Through a Glass Darkly

Be A Hero Food Drive - Jim's Interview

2009-07-17T21:47:00.002-05:00

As part of the big "Be A Hero Food Drive" I got the chance to be interviewed a couple of times. The last two minutes of the story below feature an interview with me and Grainger - a company that has very generously agreed to help fund our Backpack program with a $20,000 donation.

It's ALIVE!!!

2009-02-24T12:07:00.000-05:00

Chynoweth Family Update

2008-05-23T12:14:00.012-05:00

Bogotá, Colombia
A Look Back...

Dear Family and Friends,

I am writing today to let you know that our time here in Colombia is drawing to a close and that on June 11th, 2008 we will be returning to the United States. We are going back to Florida to spend some time with our families, supporting Jim's mom as she continues her cancer treatment, and be with Jessie's family as they celebrate the marriage of Joy, Jessie's younger sister.

As we look back, it has clearly been an incredible year and a half here in Colombia serving with CDA, learning, growing and helping. We have experienced all sorts of joys and challenges and we are so grateful for your faithful support and all your prayers during the last 18 months. Jesus said that "whatever you do for even the least of this you do for me," and we want to let you know that your faithful support enabled us to come and serve here, making a tangible difference in the lives of people from some of the neediest and poorest communities of Colombia. Thank you for making this opportunity possible for us, thank you for all your prayers and thank you for partnering with us in this adventure!

As our time here rapidly draws to a close, I'd like to take this opportunity to look back at the journey and recognize God's faithfulness and remind you of all the things you have helped make possible.

On November 15, 2006, Jessie who was eight months pregnant, and I moved to Colombia with only half the support raised that we needed, trusting God that he would provide for us if we followed him. Within weeks, He demonstrated his faithfulness and we reached our monthly support goal. Thank you!

On December 20th, 2006 Isabella Marie Chynoweth was safely born at the Fundacion Santa Fe Hospital.

In January 2007 I began translating (slowly at first) for the short term missions teams that were coming down to Colombia, as well as for visiting donors and VIPs. As my spanish improved I also began translating documents, reports and plans since all of CDA's communications had to be translated prior to being sent overseas. When people ask how I learned Spanish I always share how many people I had back home praying for our rapid language acquisition.

In April 2007, Jessie, Bella and I moved into our little house at the Children's Home in Tenjo where Jessie began using some of her nursing skills in addition to befriending some of the girls and sharing her heart and life with them.

In June I had the opportunity to translate for and participate in CDA's international partners conference that brought together key people from CDA's primary donor organization in Holland along with representatives from a variety of organizations across Central and Southern America.

In August ‘07 I went to Pisco, Peru with CDA's emergency relief medical team where we worked in coordination with Operation Blessing, local churches and volunteers from the United States as we brought much needed supplies and medical care to 1,500 people who had lost everything in the earthquake.

In September I had the chance to visit some of the most “exciting” parts of Colombia with a pair of Dutch Journalists. Upon returning to Holland, their pictures and articles were published in a Christian newspaper and helped raise $455,000 for CDA.

After a wonderful trip back to the US over Christmas, we returned to Colombia where I accepted the offer to leave my job as the International Communications Officer and become the new Director of Spiritual Wellbeing.

In this new position I have worked to begin a shift in organizational leadership and return the mantel of spiritual authority to the leaders of the organization instead of the chaplains. Additionally, I retooled our School of Practical Ministries into a Christian leadership development course to be implemented in five of our sites to build relationships with local churches and train christian leaders who can then work with us in a volunteer capacity to multiply our efforts. Additionally, I have launched a community relations plan, transformed how the organization leads devotionals and worked with the President and CEO of the organization to implement some changes in the leadership style to more closely model and reflect CDA's Christian values and heritage.

In April I helped plan and coordinate the logistics to distribute de-worming medication to 500,000 men, women and children from Cartagena in cooperation with the Mayor's Office, the Ministries of Health and Education and Office of the President. A key part of the success of the event was working with the local Pastor's Association, AMEB, to train volunteers to take part in the de-worming campaign, distribute evangelistic literature, and do a long term spiritual followup.

In May I took part in CDA's five-year strategic planning meetings in which we developed strategies and action plans to help guide the leadership in their decision making as CDA continues to grow and discover everything that God has waiting for them.

Once again, thank you so much for walking with us on this adventure. May God continue to bless you as he has blessed us through you.

Sincerely,
Jim, Jessie and Isabella Chynoweth

Finally Back Home

2008-05-01T13:13:00.002-05:00

It was a long two weeks but I'm back home safe and sound (and parasite free) from my trip to Cartagena. Thank you all for your prayers; you joined thousands of Christians from around the world praying for the success of the event, and God was faithful to answer. The event was a success, hundreds of thousands of people were trained in healthy living, received their free deworming medicine, and medical and evangelistic literature. I will post the exact numbers as soon as the reports are finished.

From Deworming Cam...

Pictured above is a bottle of the Albendazole pills and a sample of the educational literature that were distributed on Saturday across Cartagena. The whole experience was a great learning opportunity for me and it definitely stretched my Spanish skills as I not only had to train thousands of people, but I also had to participate in being interviewed about 12 times including several live radio interviews.

One of the highlights of the whole experience was that our CDA School was the site designated for the official opening of the event, attended by the Mayor, and the key leaders from the various public offices as well as a variety of local and national media news organizations (press, radio, and tv). Please click on the link to right "Chynoweth Family Pictures Online" for a lot more pictures from this event.

RCN (national tv station) coverage of the Deworming Campaign

2008-05-01T13:08:00.003-05:00

Well, the video is in Spanish, but I thought it was still kind of cool to see our project on national TV.

Crazy in Cartagena

2008-04-23T08:51:00.004-05:00

I am married to an amazing woman! Last week on Monday I flew to Cartagena for two days of meetings with key leaders from the local government and training with volunteers from the local pastors association in preparation for the deworming campaign scheduled for Saturday the 26th. On Tuesday morning I had to call and tell Jessie that I would be staying in Cartagena for the next two weeks and, "could she please send a bag down with more clean clothes?"

In what can only be described as a miracle, Jessie took the news very well and has really supported me as I have been stuck here on the coast since last week. (I was also pleased to see that the suitcase she sent me only had some of my clothes in it and not everything I own ; ) Thankfully, her good friend Meagan Cassel is visiting her in Bogota to keep her company.

The deworming campaign is the first of its kind in Colombia and the first time that CDA has ever undertaken a project of this size. It has been my privilege together with my friend and coworker Willie Varela to plan and coordinate the event with the support of key national and local governmental agencies, our CDA staff team and local and national Christian leaders. During the hectic last week and a half, I have had numerous meetings with key people from the Mayor's Office of Cartagena, the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Health who are working closely with CDA on the massive deworming campaign that will take place this Saturday. On Friday I gave a presentation training approximately 3,000 community leaders who will be volunteers teaching the community health education class to all those who take part in the main event this Saturday, which since I had to do it in Spanish was kind of stressful. Additionally I have been meeting with the local pastors association and in a series of meetings have trained over 1,000 volunteers from local churches who will be filling out registration forms and distributing Christian literature to each family on the day of the event.

It is incredible to see how God is working: a week ago, we had about 360 volunteers listed. Today we have more than 4,000 almost all of whom have been trained and will manning the 80 public schools at which the event will take place. This morning we began the massive task of distributing all the pills, educational material, registration material, etc. to the schools and are continuing to coordinate the efforts of all the actors in play.

