nice day in the neighbourhood Santa Teresa.

Sunset at Ipanema beach.

CHRISTMAS IN VILLA DE LEYVA

We traveled to the beautiful village of Villa de Leyva on the 23rd of December
 to celebrate Christmas with the family of our boss Maritza. 

Christmas Eve!
We played games, ate a lot of food and opened presents, all after midnight.

On the 25th, we went hiking and met Jesus again!
This time he was shorter. 

Villa de Leyva "by night"
We had a late night walk through the streets of the village to check out the lights despite the rain. 

Heated discussion at the breakfast table one morning (right?).
(On the table, you can spot natilla, a typical dessert from Colombia.) 

We went to Ráquira, a tourist town, and we bought ruanas!
(Google it, they are amazing, warm and beautiful)

 Back in Bogotá! 

Lars and Tobias came to visit for New Years Eve!
So we took them sightseeing around Bogotá:
this is the cathedral at Plaza de Bolívar

Visited the church Monserrate, 3150 meters above sea level.
The view over Bogotá was amazing!

We spent one day in a park, had picnic and played games with good friends! That was until it started to rain like crazy, and we ended up at a friends house playing more games and dancing a lot. It was a great day! 

Saying goodbye to Lars and Tobias at the airport. See you at Hald in April!  

We have had a great and busy month. We are excited for the new year and all that 2017 will bring! 

Hugs from Rebekka and Mari

"Ehh, was that our stop?"

Today is Sunday, which means church. We have now found "our" church, which is about 20 minutes with bus without traffic (with traffic, possibly one hour). This is what happened:

For the first: We were late, and still waiting for the bus when we were supposed to be there.
For the second: It was our first time going to church alone and taking public transport by ourselves.
For the third: We did not know when the bus was coming, because there is no scheduled buses here.
For the fourth: We were not sure if we had enough money on our bus-cards, and we had no place nearby to recharge them.
For the fifth: There were three different buses to choose between. We could only remember for sure the number of the first two.
For the sixth: Therefore, we were a little bit stressed when the bus that arrived first, was the one we thought (read: hoped) was the third option. So, knowing we were late, we jumped in.
For the seventh: Both of us have a bad sense of direction, and we were not sure exactly where to get off.
For the eighth: Suddenly, we recognized where we were, but we signaled too late. The bus crossed a big brigde over a highway before we could get off. Finally, the bus stopped and we managed (thanks to Mari´s sense of direction that kicked in) to make our way back to church.

We came 40 minutes late, but still in time for the speech, so it was no problem! Today we managed to make our way to church all alone both back and forth, and we are happy that we got to know and understand the system of public transport better through this challenge.

This was three weeks ago, when we actually came one hour early.
After the service, we were served food from Peru!

Big hugs from Rebekka and Mari!

What kind of animal is your sister?

(Two blogposts in one day! What´s happening?? Crazy.) We just wanted to share some thoughts we have about our stay so far, that is not about what we have been doing, but about some of our new experiences!

There is nothing like "one" Colombian culture. Colombia is very diverse, with a lot of different people and behaviors. So one of our purposes here - to get to know the Colombian culture - is kind of difficult, when social norms, people and behaviors are different from city to city. It will be interesting to visit other places than Armenia and Bogotá to see how people do things. But still, there are some things we can point out that we have noticed these three first weeks:


Greetings
There is always a bit uncertainty when we are greeting and meeting people - is it only a handshake this time? Is it one small kiss on the cheek? Is it a kiss and a hug afterwards? Two kisses? Or nothing, just a smile and "¿Cómo estás?"? Sometimes we reach out a hand, but the other person goes for a hug. Sometimes it is the opposite. This is kind of funny, and we just laugh about it. People are so friendly, and meeting new people is always nice.

Bags
Milk in bags. Yoghurt in bags. Water in bags. We buy small (or big) plastic bags with liquids, and we are always afraid they will break. So the following question is - how do we store these bags when they have been opened? Solution: keep them in jugs in the fridge! This is new for us.

Money
Everything is payed for with cash. Often we pay with a 20 000-note, or even a 50 000-note, which feels strange. But - thousand Colombian Pesos are about 2.8 Norwegian Kroner, and we often struggle to realize how much (little) things cost, but our brains are getting better (at least Mari´s). Still, we feel nervous walking around with 100 000 pesos each in our purses, but really, it is only about 300 NOK...

