Goodbye, Colombia

God of the Unexpected

We knew when we came to Colombia that we didn’t know what to expect: we might not get our residency, the loan program might not work out, donations for our support might not come in, safety in the country might deteriorate… We did not expect that the U.S. and the world’s economy would fall apart (who did?) and that our previously highly desirable Key Largo condo would not sell and our retirement savings would be halved. And so we did not really expect to leave Colombia one year and 10 months after moving here. But so be it. Our God is equally in charge of the expected and the unexpected.

Having said that, we are profoundly grateful for many things that have happened during our adventures here—see next article “What We’re Thankful For.”

Everyone wants to know where we are going and what we are going to do—but they don’t want to know nearly as much as we do! The simple answer is that we are going to go live in our condo in Key Largo, do a few consulting jobs that we both have lined up so far—to try to pay our expenses—and continue to seek God’s will for whatever might be next: Something that allows for David’s ongoing involvement in these projects? Paying jobs in the U.S.? The eventual sale of the condo? We don’t know…

So we feel a bit like Abraham, when God moved him from Haran.
God: “Pack up and get moving, Abe.”
Abe: “Right, Lord. Which direction? And, um, what do I tell people?”
God: “Just get started; I’ll steer.”
Abe: “This okay?”
God: “Good for now. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Abe: “Somewhere where there’s water, if you don’t mind? And grass for the
cattle?”
God: “ ‘I reckon on you for extreme service, with no complaining on your part
and no explanation on mine.’”

That last sentence is a quote from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, December 18. Another quote that seems apt these days is:

“Notice God’s unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say—God intends me to be here because I am so useful. Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.” MUFHH, August 10th.

What We Are Thankful For

Safety So Far: We have been thankful in our time here for God’s protection. We have been careful, and have never sensed any threat of crime or political danger, but, of course, we do not know what our angels may be doing behind the scenes. In the last few months there have been an increasing number of shootings in and around Sincelejo: according to the newspapers they are done by paid gunmen settling old scores and ongoing feuds. But in some cases the “wrong” people have been shot by “mistake.” We are not aware of having offended anyone, but will be glad to leave before we are the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, we have become increasingly aware that the most dangerous thing we do is drive. It is amazing that we have had no accident so far—and we know to Whom credit is due. The swarms of motorcycles in this city, the way people drive, the dogs, chickens, cows and donkeys on the country roads, all make driving more of an adventure than one really desires. Yet we, and our little car, have been kept safe. Thank you Lord!

Our Relationship with Our Children: even though we have been separated from our kids by thousands of miles for months at a time, we feel closer to them than ever. We have kept in touch by Skype and by e-mail and the Lord has enabled us to keep our promise to them that if they needed us, we would “be there.” Mostly they have needed us to help them move. In the last three years we have moved David and Connie twice, Rebeca twice, and Jonathan twice! We joke that, as a family, we have to stop getting together this way—and would love to develop a different kind of expertise. But above all we are grateful for the Lord’s care of our children, and for the people they are turning out to be.

Our Apartment: Some of you may remember that it took us six weeks to find an apartment, and when we finally settled on this one (just about the only one available that was remotely to our liking) there were others we wished we had gotten. But this one, in the Lord’s wisdom, was perfect (why don’t we learn?). Above all it has been safe—up on the fifth floor, with only one entrance and two guards at the bottom. Our car could be garaged safely in the basement. The guards have been very helpful screening all visitors, helping with suitcases, packages and garbage disposal. The apartment is light and airy with a good view and has been a refuge from the sweltering busyness, noise and pollution of the city—yet David’s commute to his office and many projects was not long. Again—thank you, Lord!

Time To Think: It is true that both of us (especially David) have been busy in ministry while here in Colombia. It is also true that both of us have traveled quite a bit. But in between the travel and the ministry—and because we have been somewhat isolated here and there is little to do recreation-wise—there has been time to read, to think, to pray, to recover—like we haven’t had for years. God is good.