It is pretty exciting to think that we get to play a critical role in a massive health campaign as well as serving as the catalyst to unite the churches of Cartagena and launch a two-part evangelistic campaign at the same time. The first step of the evangelism is having church volunteers in each one of the 80 schools who as part of their official duties will be distributing 150,000 pieces of Christian literature (one per family) donated to CDA by the Colombian Bible Society. The second step is that we orchestrated the process to ensure that at the end of the event the local churches (not CDA and not the government) will end up with all the registration sheets that have the names, addresses and phone numbers of the 500,000 people (almost half the population of the city) who will pass through the 80 sites on the day of the event. This information will then be used to do personal follow-up by the local churches who are geographically closest to where each person lives.

In the midst of the whirlwind of activity and the stress and the excitement we remain acutely aware of how much we need your prayers. It has been very clear that we are under spiritual attack - Cartagena for centuries has been a gateway for all sorts of evil and suffering into Colombia, and the enemy is not going to leave without a fight. Please specifically pray for the following:

1) that all the volunteers needed show up at their designated school on Saturday
2) that all the materials and pills are distributed correctly and without problems
3) that on Saturday all the volunteers: the doctors, nurses, educators, church volunteers, school personnel etc. will work well together and particularly that there will be no friction between the Christians and the non-Christian volunteers and that each site allows the distribution of the evangelistic literature.
3) for the health and safety of our team as we run all over the city and work bizarre hours.

Thank you so much for your ongoing prayers and support - we need you and appreciate you!

Blessings,
Jim

PS: The blog posting below is a copy of the official press release of the event and a picture from some of the literature we are distributing and that is being used in the TV, and radio mass media advertising campaign.

Press Release

2008-04-23T08:47:00.003-05:00

Cartagena Prepares for Massive Deworming Campaign

For the first time in the history of the city of Cartagena, 500,000 people from low income communities will have the opportunity to receive, completely free, a dose of Albendazole, a deworming drug as part of a long term plan to improve the level of health of the of the inhabitants of the capital of the department of Bolivar.

Saturday April 26, will be the first campaign of six that will be held during the next three years for the benefit of 500,000 residents of Cartagena. With the achievement of this goal, the plan is to expand this deworming campaign to other cities in Colombia. The program is being conducted with the participation of the Consorcio Dios es Amor (CDA Colombia), Operation Blessing International (OBI), the Mayors Office of Cartagena de Indias, DADIS, the District Secretary of Education, Accion Social of the Presidency of Colombia, Familias en Accion Program, the Pedro Romero Emergency Social Plan, Office of International Cooperation and the Evangelical Ministers Association of Bolivar (AMEB).

The program on the 26th will be conducted through 80 district educational facilities that are responsible for more than 150,000 children. These children, together with their nuclear families, will receive the free doses of the medication in addition to a basic community health training course developed by the World Health Organization.

Latest and Greatest

2008-04-01T11:09:00.002-05:00

Well, since I blogged last night, Jessie has gotten violently ill with some nasty stomach bug. Isabella has been sick for the last few days with vomiting and diarrhea and now Jessie has it bad as well. She only slept about an hour or two last night and this morning I walked down the street to a neighborhood drug store to buy IV fluid and tubing and hooked her up to re-hydrate her. She's in the middle of her second bag now and feeling better but still pretty awful.

We are obviously feeling under pressure in light of all the other circumstances and tonight I have to fly to Cartagena for some meetings that I can't miss. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon but pray for supernatural healing between now and 5 pm.

thanks,

Jim

Overdue Update

2008-03-31T18:03:00.002-05:00

Hello Everyone,

After a painfully long silence, here is a brief family/ministry update:

1) Following a stroke about two weeks ago, My grandfather, Clyde Chynoweth passed away on Sunday morning. He was over 90 years old and thankfully knew the Lord. I will be flying to Midland TX for the weekend to attend the funeral and be there for my dad.

2) My mom, Lynn, was diagnosed with breast cancer the same week that my grandpa had his stroke two weeks ago. She started her chemotherapy today and we are praying for her healing and for strength and grace for her and my dad during these tough weeks and months.

3) My job as the Director of Spiritual Wellbeing continues to be a complex one. I am juggling establishing corporate policies regarding spiritual topics, overseeing the development of the School of Practical Ministries (a christian leadership course for lay leaders), planning and coordinating the first CDA student mission trip for later in May, launching a new community outreach plan, transitioning three CDA congregations to the care and leadership of other churches, organizing corporate devotionals and a myriad of other activities. The most challenging part of this role continues to be working with other leaders within the organization.

4) Together with the CDA head of marketing and public relations I am planning and coordinating a de-worming campaign for the city of Cartagena. On April 26th 500,000 people will receive an albendazole pill, a short class on promotion of healthy living and prevention of disease, and some literature including a clear presentation of the gospel. We are coordinating the logistics for the whole event and will be training 1,500 volunteers from the local pastors organization, 1,000 volunteers from the department of health and working together with the Office of the President, Mayor's Office, the Departmental Ministers of Education and Health, the Bible Society and the National Evangelical Colombian Pastors Association. Needless to say this is keeping me very busy. I was in Cartagena for a week a little while ago, I travel there tomorrow for several meetings and I will be traveling back and forth quite a bit more in the coming weeks leading up to the event at the end of April.

5) Last weekend, we moved from our house in Tenjo to an apartment that CDA owns here in Bogota. While we will miss the beautiful views, the convenience of living in the city will be worth it especially since my work responsibilities are keeping me in the office much more than in the past. It will also make it much easier and more convenient for Jessie to get out and about (though a lot more complicated for the dog)

Thank you so much for your prayers - please continue fervently. We really need them as we pass through these challenging family times and in the midst of growing responsibilities and a hectic work schedule.

Blessings,

Jim

New Pictures Are Up!

2008-02-13T15:10:00.002-05:00

Check out our family pictures for the latest and greatest of Bella.

March Against the FARC

2008-02-09T20:46:00.000-05:00

Last Monday, I took part in my first march. Between 10am and about 3 pm millions of Colombians took to the streets marching south right past our office towards the capitol to protest against the leftist guerrilla group the FARC. Colombia has been suffering under decades of armed conflict that have left it with the second highest population of internally displaced people in the world (Sudan is #1) and the sad distinction of having more land mines buried around the countryside than any other country in the world. Monday's march was a demonstration by Colombians that they are tired of the violence, tired of the kidnapping and tired of the FARC destroying their country.

In the days leading up to the march I stenciled about 30 shirts for CDA employees with the words, "No Mas!" (No More!) and on Monday I joined almost all the CDA employees from our main office in praying in a large circle next to the office for about half an hour before we also joined in the swelling throngs of people heading south.

Though I wasn't the only gringo in the crowd (I saw three international journalists and two German woman carrying a big sign) I sure felt like it. I hope and pray that somehow all those millions of people marching for peace will make a difference. If nothing else, it might help prove to the world the Hugo Chavez is wrong and that Colombians are not FARC supporters as he has claimed.

Please pray for Colombia, pray for peace and for freedom from the bonds of violence and suffering and spiritual darkness that have gripped this beautiful country for so long. Pray for President Uribe, for the armed forces, for the judicial system and for the church. Pray that the church can unite, and become a strong voice of hope and change.

For more details, check out this CNN story . I also posted some pictures taken by CDA's media department during the march.

Por Fin (Finally!)

