Bogota, Colombia, in 1997 was much different from the city Ron remembered from many years before when he lived there for a semester as a 22-year-old. His plan was to study Spanish there so that he could later attend medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico as a friend of his had done. But while in Bogota, he encountered the street children many large Latin American cities are known for, and his plans to pursue a career in medicine lost their appeal as the Lord began drawing him toward the idea of ministry to children at risk. At that time, God began a long process that would eventually lead him back to this city, this time bringing me and our two children. However, in the ensuing twenty years, the city of Ron’s memories had become a very dangerous place. By this time, FARC was an active force in Colombia and virtually controlled the country by fear. Tanks patrolled outside the city, and within its boundaries, guards armed with machine guns stood outside the entrances of stores and banks. Crime inside the city was rampant because of overpopulation since living outside the city, in guerilla-controlled territory, was too dangerous. While God, in His graciousness, had spoken very clearly to my fears about moving to South America through His word in (Psalm 91), nothing had truly prepared me for the reality of living in a place that was so controlled by the forces of evil.
But God, always gracious and faithful to provide what we need, allowed for us to find ourselves settled into large guest facility run by an international ministry: a center for a great deal of missionary activity and social life. This provided a “soft landing” for us, as we were surrounded by other English- speaking Christians who were, like us, adjusting to a culture not their own. Our children had a big safe yard in which to play and make friends with the other North American missionaries’ children, reducing the culture shock for them a bit.
But besides a healthy transitional social environment, it also provided some good security and wise counsel for handling the realities of living in a place like Bogota. Ron, a runner at the time, was advised to change his route daily so as not to be a predictable “target” for possible kidnapping. Foreigners, particularly North Americans, were seen as “rich” and were therefore at risk of being taken for ransom by member of FARC. We were also told never to let our children leave the grounds of the guesthouse (protected by armed guards) alone, as foreigners’ children were a classic target for kidnapping as well. So, while I felt safe inside the walls, outside there was always a sense of caution and a high awareness of what was going on around me.
I remember the words of one missionary that we met while there when I asked her about this. She said, (quoting Corrie Ten Boom, a survivor of a WWII concentration camp) “The safest place to be is in the center of God’s will”. Because I knew we had followed God’s leading, I believed He was our protector, but it was still a strange time, especially for me as a mom, wondering what God (and Ron) had gotten us into! But if He truly had, we needed to find out what His purposes were in doing that.
Because we were new to the “mission field” and had limited experience and language abilities, we knew we would need help to get established. For that reason, we began visiting different ministries that worked with street children and orphans in the city. Our desire was to either learn all we could from existing works with children or to find an established ministry we could become a part of. We visited a number of different ministries, from those geared to finding adoptive homes for abandoned babies to larger group homes for children who had either lost their parents or been removed from their homes because they were in danger there. And while some of these ministries seemed interested in how we might have been able to help them, what a surprise it was to find out that many of those doors were closed, not because there wasn’t a need for help, but because the people in charge of those ministries did not want it. Maybe it was our ages (we were 39 and 42 at the time – way past the optimal age for beginning missionaries), or the fact that we had children, or maybe it was our lack of experience. But what we felt, time after time, was that many of the “missionaries” we encountered were simply jealous for their own ministries. They didn’t want to share what they were doing with someone else. It threatened them somehow, in a way we just couldn’t understand. But while we observed that some of these ministries seemed to be genuinely changing lives, many others demonstrated very limited success in terms of reaching the city’s street children.
We heard more than once, “You can take the kid out of the street, but you can’t take the street out of the kid”. While certain that we had heard God’s call, we knew He would direct, but the waiting was wearing on us. We were ready to get busy doing whatever that call entailed. And then God took us on a little “detour” to Quito, Ecuador, and the questions began all over again.