The Progress of the ADIN Project: Helping the poor by creating jobs and funding small businesses has long been David’s dream, but he wanted to know if the principles laid out in his book Where There Are No Jobs really could be successfully implemented. Now he knows the answer: Yes, they can be. It is not easy, and a truly successful program may require the presence of a missionary or expatriate supervisor like himself—this remains to be seen—but the principles work. He also knows a lot more about the sociological, anthropological and spiritual complexities that are involved. But that is what he wanted to learn, and he is grateful. The program, so far, has helped over 600 clients, and their families. He leaves it fully functioning and we expect it will continue to help many more. (The book is available at http://www.wheretherearenojobs.com/)

Connie’s ministry impact, while much smaller than David’s, has been meaningful for her. By the time she leaves, she will have given the 10-hour workshop on “Dealing with Loss and Grief in a Healthy Way” 5 times and will have trained 3 other people to carry on with the workshop and follow-up groups. She has given other workshops on marriage, communication, self-esteem, suffering and broken families that have been of help to those involved, and done two retreats, one on “The Sacred Mundane” and one on “Identity Issues for Preacher’s Kids.” She has counseled Christians experiencing deep hurts. What a privilege to have been able to do these things with God’s help!

Conference Speaking—Country Style

The conferences I (Connie) give on “Dealing with Grief and Loss in a Healthy Way” involve ten hours of teaching, and therefore usually start on a Friday evening and go all day Saturday. One Friday night we arrived about dusk at the church where the conference was held. It was in a somewhat rural area, but a large church all the same. We had some trouble getting the power point projector and computer to work: it is not completely clear why, but might have been because the amount of electric power coming in was low: in the rural areas, sometimes, one electric wire runs to a church or main building, but along the way people connect to that wire and “siphon off” some voltage. Anyway, we finally got everything to work and started the conference.

I was about an hour into the material (half way done for the evening) when the electricity went off. It flickered on once again and then it was remarkably dark. Out in the country, when the lights go off—they really go off. There is no other light from anywhere. It was peaceful, too: no noise. Someone brought me a cell phone with a flashlight, so I had light to see my notes and continue speaking. It was an odd experience, though, since I could not see my audience at all. They were remarkably quiet and after awhile I was not sure if they were all asleep, or even still there.

A new problem soon presented itself: since I had the only light for miles around, I attracted all the bugs. They landed on my papers, on me, and started to get in my mouth. The person in charge mercifully took over and suggested we call it a night and squeeze more material into the next day. He said that some of those bugs bite, and that once, in a similar situation, he had swallowed a bug which bothered his throat for days. I was happy to accept his intervention.

At a different conference out in the country I noticed a hen and rooster wandering around the church yard during the morning break. This is not at all unusual—even many yards in Sincelejo have chickens wandering around. (I have never been in a city in Latin America in which one could not hear roosters crowing in the early morning.) So I did not think anything of it.
At lunch, which was provided for some of us as part of the conference, we had the very typical meal, sancocho de gallina, or chicken soup. This is a soup full of local produce, such as yucca (manioc), corn, plantain, rice—and of course, chicken. This chicken was tough and stringy—which is characteristic of chicken that is not caged and fattened, but is allowed to roam. (Fancy gourmet restaurants in the U.S. call it “range chicken.”) It wasn’t until the end of the meal that my helper at the conference remarked sadly that what we had just eaten was the hen we had seen running around at coffee break.

The Search for Entrepreneurs

Most of the Colombian clients come into the ADIN solidarity loan program after accessing the “drip/drip” funding available in the informal “loan shark” sector that costs 1% per day. (“Gota a Gota: Una Usuara Sin Control,” El Tiempo, p. 1-4) The fact that they have been able to sustain an enterprise with a very significant cost of funds is a sign that they have a viable enterprise, and the immediate result they experience with ADIN financing is that, freed from such high interest rates, they can capitalize their businesses. They are allowed three cycles of loans of four-six months to demonstrate that they have a viable business operation. Nine basic business training sessions are provided during this time, along with consulting visits by the ADIN staff. The goal is to graduate to an individual loan, which are only for entrepreneurs capable of demonstrating job creation and growth of their business.

The process of finding real entrepreneurs is complex, even with the series of three entrepreneurial training courses for each cycle of financing. During the first cycle, the difference between cash flow and profit is clearly presented, along with the need to distinguish between consumption and investment. Some clients do not have a vision for expansion of their business beyond the first cycle; to continue to provide loans to such clients only creates dependency, which is not a goal of the program. Therefore, only those clients who demonstrate a growing business and responsible management are allowed to continue receiving a second or third loan.

A major effort was made during April to expand the number of new entrants into the program through the presentation of the concept to over 100 pastors. ADIN was allowed an hour of previously scheduled “zone” meetings. We used the first half hour to present the Biblical basis of (1) doing good as a Christian testimony, (2) increasing incomes and creating jobs as way to do good, and (3) the special need, in this type of work, for integrity and honesty. The second half hour was dedicated to the nuts and bolts of how to get church groups involved.

We are excited about this phase, as the initial base for clients was founded on a selective invitation to a meeting in the fall of 2007, and limited the program growth. We now expect to have a better and larger pool of potential entrepreneurs.