2008-02-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

Well, I am ashamed to admit that it's been three months since I last blogged. The good news is that at least Jessie, Bella and I were able to see many of you during our Christmas trip home (thanks yet again to my parents' frequent flier miles!). To be honest, I have been wanting to blog since we got back to Colombia in January, but we have been in a seemingly constant state of flux since arriving and unsure of what exactly was happening so I kept postponing writing hoping for more certainty.

And I think that finally there is enough stability for me to begin to write about some of the many recent changes. To make a long story short, I have moved from working in CDA's International Communications and Public Relations office to working in CDA 's department of Spiritual Wellbeing. For the last several years, everything spiritually related was under the leadership and management of the Departamento Bienestar Espiritual (department of spiritual wellbeing). The previous director of that department stepped down, which prompted Carlos (Missy's husband who is now the new head of the organization - another big recent change) to ask me to take over the leadership of the Spiritual Wellbeing department. I spent the two days I was given to consider the offer really prayerfully evaluating the position, and talking with Jessie and then decided to accept this new challenge. However, in deciding to work in the department, I clearly communicated that I was not going to simply replace the previous director and continue the work as it had been done. I only accepted this new responsibility with the understanding that I would be working to actively change how spiritual things were managed by the organization.

I drafted a document that although it only took me three days to write it, was the product of a year's worth of observations, conversations and a lot of thinking and praying. In this document I laid out a plan with two primary focuses, the first was the "heart of the matter," in which I stressed the importance of our own personal walks with Christ and the second was "leadership development." A key part of my new job is take the spiritual responsibility and leadership that had been delegated or "outsourced" to the department of spiritual wellbeing and return it to its rightful place on the shoulders of our leaders. My new job is not to be the pastor of CDA or the man responsible for the spiritual health of the organization, but to be a resource, an ally and a help as we reteach CDA's directors the importance of taking spiritual leadership for their position, beginning with the head of the organization and moving on down through the general mangers, the school principals and so on, all the way to the security guards and women in the kitchens.

As I have been transitioning into this new role, I have had the chance to talk with a lot of the key people in the organization and the majority are very excited about the changes and wish they had happened sooner. Some of them are older, more mature Christians with more training than I have and just needed to be given permission to go ahead and do it, and others are younger and excited but full of questions since they've never been in a position of spiritual leadership before. It is going to be a challenging and hopefully rewarding role - a role that is ultimately transitional. During the remainder of our time here, I will be trying to empower leaders, help develop leaders, and figure out what to do with some of the nuts and bolts that remain from the department I inherited.

Please keep Jessie and I fervently in your prayers along with CDA, in particular Carlos our new executive director, as we this new stage of growth. Pray for wisdom, patience, grace, understanding and strength for Jessie (and me). Please also continue to pray for my Spanish; I was comfortable carrying on conversations or participating in meetings, but now I'm having to lead some devotionals and occasionally speak in front of large groups of people and this is extremely humbling and difficult for me still.

Thank you for your patience, and for your continued giving.

Jim

PS: Bella is now walking! She started a few weeks ago and is more and more like a toddler/kid and less like a baby. Pretty amazing!

Some New Pics of Bella

2007-11-01T18:58:00.000-05:00

She recently discovered she had a tongue and so we spent about three or four days with it sticking out and her grabbing it (sorry no shots of that). Check out our pictures link to the right for some more of Bella and some of the girls from here in Tenjo.

Thoughts on Compassion and Community

2007-10-16T12:20:00.000-05:00

I am reading through a book entitled, Compassion that was written by Nouwen, McNeill and Morrison. It is a challenging read and an interesting one – one that I would strongly recommend to all of you. Here are some of my recent thoughts on compassion and community as shaped by my recent reading, praying and talking with some quotes from the book and the Bible.

Philippians 2:2-11

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

All of us as Christians live in this world, though as Jesus says, we are no longer of it. Like Christ, we are each sent into new territory with the call to be a light on a hill, to be shinning stars, to be Christ to those still walking in darkness.

Jesus came to earth as Emmanuel – God With Us – his very name a testimony to his compassionate nature. Likewise, we are called to go be with those who are in need: spiritually, physically and emotionally – not to just send a check to our favorite charity or missionary, or just give our tithe each week, but to actually, like Christ, go and be with those who need Christ’s love – your neighbor, relative, co-worker, the bum on the corner or someone in your congregation. It is a call to action. This is not a call to guiltily give change to the beggar, or feel bad that you have more material wealth than someone else. Compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean "to suffer with." Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish, Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. It is a call to love other people because Christ first loved us.

None of this however, is possible in our own strength, this is not part of our human nature, it is only possible in the long run through a commitment to obedience and the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot go out and love people or be compassionate to people in our own strength, for our own sake or reputations – instead, like Christ, we have to go in obedience. We are not called to be spiritual rock stars enjoying the sparkling Christian limelight, but rather to listen to the Lord and to those we are called to serve. It is only when we are in the tender arms of Jesus, in his will and directed by the Holy Spirit that we can truly live out that divine commandment to love our neighbors as our selves, to minister to the least of these. As we strive to walk in the will of God and live out our obedient calling to be compassionate, we will find that we can accomplish so much more in the supernatural overflowing of God, than we ever could do on our own.

And speaking of not being alone, in as much as we are never alone when we are in Christ, we are also called to live in community. To be compassionate we need each other – our brothers and sisters in the faith. We witness to God’s compassionate presence in the world by the way we live and work together. Furthermore, when there is no community that can mediate between world’s needs and personal responses, the burden of the world can only be a crushing burden, but as our strengths and spiritual gifts come together (and each one of us has been lovingly designed by our creator in a unique way) we will find that we can better meet the needs of the world around us. As individuals we cannot be everything to everyone, but as a community we can indeed serve a great variety of needs. Moreover, by the constant support and encouragement of the community we find it possible to remain faithful to our commitment to service. As we work together in obedience to God, each striving to model the servant hood demonstrated by Christ, we can change lives, bring hope and be used by God to build his kingdom.

I’ll close this entry by asking you to remember Christ’s challenge to his disciples in John 13:34-35 "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." They won’t know us as Christ’s disciples because we are missionaries, or because we go to church, or because we have a Christian T-shirt or bumper sticker, but because we love one another.

Continuing Adventures

2007-10-09T13:34:00.000-05:00

The last two weeks have been really unbelievably busy for me. Jessie and I flew to Cartagena on Monday September 24th for two nights/three days of a vacation (see some pictures of it here). It was a long needed break, a chance to finally do something for our anniversary (that was in June) and a chance for Jessie to finally see the city, since I had been there twice before on business without her. We enjoyed the hot weather, the pool, the sights and sounds of the old colonial city and spending time together without email or phone calls.

On Wednesday night, Jessie and Isabella left and about 10 minutes later I met two Dutch journalists at the airport. Henk and Evert flew in for a two week trip to Colombia representing the Reformed Daily Newspaper, Evert as a journalist, and Henk as a photojournalist. During the next two weeks, during which Jess and Bella traveled to the US for a wedding, I had the chance to tour CDA projects, and translate interviews for these two gentlemen all around Colombia.

They are writing a series of news articles on Colombia covering the armed conflict, the drug trade, poverty, indigenous rights, the evangelical church and the relationship between the church and the state. There will be a series of 33 pieces published in Holland between November and February and part of this series will be focused on CDA’s work within this national context and will be a valuable fund raising opportunity for us in Holland. The Reformed Daily did a similar series of articles years ago and raised a great deal of funding for us. My job was translating, coordinating transportation, hotels, meals, and serving as a tour guide both for Colombia and for CDA.

