Paul and Sheri Moreland – Jan 5 2015 Rejoice and Pray

Dear fellow laborers in Christ’s great harvest field,

Happy New Year wishes and prayers from Coffee Country!

December was a busy month for us.  We started out with a special meal that we do each year with the English Conversation Club.  We had about 24 people participate this year.  They all enjoyed a “Typical US Style Dinner” complete with turkey and ham with all the fixings as well as three kinds of pies.  It was a lot of work but well worth the effort.  This conversation club has been a good way to plant seeds and to challenge people to think about the world around them.

Our next major event was the Church Dinner after the morning gathering on the first Sunday in December.  We provided the turkeys and mashed potatoes, everyone else brought salads and other side dishes.  The best, however, was the time of fellowship and sharing that we all indulged in as the end of year holiday season was just getting started and people had not yet started their vacation trips.  December and January are roughly equivalent to the June and July school breaks in the U.S. and have the highest amount of travel as people visit family and friends in different places or take vacation trips to the coast or other tourist destinations.

The second Sunday was very special, Juan Pablo Gil was baptized!  He is a young man we’ve been evangelizing for a while now, as has his older brother who is the first person we baptized in Pereira.  Juan Pablo has had a rough life but the Gospel is really making a difference.  We rejoice at seeing the result of long labor coming to fruition!

The major event in December for Sheri and I was a trip to Colombia’s eastern plains area.  Sheri was raised in that area and has a lot of family friends there.  We were able to visit two different churches as well as participate in different activities such as putting together Christmas baskets as well as delivering them to elderly and shut-in members of the church.  We also were blessed by having the use of the local church camp as a base of operations.  The camp is outside the city of Villavicencio away from the clutter and bustle of the city.  What a blessing to go to bed with the sound of insects and frogs and to wake up to the sound of birds.  We spent 10 days, a few more than originally planned, with the churches in the plains and also were able to spend time with different families that Sheri has known since her childhood.  We were invited to the graduation party for one of her friends who graduated from law school at the age of 50, after raising his own family and establishing a successful business.  We also got to spend an evening fishing for traíra (Brazilian name) which is known as “dormilón” (sleeper) in Colombia, with the son of one of the church leaders at a small private lagoon.

The reason we spent more time than planned was due to a mishap while visiting the church in Puerto López.  While looking for the church building we got onto a street that was cut by a gully due to runoff from the rains.  Our Chevrolet sedan is NOT the type of vehicle to attempt to negotiate such an obstacle and while turning around in the narrow space I managed to hit a curb stone that was laying in the road.  This knocked one of the pegs that holds the radiator in place and cracked the reservoir.  A bystander said “You broke your radiator!” and I got out, saw the water and decided that since we were close to the church we’d go there before the car overheated. After church the coolant had not gone down much as the engine cooled so we decided to try to make it back to Villavicencio instead of calling a tow truck.  Every few minutes I’d stop and check, but the coolant stayed steady and the temperature also.  The next day we went in to the Chevrolet dealer and found they had a radiator, hoses and thermostat in stock – and someone had cancelled their shop appointment so that we were able to get the car in and repaired. $600 dollars later and we were up and running.  The brethren prevailed on us to stay over for Christmas Eve (the major celebration in Colombia) so we did.  It was a blessing to participate in the Christmas Eve celebration with the church in Villavicencio and to be invited to share a brief message on the meaning of Christmas, then to watch the children and youth present different dramatic projects they had been rehearsing for weeks.  On Christmas day we left dark and early to take advantage of the relatively empty highways and made it back to Pereira in record time.

While we were in the plains, the church continued on as usual here in Pereira – only with out our personal participation in the different ministries.  What a blessing to hear how well things went and how each person did their part to continue in the work of edification and teaching.  We also had different visitors while we were gone and everyone stepped in to make them feel at home.  Upon our return we were blessed to receive visitors from other places, folks who were members in the past and who were back in town visiting relatives over the Christmas season.

Our year ended with an open house event at our home on New Year’s Eve.  We invited those in town to stop by our place in the evening for snacks, games and fellowship.  We had about 24 people over the course of the evening, most of the people who were not out of town on vacation.  This gave people a healthy alternative to some of the typical debauchery indulged in by those who have not found freedom in Christ.  It also gave a place for those with no family in this area to spend time with their family in Christ. Sheri and I got to bed about 2:00 a.m. after everyone else left and the leftovers were stored in the refrigerator.

So we start this new year off full of gratitude.  Gratitude to God for the blessings He has showered us with in so many ways, and gratitude for each of you who makes it possible for us to live and work here in Colombia.  Thank you for lifting us up in prayer and for enabling us to continue to reach out and make a difference in so many different lives.

May this coming year be full of blessings in your own life and ministry.

In Christ,

Paul and Sheri Moreland