(Readers who are interested in more detail can ask for an evaluation paper written about the program - just request this through e-mail from davidbefus@ymail.com)

Home Leave in August

We were initially introduced to our Colombian partners at the AIEC bi-annual convention in July, 2007, and almost 2 years later we are announcing to them a home leave that will begin in August, 2009. We are not sure at this point what this will entail, as we lack the monthly support to continue here, and are actively looking for alternatives. We hope to be able to present more specific information by early June. In the meantime, we are turning all day-to-day responsibilities here over to local counterparts, and preparing them for our departure.

Is Creating Jobs Relevant?

As the ADIN job creation program has grown in the Northern Coast of Colombia, it has also gradually moved away from the church group that gave it birth. Some of the pastors who initially promoted the program have been disappointed by the lack of integrity of members in their congregations, and tell other pastors that the requirements of the ADIN program (to pay back the loans) may expose this flaw in their discipleship.

However, the biggest issue is simply relevance. Church members seem very dedicated to participation in church meetings with animated praise and worship, and to the spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting. But concern about the “daily bread” of paying bills, putting food on the table, or helping others who are poor or suffering is not, apparently, seen as relevant.

I have begun to seek a dialogue on this issue, and will have the opportunity to present the concept of “doing good” in four pastoral meetings in April. I begin with passages like Ephesians 2:8-10, (including the statement “created to do good works”) and the short letter to Titus, which mentions “doing good” six times in relation to the witness of the church.

To understand what I am up against, watch the televangelists in the U.S., which are considered here to be models. The main question is “who is anointed?” and the measurement of spirituality is based on signs and wonders. Many of the churches have weekly “miracle” meetings; people who need jobs are told to “ask for the miracle.”

And what if the miracle is the ADIN program? It requires work and responsibility; no one has a special word from God; and those who want help getting a job don’t feel any special vibrations. The Greek word “charis” means grace, and it seems to me that ADIN is part of God’s gracious good works. If only the church people would see it that way….


Blessings in Bogotá

We went to Bogotá (capitol city of Colombia) principally to renew our Colombian residency visas, and while we were there, David visited a group of leaders at the C &MA church interested in duplicating the ADIN project, and Connie helped UCU (a Christian university group like Intervarsity) with some pastoral care issues. The amazing thing is not only that all of those objectives were successfully accomplished, but just how good God was to us in it all.

First, our airfare was paid by someone else. The airplane arrived and departed on time, the flight was smooth, and our luggage was the first piece to come on the conveyer belt in Bogotá. Next, someone paid for our hotel the whole time we were there—and this was a nice hotel—much nicer than we would have paid for ourselves. So we enjoyed the accommodations very much.

Not only that. The hotel was within walking distance of the church where David was helping. It was within walking distance of the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores—where we needed to go to renew our visas. And it was within walking distance of a mall and a number of nice restaurants—which we also enjoyed. Does this sound like a little too much coincidence? Does to us, too.

So we went to Bogotá on a required visa renewal trip, and managed to squeeze in quite a bit of ministry, too. But we would not have been a bit surprised if there had been lost luggage and other problems with the trip. We expected a dumpy, but livable hotel. We fully expected delays, questions and problems in getting the visas….

But we got the visas after only a two-hour wait, with no questions asked. We even “happened” to have with us two of exactly the right size and kind of photograph required for the visa! We stayed in an extremely comfortable hotel, with lots of hot water, fresh flowers everywhere, and ate like (frugal) kings. We enjoyed the cool Bogotá weather (between 45 and 65 degrees F) and the change of scenery.

Our God just does this kind of thing sometimes. He does indeed call us to sacrifice, to unpredictability, obscurity, hard work—sometimes to serious suffering. But then, whenever he feels like it, he throws in these gifts of perfectly tailored TLC, just to remind us that he knows us very well, loves us a lot, and is still in charge.

The trip to Bogotá and the beach trip, described below, remind me of one of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis:

“The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”
The Problem of Pain, Chapter 7, C.S. Lewis

Visit to the Beach

After several intense weeks of hosting and training the two potential “loan officers” from Honduras, they went home and we gave ourselves a “day off” at the beach. We discovered in Tolú (thank you Lord!) a nice, but not expensive hotel with a room on the fourth floor, set back from the street, with a balcony overlooking the beach. So that is where we spent the night, and a number of peaceful hours absorbing the view, talking, pondering, having coffee, or reading.