We visited Cartagena, Bogotá and then in the South of the country, we visited Santander de Quilichao, Popayan, and Corinto. Though I have a extensive knowledge of CDA's work in Colombia, this trip gave me the unique opportunity to visit a number of nationally regarded leaders and experts. We visited El Tiempo - the largest most important newspaper in Colombia for an interview with the chief editor for Public Order and Armed Conflict and a tour of their presses, we had the chance to speak with the President of the Evangelical Counsel of Colombia (CEDECOL) that represents the majority of the protestant churches here in the country, we met with the director of a Mennonite NGO dedicated to Justice, Peace and Non-Violence, as well as the director of a well known, frequently published independent research counsel that covers the conflict here in Colombia. We also paid a visit to the manager of a manufacturing group that produces various foods, and beverages all made from the coca plant and finally spent time with the Association of Indigenous People of North Cauca. Click here to see a few pictures of the trip (I was so busy talking and translating that I didn't take very many).

Our time in the South in the Department of Cauca was one of the more fascinating and dangerous portions of the trip. The whole time was a non-stop sequence of doing all the things the US embassy says you're not supposed to do:

Go to Cauca
Travel from Cali further south late at night (we did it in a little SUV with 4 big guys crammed in the back seat, 2 in the passenger seat, plus the driver)
Sleep in a cheap hotel in Santander de Quilichao (pronounced kilichow)
Walk around Santander de Quilichao at 11 at night
Visit one of the five maximum security prisons in Colombia - the one in Popayan and then go inside and hang out with inmates who are all serving 40 - 60 year sentences (most for murder and involvement with the guerrillas)
Travel around the Cauca region in a bus (just his driving was very dangerous let alone where we were, in the midst of a very "complicated" part of Colombia as they say here :)
Visit a suspicious indigenous community school off of a dirt road past the last military checkpoint in an area where all the towns are famous for the massacres that took place there over the years
Spend the morning with an indigenous group that is very leftist/communistic in its ideology and who hates the government and army (seriously, some of them probably are in or were in the guerrillas)
Stop on the side of the unpaved road to climb over a barbed wire fence to walk through tall grass that could have been mined to get into a coca field
Walk around taking pictures of the coca plants in someone's field without asking permission

Praise the Lord we all made it home safe! Lest is sound like we deliberately took unnecessary risks, there was a lot of prayer, we did have armed security with us and the indigenous community placed us under their protection (for whatever that's worth). We also were traveling as members of the press, which does offer at least a little bit of protection, and after all is said and done, hopefully Henk and Evert will be able to put together a great set of articles that will raise a lot money for CDA.

One result of all this traveling and all these interviews was a really incredible and unique opportunity to meet and speak with national experts representing multiple view points and political and religious perspectives. It was like getting years worth of education and information on Colombia in a matter of weeks. Very very interesting. For those of you who are interested, the post below is a list of some of my personal conclusions regarding the current political/security/religious situation in Colombia.

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers.

Analysis of Colombia

2007-10-09T12:14:00.000-05:00

Great progress has been made in making the country safer though serious problems still exist particularly on the peripheries of the nation (think mountains, forests, and border regions).
The production of cocaine will continue to be the most dangerous and destabilizing force in Colombia since it provides the power and financing to all the actors in the armed conflict (paramilitaries, guerrillas, narco-traffickers). Though there is somewhat of a ideological motivation, particularly on the part of the FARC and ELN guerrillas, the majority of the illegal armed groups are mostly just a collection of drug gangs and criminals at this point (though they are well financed and well equipped).
No tangible progress has been made on combating the drug problem and a change in strategy from fumigation to interdiction must be made. Despite the fumigation of fields – a strategy pushed by the US, cocaine production is higher than ever. If the final product can be contained and prevented from leaving the zones of production and the country, there will be a surplus and the price will drop. Only when the price drops will it make sense for an impoverished peasant to switch to an alternative crop. There is no way someone will grow a field of corn worth $1,000 if he can make $20,000 growing Coca. With the loss of income, the guerrillas will also loss power and their ability to threaten the peace and stability of the country.
The indigenous peoples and the peasants in the countryside are caught in the midst of the conflict and subject to violence and abuse from all sides. The problem is compounded by the long history of the use of coca in Colombian society dating back centuries into the pre-hispanic period, which has in some cases switched from traditional use to illegal production.
The presidency of Uribe has been a very good period of progress and improved stability for the country, however, because such a large portion of the country views him as the "savior" of Colombia, the possibility exists for the future abuse of power. He is almost a king here in terms of popular opinion (enjoying between 70 and 75% popularity), and this could weaken the institutions of government and the constitutional balance of power over time.
The US should strengthen its commitment to Colombia despite the para-political scandal – the fact that the scandal is part of an ongoing publicized investigation is proof that the independent press and judicial system are strong and functioning. The US should push for a change of strategy as part of the Plan Colombia (switching from fumigation to interdiction) since the Colombian government seems reluctant to admit that the current anti-drug strategy has not helped (this is made more complicated by US political and lobbying forces that want to see the fumigation continue).
The Evangelical Christian Community is growing, however, without a strong system of training and theological study, the risk remains that the church will continue to be more devoted to feelings and emotions (the spirit part) and less to rigorous biblical study and history of the church (a commitment to truth). Both are important (John 4:23) but there are signs of an unhealthy lack of balance.
The long-standing conflict between the evangelical community and the Catholic church remains though it is less obvious and more subtle now, and with the explosive growth of independent churches in the country, there is a great need for unity and cooperation within the body of Christ.
A great divide exists between those who have, and those who do not. Poverty, hunger and disease are evident throughout the country as well as deep spiritual paucity. The family structure, and in particular the role of men, are in jeopardy and in need of healing and divine intervention.
There is a lot of work for us as Christians left to do here in the country as we work to share the love of God through both the Word and deeds.

Disaster Relief

2007-09-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

Well Praise the Lord, I'm back safe and sound from Peru. The trip was absolutely incredible and though I'm still pretty exhausted and sick (I lost my voice as part of a nasty infection last Wednesday) it was a wonderful experience.

One of the more interesting damaged buildings.

I arrived in Lima on Friday night, and spent Saturday and Sunday with Carlos preparing everything and researching what we needed to do for the following week. The rest of our team showed up Sunday night and early Monday morning we loaded up our mountain of supplies and medicine and drove south to Pisco. The eastern portion of Peru between Lima and Pisco is absolutely barren desert that drops into the rugged Pacific ocean under a perpetual haze of fog and dust. Driving into Pisco was like driving into Baghdad everything was so destroyed and similar: dusty desperate people begging on the side of the road, ruined homes and buildings covered in a fine brown layer of dust and trash blowing along in the strong cold wind.

We worked at three sites where in cooperation with Operation Blessing and Camino de Vida, a large church in Lima, refugee camps are being built to care for the families in those areas. The neighborhood where the first camp was located is ironically called Vista Alegre or Happy View. There we were working in cooperation with a local pastor and church and the camp will house 40 affected families. The two other camps are much bigger and in a neighborhood called Leticia and are home to 440 families. Overall our target population was somewhere around 1,500 people.