Measuring heights
In Norway, when we are talking about how tall someone is, we hold up our hand with the palm facing down. If we present our siblings like that here, Colombians will laugh at us and say something like "What kind of sister do you have?". The reason is that when they talk about heights, they hold the palm of their hand vertically, with the little finger pointing down. When the palm faces downwards, they talk about animals (not people). Good thing we sorted this out, haha (or jaja, as written in Spanish).

Weather
Some people might think it is super-warm where we are, but no - we live in the capital, 2600 meters above sea level. This equals the Norwegian weather in fall. Some days are gray and rainy, other days are more sunny, but it is never very warm. In other cities, for example on the coast, it is always around 30-40 degrees. So as a conclusion - Colombia is varied and diverse, and we are learning new things and how to adapt every day.

Picture from yesterday, when it suddenly started to rain like crazy, and we ran to find shelter.
With Felipe, Daniela, Rebekka and Mari.

Armenia, Quindío

The days go by so quickly! These last two weeks, we have been in a city called Armenia, about a seven hour drive from Bogotá (we took the plane, that was nice). Armenia is placed in the smallest region in Colombia - Quindío. It is called the coffee-region - they have a lot of coffee-farms and they are really dependent on their coffee production.

Baby-coffee

In Armenia, the former Hald-student Eliza greeted us, and we were lucky enough to live with her and her family. It was very nice to talk to a Colombian that has experienced the same things that we are experiencing right now - differences in culture and language-barriers. She really helped us with her knowledge and experience from her stay in Norway. We also got the chance to talk a little bit in Norwegian together :) Eliza is in charge of all the work that UCU does in the city, and we joined her in her work.

The first weekend, we participated in a big conference about leadership called Reaxión. Our tasks were to promote UCU, be a part of a workshop and answer questions and talk to people on an UCU-stand. There were great speakers, seminars and people. That was what we enjoyed the most - making friends. People here are so open, helpful, welcoming and caring. We really like that people have time to talk and spend time together with us.

Our UCU-stand at Reaxión

Worship in Reaxión

The second weekend, we were in charge of two workshops about leadership, one for age 10-15, and the next one from age 15-20. We were so lucky to have Eliza as our translator all the time, because with our restricted vocabulary, there was a limit of how much "good stuff" we were able to communicate. During the week, we were also a part of some UCU-meetings, bible groups and even a class of English for Modern Language-students.

Leadership workshop with students

During our stay we also learned more about Quindío and the coffee-culture through visiting The National Coffee Park, participating in coffee-classes and having coffee with people. To our surprise, Mari even (almost) liked the taste of frappuccino, so we are hoping that this is the beginning of her life as a coffee-drinker. We also got a small taste of the nightlife with salsa-dancing and latino-rhythms. We will really miss the place, and also Eliza and the rest of our friends there. Hopefully we will return some day!

Parque del Café! 

   

We were lucky enough to take a picture with the dancers of the Coffee-show!

The beautiful city of Salento with a lot of colours!

Coffee with Eliza and Loro in Armenia

Back home in Bogotá, we are very exited to get started with the work we have planned and to establish routines and our everyday-life.

Hugs from Mari and Rebekka

First experiences

It is Sunday evening, and we have been in Bogotá for four days already. During this time, we have done a lot of things. We have:

• Tried to get used to the time difference
• Tasted new food, like arepas, sancocho, bistec al caballo, empanadas and tamal (google it if you want to see how it looks like). 
• Participated in a prayer meeting and a biblestudy-group in casa UCU. It is really nice to experience the Christian fellowship here, even though we don´t understand as much as we would like. 
• Learned a lot of Spanish!! It is so much easier to learn the language when we hear it all the time and everyone knows it. We use every opportunity we get to ask "¿Cómo se dice .... en español?"
• Been to church!
• Walked in the city center, taken the TransMilenio (big buses) and been on museums

On the museum we got a personal painting!

• Dared to kill spiders all by ourselves (well, Mari did while Rebekka watched in fear)
• Made local food (with help from our great bos/our Colombian mamá, Maritza) 

Rebekka in the kitchen

• Heard thunder louder than we have ever experienced before 
• Met a lot of great, awesome, funny, loving and caring people!

Map of Colombia, we stand upon Bogotá

It is interesting to be here during the peace prosess in Colombia, because it is often a subject in conversations, and we are able to ask what the people around us think and feel about it.

On Wednesday we are going to a city called Armenia. We will stay in Armenia for 12 days, and get to know the work that UCU does there. We are excited!