For lunch we walked down the “boardwalk”—a broad sidewalk actually made of cement, but like boardwalks on the U.S. coast, it separates the beach from a street of shops and restaurants—to our favorite outdoor restaurant. There we sat right on the sidewalk looking out over the ocean, under a canopy, and enjoyed a freshly caught red snapper, some rice with shrimp that they do to perfection, and nice cold drinks. We were utterly shocked not to have to ask the restaurateur to turn down the music which is usually blaring from speakers large enough for us to crawl into. There was no music: no complaint about that from us! In addition, bici-taxis (bicycles pulling carts with seats and umbrellas, used for local taxi rides) drove by, but none of them had music on: we could hardly believe it. Finally at the end of our luncheon, a bici-taxi drove by with music on: we had enjoyed the silence, but were relieved that the Tolú we know so well had not entered some kind of Twilight Zone and changed without our awareness.

Some other things have not changed in Tolú, either. David decided to check e-mail during the afternoon and walked into town to an internet café: sure enough, it was closed, as usual, until well after the lunch hour. Later on, when it was finally open, there was no air conditioning—and the same old keys still stuck on the keyboard.

Once the intense heat of the day passed, we walked down the “boardwalk” until it ended and on to where there is a quiet, sandy beach, with few vendors going by, and palm trees for shade. There we settled and watched the shrimp boats come in and the pelicans doing their fishing.
Pelicans are a marvel of engineering: I love to watch them. In flight they look like a sleek Stealth bomber. They must have marvelous eye sight, for from three or four stories up in the air they will suddenly plunge into a steep dive, splash into the ocean, then buoyantly pop up. If they have caught something, after a moment they will stretch their elastic gullets, tip their heads back, and swallow their catch. On land, with their wings folded up and their “chins” tucked in, you cannot tell how majestically they can soar in the air, or dive, and their stretchable gullet is not apparent. In fact, on land they look ungainly since they must walk on short legs with floppy, webbed feet. Their eyes, soft brown like a spaniel’s, look shy, as if they are aware of how silly they look, and they avoid people by flopping in the water with a splash, or taking off in flight where their superb, multi-purpose construction is again apparent.

After our supper, again in town, we walked slowly back towards our hotel, enjoying what was left of the sunset. Once we had passed the majority of noisy shops and restaurants, we sat on the edge of the cement walk to admire the ocean and the evening star that was presiding over the scene. It was very romantic and beautiful until I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye: a rat, taking advantage of the empty sidewalk to forage for garbage. We made motions to scare him away, but he came back, so we moved on up to our fourth floor balcony for a safer, if more distant, view of the ocean and its evening star.

The next day we enjoyed the beach a bit more and then went back to Sincelejo, mildly sun-burned and greatly refreshed.

Modern Tech Meets MK Puzzle

It is amazing what can be done with modern technology. It is amazing how complicated life can be when two fifty-something people leave home and kids behind and go off to Colombia! And then there is the combination of the two.

This week is spring break, so our son Jon left FSU and drove down to Miami. He is spending some time with friends, but is also getting some “down time” at the only home left to him—our condo in Key Largo—which happens to be for sale. But he might as well enjoy it since we still own it! He arrives and gets himself into the gated community and the condo, but does not remember how to turn on the hot water heater that his parents have so frugally turned off.

The logical thing is for Jon to contact his parents and ask how to turn on the hot water heater, however… The condo has no internet connection, so he cannot send an e-mail, instant message, nor can he use Skype; and his cell phone does not have international service. However, enterprising young man that he is, he calls his sister in Orlando, using his cell phone. His sister, who does have internet service in her apartment, uses Skype to call her parents in Colombia. They then use Skype to call their son in Key Largo, and tell him how to turn on the hot water in the condo.

Ironic, isn’t it? His parents can use the internet and Skype to call their son in Key Largo, and tell him how to turn on the hot water heater (and they may call again at the end of the week to remind him to turn it off again), but nowhere in Sincelejo is there a hot water heater to turn on—no matter who calls!

Back To Colombia!

Getting Fat for Jesus

I’m not kidding. It was fun to be in the U.S. and savor foods we can’t find in Colombia… But when one is traveling and moving around, one cannot control, very much, what is available to eat. You could say, “Well, just don’t eat the fattening stuff.” Easy for you to say! Try turning down delicious food when it has been lovingly prepared by a gracious host or hostess. Try eating healthily in restaurant after restaurant, for eating out, in the U.S.A is, after all, one of the main ways people get together, celebrate, share what’s going on, learn, and plan future investments and programs—and that is what we were trying to do while in the U.S. (See above photo, on right, where David makes a presentation in a restaurant in Kentucky.)