Each day we held our medical camps attending the most critical needs first, providing medicine and high quality consultations. Additionally we distributed packages of personal hygiene items and pillows to each of the families in these three camps. A key part of our work was coordinating with the local community leaders to provide the organization and security needed for the effective functioning of the camps. We also were able to provide valuable input into the construction plans regarding public health concerns.

I'm not a doctor and so I spent my days running around organizing various groups of volunteers (we had short term teams from California, Baton Rouge and daily buses of church volunteers from Lima). Though CDA was just one of all these groups working on the site, because Carlos and I could translate, because we had vehicles and because we were the first to begin working at the sites, it was a neat opportunity to coordinate a lot of the efforts. Driving 4 Wheel Drive trucks through the rubble and desert was also a lot of fun. Transporting all the equipment and personnel from camp to camp, and our team from our hotel in Chincha (about 45 minutes north of Pisco) and getting food and drinks for us was also part of my job. All in all, it was absolutely incredible, the work was tough and dirty, the hours long, the people were beautiful, helpful and grateful, our CDA team functioned like a well oiled machine (well-oiled by jokes and pranks : ) and it was incredibly rewarding.

Thank you so much for your prayers! We were all safe, we were able to help more people than planned, valuable relationships (both personal and work related) were formed and we were able to demonstrate the love of God in both word and deed.

I have a bunch more photos from the trip on our family photo website. Check them out at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jimchynoweth/PiscoPeru

Pisco, Peru

2007-08-23T09:43:00.000-05:00

Well there is certainly never a dull moment for us Chynoweth's living here in Colombia...

On August 15 a two-minute long earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck just off the coast of Peru and was followed by numerous powerful aftershocks. The towns of Pisco, Ica, Chincha and Canete were all severely damaged. The official UN situation report today lists 503 certified deaths, and 1,042 injured. 35,568 homes and 4 hospitals have been destroyed along with 16 other hospital affected by the earthquake. The Peruvian government in cooperation with other governments from around the world and the international relief community have stepped in to begin providing relief.

Tomorrow afternoon (Friday) I fly to Lima, Peru's Capital City, with Carlos, Missy's husband, where will be met by the head of Operation Blessing, Peru. We will rent a Land Cruiser and drive south to Pisco (reports indicate that what used to be a 2 hour drive has stretched into a 5+ hour drive due to road damage, destroyed bridges, and very bad traffic). Carlos and I will be the initial survey team for a CDA team of Doctors that will be arriving a few days later, and a plane of relief supplies. We will be coordinating the logistics of transportation, lodging, security, communications, and developing a plan of action in coordination with the other rescue and relief efforts that are underway. Through the generous funding of Woord en Daad Holland, we are also purchasing a large quantity of tents and relief supplies that will be flown directly from China to Lima, so in 4 days, we will return to Lima to coordinate the pickup of the aid, the transportation and its storage/distribution.

The team of doctors and psychologists will arrive early next week with mobile medical equipment to begin treating patients and assessing needs. Peru is in the winter months right now (being far south of the equator) and the nights are very cold. The low temperatures, combined with lack of blankets, shelter, bathrooms, clean drinking water and medicine on top of the injuries sustained in the quake, are creating critical health care needs. The catastrophic losses have also created a great need for psychological grief/trauma counseling. They will also be providing valuable training to the Operation Blessing staff on the use of the equipment and it will be donated to them upon our departure for continued use as the emergency relief work transitions into longer term stabilization and reconstruction work.

Please pray for all the residents who are suffering, for our safety (from aftershocks, looting, riots, and the 500 prisoners who escaped from a damaged prison), for wisdom as we make decisions and try to maximize the effectiveness of the help we are providing, for compassion as we interact with people on an individual basis, and for team work and a spirit of cooperation (both within our CDA team, and with the other groups operating in the area). Additionally, please pray for Jessie (who would have loved to come along but can't) while she holds down the fort and cares for Isabella.

I won't have internet while I'm there, so updates/pictures will have to wait till I get back. I am getting international service on my cell phone so I can stay in touch with Jessie and the CDA headquarters in cases of emergency.

Thanks for your prayers!
Jim

Helpless

2007-08-22T18:13:00.000-05:00

Julieth is a sweet, quiet girl here at the home. Tonight as I was finally heading inside to see Jessie, she stopped me by our gate and with the encouragement of some friends told me one of the saddest stories I've ever heard. Her father was a drug addict and abandoned her mother and moved in with another woman. Finally, earlier this year (some of the details were unclear due to my still improving Spanish) her mother and grandfather stabbed him and slit his throat killing him.

She finished her story and then sadly looked up and me and asked me for advice. What do you say? where do you even begin?

New Pictures Are Up!

2007-08-10T21:45:00.000-05:00

Thank you for your patience. Our internet has been out again and my parents visited us both resulting in blogging delays. Click on the "Chynoweth Family Pictures" link to the right to see more.

A Conflict of Cultures

2007-08-10T21:40:00.000-05:00

By Jessie.

First, here is just a wee bit of history to help put the following blog entry in context.

Jim and I were both raised in strong Christian homes with what most people would describe as loving but strict parents. Our families placed an emphasis on rules and guidelines to help us understand the importance of authority - not only in regards to our parents but also to any other adult figure involved in our lives. Then to top it off, Jim spent six and a half years in the Marine Corps where the concept of obedience and authority are taken to a new level. As a result of our parents and respective backgrounds, Jim and I both place a high value on obedience and authority.

However, God in his sovereignty (and sense of humor) has called us to live not only in a culture that doesn’t place the same level of value on these things, but at home for 60 girls who as a result of their difficult backgrounds seem to have an even lower regard for authority and obedience. As the nurse here at the Girls’ Home, I am constantly bumping into these cultural differences. Whether it’s a child that doesn’t feel like taking her dose of antibiotics or a girl that has decided that she would rather play outside than attend her class, you can imagine the complications that arise in my day-to-day tasks. Through the last several months of frustration, questions, observation, moments of realization and insights, Jim and I finally realized that it wasn’t just a simple case of misbehavior, but that there are some very real differences in how Colombian culture views these issues and how we are used to thinking about them.

In the midst of this, like in some many other things, please pray for us as we struggle to discern how and when to address issues with the girls and with the staff. Please continue to pray that we will have the wisdom to know what are cultural differences and what are heart issues, and pray that God will give us the grace to adapt, and be sensitive to other people while continuing to share the love of Jesus that changes lives.

The three gringos.

2007-08-10T21:30:00.000-05:00

Here is a copy of our most recent newsletter. Click on it for a larger version

Pictures

2007-07-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

We've got some more baby pictures as well as the shots from our 4th tea up. Check out the link to the right.

Nuestro Locura

2007-07-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

My chosen title for this blog entry translates as, "Our Madness," which really is a good title for the last several weeks.

During the last week of June, a group of 6 arrived from Holland to represent Woord & Daad - CDA's largest donor, for a week long conference with their partner organizations from Latin/South America. In addition to CDA, there were also two organizations from Nicaragua and a group from Guatemala who also came to participate in the Partner's Conference. Thankfully, the Dutch spoke English (since I don't speak a word of Dutch), but they didn't speak Spanish. Of the partner organizations who attended there were two or three of the 20 something Spanish-speaking participants who spoke English, but for the most part, the Dutch donors could not directly communicate with any of the Spanish participants. As you can imagine, at an annual strategic planning and evaluation conference, this created quite a problem.

The solution was simultaneous translation. For those of you unfamiliar with this, I'll share a bit about how it works. Everyone (those few who were bilingual aside) wears a headset, and whoever is talking uses a microphone. In the back of the room, is a little wooden cabin with windows and just enough space inside for two chairs and a tiny tiny desk sort of thing - we called it the box. Two people sit in this tiny box wearing special headsets with boom microphones and hope that their companion brushed their teeth that morning. One is responsible for translating English to Spanish, and the other for translating Spanish to English.

In normal translation, one person says a sentence or complete idea and then waits for the translator to repeat what he or she has said. in simultaneous translation, the speaker just talks normally, and the translator, sitting in the box, tries to frantically communicate the same thoughts at nearly the same time to all those listening with the headphones. And the two people in the box switch back and forth depending on who is talking. You can imagine that group discussions and question/answer sessions are particularly "exciting."

Well, my role was to be one of the Spanish to English translators - there were two of us and we switched days. On the first day, after six straight hours in the box, interrupted only by coffee breaks and lunch, I thought I was going to die. Me and the other translator - Pastor Luis who was doing English to Spanish, both looked like victims of a police beating, slouched in our chairs, barely able to think let alone talk. After that first day we tried to limit the numbers of hours to about 4 a day. We later found out that at the UN they swap out every 30 minutes to prevent exhaustion. Oh well. Now we know. Oh, and tucked into that week were also our 3rd Anniversary and my 27th birthday.

So that was the first week. The second week of madness was a little easier in that the conference was over, and thankfully so was the simultaneous translation, although normal translation continued at a brisk pace. I escorted the Dutch team to all of the CDA's projects as they conducted their annual inspection and review of our projects translating both into and out of Spanish - but at least in this kind of translation I could stop to clarify if I didn't understand a word, or ask someone to repeat an idea that was unclear. After touring Bogota for two long days, early Wednesday morning of last week we flew to Cartagena on the coast for a marathon 18 hour day of visiting all the projects there, before flying back to Bogota that night in a dazed state of exhaustion once again.

Thankfully, Thursday and Friday of last week were "free" days in that I didn't have to come into the office, which gave me time to write my talk that I needed to give on Saturday. About two months ago, I agreed to be a guest speaker at a Christian youth conference that was held this last Saturday at a local church. The theme was on Dating and so with the use of a translator (I didn't have time to prepare my talk in Spanish) I spoke to an audience of 300 something on a Biblical perspective on dating and some of my own personal experiences, weaving the story of Jessie's and my relationship in and out of the talk, including some of the things we did right and some that we didn't. Obviously, I was pretty nervous, and still exhausted and stressed, but God was faithful, and the talk went well. I just learned that the conference organizers have been getting a lot of good feedback, so I was pleased that despite my weakness, my fears, and my sense of ill-preparedness, God was able to impact lives.

Well, if you made managed to read this far, I'm impressed. I hope this gives you a little insight into our life here in Colombia. Thankfully, it is not always this crazy. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers - we need them.

Oh, and Jessie is dealing with a growing number of girls who have Chicken Pox at the Girl's Home. I'll write more later.

Jim

Tea and new pictures

2007-06-23T10:57:00.000-05:00

Click on the link to the right to view the latest Isabella pictures, some recent gardening pictures, and scenes from our most recent Thursday tea.

To explain the tea a bit more, every Thursday afternoon, Jessie and I invite (by randomly drawing names) 4 girls over for "tea" at the Chynoweth's house. The girls are always fascinated by us and our house and normally aren't allowed over (since they kept coming to the windows, in particular our bedroom window at all hours of the day and night), so this provides them the chance to come over and hang out. It is particularly fun, because with a small group of guests, the girls all have a chance to play with the baby and normally only the few oldest girls are allowed to hold her. Most importantly, Jessie and I get the chance to know them on a more individual basis. And that is one of the greatest needs here, individual attention. Because of the relatively low staff to student ration, the girls tend to be viewed and treated as a group almost all of the time. So any chance we have to interact on a one-on-one basis, give them individual attention, and make them feel special and unique is a very special opportunity.

With all that in mind, we pick the girls' names on Sunday and they spend the whole week looking forward to Thursday when they finally come over. We try and do something different with each group to keep them on their toes and guessing about what they will get to do. We have taken pictures and made cards, baked various things, made tea, chai, hot chocolate, apple cider, and played various games. We have a bunch of good ideas, but not enough for all 12 weeks, so if you can think of cool activities that we could do, please feel free to email us with them. As you can imagine, as soon as they leave they are promptly interrogated by their peers who are itching with excitement and curiosity to know what they got to do or eat or make.

An Isabella Update

2007-06-12T12:34:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to take a quick moment to post an update on how Isabella is doing. Every day it seems that she grows more and it is incredible to see the difference even a week can make. A week ago, she couldn't sit by herself, and now we can leave her sitting on the floor playing with toys all by her lonesome. She has also figured out mirrors and cracks a huge grin every time we put her in front of one (or she sees the microwave door).

We also don't have to worry about her being too shy, she has gotten incredibly vocal, cooing, blowing bubbles, grunting, yelling, squealing, chuckling and laughing, and even screaming in frustration or impatience. She also is figuring out cause and effect as particularly demonstrated in her relationship with the dog. Isabella loves Ransom and is immensely fascinated by him, and now whenever he approaches her, with a grin on her face, she closes her eyes and turns her head in anticipation of dog kisses.

I'm here at the office and don't have any pictures of her with me, but soon I'll put up some more.

June 5 blog update

2007-06-05T17:12:00.001-05:00

There have continued to be several more medical issues, the most recent of which is little Vanessa who broke her arm yesterday evening following a fall off the merry-go-round, Juliet who has a kidney infection, and Maria who has such a bad case of lice that her head is covered in giant sores and without any searching, you can see them crawling all over her head. It is hard to imagine what they did here before Jessie arrived since she is kept so busy monitoring patients, putting ice packs on bumps and bruises and dishing out medical advice. We have also been indebted to my buddy Max Moore who hooked me up with a first class combat first aid kit before I got out of the Marine Corps. We have used everything from my IV fluids, to ace bandages, alcohol swabs, medicines and now even little Vanessa is proudly walking around with her tiny arm in my olive drab cravat tied up as a sling.

My work at the office may not be as exciting as patching up little girls and dispensing kisses to boo-boos, but it is just as needed here. Right now in addition to my normal translating and editing work, I am in the middle of implementing a whole new system of tracking all the current reporting needs, potential/future reporting needs, and reorganizing all the digital and physical files to enable us to adequately provide the needed information to the organization’s donors when they need it. It is neat to see how God is using my experience I gained in the international reporting office at Campus Crusade for Christ to help CDA grow in this area.

On a more personal level, Jessie and I are doing well in our marriage, we are beginning to have to deal with Isabella’s will and temper (yes, I know the grandparents won’t believe us but it’s true), and we are struggling to figure out how we can effectively reprimand/encourage/point kids to Jesus with only our basic Spanish skills. Please continue to pray for us as a couple, a family and as part of the CDA team.

I also just finished reading a great book our good friend Tim Doozan sent us, “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper about living our lives with eternity and Christ in mind. I whole-heartedly recommend it to all of you, but I’ll save my thoughts on it for another day.

Update

2007-06-05T17:06:00.000-05:00

The last several weeks have been eventful. We spent the first week housebound because of car trouble, and then following a weekend visit to the Colombian countryside with some friends to visit some in-laws, we returned home and spent last week swapping the flu, fever, vomiting and diarrhea back and forth among the three of us. Thank God we are all feeling better this week although some of us are still not quite back to normal.