It is also pretty hard to exercise when moving to a new place every few days—especially when it is 13 degrees outside!

So although the travel, and being with family and friends, and “having to” eat in restaurants for meetings and presentations is kind of fun on the one hand, after awhile the “eating part” got to be a strange, paradoxical “sacrifice.”

Now that we’re back home in Sincelejo, we look forward to getting regular exercise and shedding some of those pounds we gained trying to help raise funds for these programs and for our own financial support, so we can do what we do here…

How paradoxical it all is…eating too much, traveling so much…so that people here who are poor, underfed, and have never left their little home town—much less gotten on an airplane—can support themselves and know our God better…

If you have a better idea of how to do this…let us know!

The Third Strike

If one reads the very first article at the bottom of this blog, it is clear that the idea of replicating the “Colombian experience” was part of the plan, since the beginning. I even envisioned a training center designed to help others start small programs for the church to create jobs for the poor, with virtually no need for overhead, fund raisers, or promoters. So the invitation to help get another program started in Honduras is very exciting to me. I have also enthusiastically welcomed college students and people from a variety of places that come here for training. Successful programs can be replicated, right?

The genesis of the Honduran program, developed before I became involved, assumed that a democratic invitation of leaders in the churches would provide a good foundation for future leadership. What happened, instead, was apalling: a group of volunteers, holding ownership of the program, evolved expectations of funding for pet projects, jobs for spouses, trips to the U.S., and other benefits. The ending of this phase was humorous, in a way, with a dogmatic leader presenting the request for a deposit of $50,000 to an account they had created.

My training suggests, when creating new programs, to seek out organizations with existing programs as a first step. As the first effort to identify local partners came crashing to the ground, I began meeting with organizations that had some background and experience in lending money to create jobs. I got a very positive response from an organization that I knew well from a previous assignment in Honduras, and was excited to host a visit of their director. The staff person that they had assigned to the new project organized speaking engagements for me at churches in San Pedro Sula, and I thought, “what a good deal!” Then, one week after returning to Colombia, I got a very short note from the director which said that they had changed their mind: their Board had decided not to participate. All that work and "no deal."

My recent January trip was the third attempt. Starting now "from scratch," I determined to try to replicate the structure that has worked in Colombia: a partnership between the loan program and local leadership. I remembered that for both the first attempt and the second, I had taken prospective leaders to visit the offices of a large local development bank, where a Christian friend worked as the assistant director. As I shared with him the experiences of strike one and strike two, he said, “why don’t you do this with my church?” He belongs to a denomination that has a social outreach division, and he said that they have been praying for years to include a job creation component.

So this was the project for January: to craft a new deal with a defined leadership group and a concrete plan. I am happy to report that it was successful, and (Lord willing) the leadership team of Edduin and Johan arrive in Colombia on February 9 for training. (Yes, they have already purchased the tickets.) I am very excited to help with the new organization that they will create in Honduras.

We also continue to host U.S. college interns, and occasional visits from leaders of Latin American church organizations. The Christian Missionary Alliance outreach to poor families in Bogota (7 centers for children’s nutrition) and the AGROS ministry of Nicaragua have both presented very detailed plans to create programs for job creation.

Thank you for your support and prayers.

“But I Thought You Spoke Spanish!”

One of my (Connie’s) constant prayer requests is for fluency in Spanish as I prepare and give conferences, workshops and retreats here in Colombia. Often, people respond with a puzzled look and that statement: “but I thought you spoke Spanish.”

Well, I do. But after twelve years in Miami, it is a bit rusty. In addition, I am trying to give fairly serious workshops on things like, “A Theology of Grief,” “Dealing with Trauma,” “A Biblical view of Self Esteem,” “Foundations of Healthy Christian Marriage,” and so on. One needs to be articulate and professional about such teaching—at least, I would like to be.

But the biggest challenge is where we live and work: the northern coast of Colombia. Even Colombians from the capitol city and from other regions tell us they can’t understand the Spanish of the northern coast! The accent, the slang, the idioms, the sayings, are all different here. It is kind of like a native of Boston or New York moving to Appalachia or New Orleans and trying to give meaningful talks on subjects of the heart and spirit. Imagine a Caucasian from Boston giving a workshop to African-American people of the bayou in Louisiana, or a professor from Chicago working with women from the “holler” in rural Kentucky…and you begin to get the flavor of what we are dealing with.

So I do ask for prayer, as I seek to convey God’s deep love and desire to heal the hearts and lives of his children in Colombia.