Jessie has been super busy here at Tenjo: the week of our car-trouble, she had her hands full dealing with 16 of the girls that were sick with some nasty virus that was circulating, which included two trips to the hospital. Finally today she was able to start moving the medical supplies and equipment into the clinic, which is almost ready. That will be a huge milestone both for the Girls’ Home and for Jessie since it will mean a new level in the organization, standardization and quality of the medical care and supervision that the girls will receive. Till now, even controlling the access to bottles of aspirin or syringes has been difficult because of the lack of dedicated facilities. Please pray for Jessie as she works to put together a clinic and a system that has never existed here before. While exciting, this obviously brings with it growing pains and the inevitable friction of being both a new staff member and initiating new procedures.

I have been busy catching up at the office after being gone for the better part of two weeks and also finally getting into the swing of things in the reporting/communications department. Tomorrow I have a important meeting to clarify and define my role at the office and to address a number of changes that will be taking place. As always, there are various requests for information, reports, interviews and multi-media presentations from various organizations and governments in The Netherlands and North America. I am also coordinating the visits of some other international visitors including a gathering of major donors later in June.

We obviously are in great need of your prayers as we continue our process of adjusting to the culture, learning the language and trying to form relationships. Thank you for all your prayers for our language skills; we are seeing improvement every day and with every gain, the opportunities to share, to minister and to build relationships increases.

We also have a special prayer request for two of the girls here at the Home. Karen and Paola are sisters and over this last weekend, their father was murdered in his home in Bogotá. Their situation was already difficult and complicated, but now even what little concept of family they had has been taken from them. Please pray for God’s grace and peace and comfort to pour out on them, and also pray that CDA will be able to contact the girls’ mother (who left them a long time ago) and figure out a way to keep them here at the Home (because this is not an orphanage, without the involvement and permission of at least one parent, the girls cannot legally stay here).

PS: you’ll have to forgive me, but without regular access to the internet, I’ve had to wait till today to upload all these various posts that I’ve written. If you’d like, you can read just one a day and keep coming back to make it last a little longer.

PSS: or is it PPS? Anyway, there are also some more pictures up if you visit the “Chynoweth Family Pictures” link on the right.

An Overdue Update

2007-05-02T09:34:00.000-05:00

Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote. Sorry for the long silence but April was pretty crazy. We moved out of our apartment, put our things in storage and two days later left for a 13 day tour of the South East US where we went on a whirl-wind tour of Atlanta, Chattanooga, Gainsville GA, Jacksonville, and Orlando spending no more than two nights in a row in the same place. Some of the highlights were introducing Isabella to the some of the family, seeing a few friends, and Isabella being dedicated by Pastor Wes (who married Jessie and I) at Switzerland Community Church. I'm coming to grips with the fact that now in the presence of my celebrity daughter, I am more and more like that guy that dies in the opening scene of the movie that no one remembers anymore.

We returned safely to Bogota and two days after our arrival moved into our new little house in Tenjo. It is very cute and will be a great place for Isabella to continue growing and for Jessie to finally accelerate her language learning. With the arrival of some new girls at the Home this week and next week, there will be 50 girls plus all the staff for Jessie to interact with. It's amazing to see how much she has already learned in the week we've been out there. The distance makes my commute a little longer; it now takes me between an hour and an hour and a half to drive into the office, but I won't have to make the commute every day which will help. Ransom also loves being out there since he loves kids and dogs and there are 50 kids and 5 dogs for him to play with. Hopefully he'll lose a little weight now that he's not cooped up in the apartment any more.

We are still waiting on some shelving and cabinets to be installed, so there is quite a bit of stuff in boxes and bags still and the living room still doesn't really have any furniture yet, so it's not quite home yet, but it is getting there. We are also missing the gate to the little wall that surrounds the house, which we are looking forward to since it will help keep the myriad of inquisitive eyes from staring through the windows and tracking our every move.

With the move to Tenjo, has come our latest challenge. Jessie and I have lived in Colombia for more than five months now, but in many respects we are starting all over again. We now face the challenges and blessings of figuring out boundries and routines, learning names, making relationships, discovering how we can best serve and help, and in general entering a new less-lonely but more challenging stage of our time here with CDA.

We don't have internet out at the Home yet, so communications and the sharing of pictures will be a little slower in coming than usual, but Lord willing, we will be back to normal in two weeks.

Andrea's Story

2007-03-26T09:00:00.001-05:00

Andrea is two-years-old, with a beautiful tear-stained face and suspicious acid burns on her feet. When we arrived at her house after crossing a creek of raw sewage and clambering down a dirt embankment to the despairing shack, we found their cross-dressing homosexual landlord at home with the kids bathing Andrea's one-year-old brother (who due to malnutrition was the same size as my three-month-old daughter). None of the children had shoes, and we learned that many days they only ate what their poor neighbors could afford to give them.

Their mother, who suffers from chronic vomiting and diarrhea that usually prevents her from working, was out in town looking for a way to earn some money. Their rent was due the next day and she couldn’t afford to be thrown back out into the street again. The last time that happened, out of options and money, she was forced to move into their current situation.

Here in the southern slum of Cazuca, there aren’t policemen or soldiers on every corner like there are in the rest of Bogotá. In fact, most of this slum isn’t even built on legally owned property, it has been settled over the years by squatters and displaced people fleeing the violence from the countryside. The paramilitaries are the law, making and enforcing their regulations at gunpoint. They think of it as tough love – really tough love.

Appalled by the horrendous living conditions of the children and particularly the unwholesome presence of the landlord, the local branch of the armed paramilitary group that controls their neighborhood finally sent the mother an ultimatum: “Unless you immediately find a way to improve the lives of your children, we are going to kill your whole family. Your kids would be better off dead than living like they are now.”

Thankfully, the oldest boy, a young kid about seven-years-old, attends the local CDA school and through this link with the organization, the CDA social worker and chaplains have been able to intervene. On the day we visited, Andrea, with her mother’s consent, was picked up and taken to the Girl’s Home in Tenjo where she has begun to receive the love, food, health care and protection that she needs.

Through some money donated by the short-term mission team from the US that was with us that day, the mother and the two sons have been moved to a new house closer to the CDA school where they will be safer and CDA will be able to better help them as they strive to rebuild their lives.

Stories like this are unfortunately all to common in the slums surrounding Bogota. And this is the story of just one of the many girls at the Home in Tenjo where Jessie and I will be working. Please continue to pray for each of the girls that God has delivered in to CDA's care at Tenjo. They have been neglected, abused and unloved and all of them are desperately in need of Christ's restoring grace. Pray for both the girls and their parents that they will be healed, that they will be able to ask for and give forgiveness and that they will turn to the Lord to restore their lives and families.

Isabella Modeling

2007-03-04T14:53:00.000-05:00

Here's two recent pictures of Isabella modeling.

Here she is all dressed up to go for a walk with mom

And here she's showing off the cool stencil t-shirt that dad made for her.

Thoughts on Children and the US Embassy

2007-03-02T11:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, Jessie, Isabella and I paid our first visit to the US Embassy here in Bogotá, Colombia to apply for Bella’s US Passport, Social Security Number, and her Report of American Citizen Born Abroad. The Embassy is built like a fort, sprawling over several acres with multiple fences and walls. After passing through two security checkpoints and receiving big “restricted access” nametags, coughing up our cell phones and our US drivers licenses, we finally found our selves walking across a deserted courtyard with a huge Seal of the United States and the Words “American Embassy” engraved on a massive stone wall as we approached equally massive metal doors whose attractive weathered copper appearance couldn’t belie their immense weight and obvious utility. Passing through the darkened doorway, we cleared yet another security check point, this time under the watchful and serious eyes of a young Marine behind several inches of thick bomb-proof glass.

The whole process of entering the building is clearly designed to impress you with the size, expense, and impenetrability of this small patch of US soil. After waiting in line and filing out even more pages of forms (I had come bearing about 7 pages previously filled out) and paying $142, Isabella was successfully registered, and just like that, gained access to one of the richest and most exclusive groups in the world – America. All that now remains is for us to come back in a week to pick up her documents. The whole experience was a far cry from the free, hour-long process that was required to register Isabella as a Colombian citizen.

While at one level the process was an interesting study in geopolitics and the display of physical power, it also clearly revealed something in my own heart as well. Throughout the whole process, I got more and more irritated as I was forced to comply with all the regulations and security checks. The whole time I kept thinking, “This is ridiculous, I’m an American! I deserve better! What do they think I am, some sort of criminal? Even more than that, I was in the Marines! I was in charge of security of a base bigger than this! I’ve got more experience than that young kid behind the glass! …” and so on, you get the idea.

That sad truth is that I like to feel important, I want to feel like I'm on the “inside” not stuck on the far side of power, or influence or control. I want to be recognized and accepted based on my merits and actions and experience and knowledge. I want it to be about me!

What a bunch of crock.

It was embarrassing to see this attitude of my heart come welling up polluted with self, and pride and insecurities (Jessie is great at calling me out when I need it - that's part of why God gave her to me). I’ve been reading through Abba’s Child by Brenning Manning and the central thesis of his book is how important it is to rest firmly in our identity as God’s Children and to rest not on our merits but on what Christ has done for us. My prayer is, and I hope that you’ll join me in it, is that I will continue the slow, often painful process of dying to self and living for, in and by our daddy, Jesus.

I want to close with a great quote from Frederick Buechner on what it means to live as Children of God:

“We are children, perhaps, at the very moment when we know that it is as children that God loves us – not because we try and not because we recognize the futility of our trying; but simply because he has chosen to love us. We are children because he is our father; and all our efforts, fruitful and fruitless, to do good, to speak truth, to understand, are the efforts of children who, for all their precocity, are children still in that before we loved him, he loved us, as children, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

More Pictures!

2007-02-24T11:52:00.000-05:00

From Grandma & Gra...

There are some more pictures of my parents and Isabella up if you visit our picture page (the link is on the right)

A Guest Blogger

2007-02-23T08:54:00.000-05:00

Hello readers, I'm deviating from the norm here today and instead of me writing about our life here in Colombia, I'm going to let Mitch and Jennie Drake (Jessie's parents) do it. After taking some time to process their experiences following their visit in early January, here are some of their thoughts:

Our visit to Bogota, Colombia

Bogota, Colombia? Why? I must say that before God called Jim & Jessie to Bogota, I had no knowledge of, or interest in that city or its people. I must also confess that the sole purpose of our visit was to meet our first baby granddaughter, Isabella Marie Chynoweth. Oh, but God had so much more in store. He wanted to show us a ministry, the likes of which we have never seen, and He intended to grip our hearts in two specific ways. The first was no surprise, but the second was.

Jim, Jessie, Isabella, Missy (the president of CDA) and her husband Carlos met us at the Bogota airport Monday night January 1, 2007. What a relief it was to see them after having struggled through customs without being able to speak Spanish or find anyone who could speak English. We were getting our first glimpse of what Jim & Jessie had been called to, and I was still asking why?

Well, the first order of business for Jim & Jessie, (after our hugs), was to see Ransom, their canine family member, and to make sure that he had survived the trip. We had put him in his cage in Jacksonville about 6:00 am that morning and it was now about 10:00 pm. Since they hadn’t seen each other for about two months, it was quite a reunion. The first order of business for Jennie and I, was to get Isabella in our arms and meet our first granddaughter. As soon as that was accomplished, we could actually feel this precious little girl gripping our hearts, (that was no surprise), and we so looked forward to the next two weeks. They were to be filled with countless hours of holding, rocking, cooing, making funny faces / noises and taking lots of pictures, (206 to be exact). All this would be mixed in with seeing the country, being introduced to the ministry of CDA, and the people behind it, and meeting some of the families / children that were the very reason for this ministry.

Within minutes of leaving the airport on our way to Jim and Jessie’s apartment, I knew that something was wrong… These people don’t know how to drive. I was holding on for dear life. I couldn’t understand it. The lanes seemed to be clearly marked, but nobody paid any attention to them. There could be three lanes occupied by four cars and a motorcycle. Everybody was zipping in and out with people making left turns from right lanes and right turns from left lanes. It was like this everywhere we went. The driving, as well as the military carrying machine guns in the streets, were two of the hardest things to get used to.

After doing some sightseeing we got a chance to visit the CDA office and meet some of the staff. Even though there was a huge language barrier, we sensed a kindred spirit with everyone we met. At dinner with Missy and Carlos, we got to hear the testimony of how her father started the ministry nearly forty years earlier and how he passed it on to her from his deathbed when she was twenty-three. It was becoming more and more obvious that God was at the heart and soul of this ministry.

Well, we still can’t get over the way that God is giving Jim the language. What a miracle. They had been there less than 2 months and he was not only having conversations in Spanish, but in many situations he had to interpret in both directions.

Little by little the ministry unfolded before our eyes. We were able to visit two of the five schools that they own and operate. We learned how the poorest of the poor were given opportunities to come to these schools and how their needs were met. First physically and then spiritually. They were clothed, fed and given medical care. As part of their curriculum, they are also taught about Jesus, how to receive Him and how to apply biblical principles to their lives. We visited two of their clinics where healthcare was being made available, (for a nominal fee), for those that would otherwise not have it. We also learned about their vocational schools, their scholarships for higher education and their micro loans to help people getting started in business.

But perhaps the dimension of the ministry that touched our hearts the most was the girl’s home in Tenjo where Jim & Jessie will be living. This is a place for girls ranging from three to fifteen years of age with tragic home lives. Some were so malnourished that they were developmentally two years behind others their own age. Others were being abused by their father, older brother or someone else in the home. Still another has a mother involved with prostitution and pornography. The girls’ home is hidden in the countryside on several acres of land with lots of farm animals. Currently there are over fifty girls staying at the home where they receive meals, clothing, medical attention, boarding and a good education. They too are taught about the love of Jesus. One of the goals for these girls is that wherever possible, they would be reunited with their families. For this to be a reality, CDA must also work with the families and discern the appropriate time for the reunion. While we were there, we had the opportunity to make several home visits and see where the girls came from. While some living conditions were worse than others, each one broke your heart. Some had no running water and one bed for six to eight people to sleep in. But each one expressed an overwhelming gratitude for how God was using CDA to minister to their needs. What a powerful example of the body of Christ in action.

The second gripping was taking place. In two short weeks God had cultivated a love in our hearts for the ministry of CDA, the people involved, and the recipients of the ministry, (the precious children and families of Colombia who were in need of the love of Christ). This was truly a surprise.

What a blessing it was for us to see first hand what God is doing through the ministry of CDA and how He has prepared and called Jim & Jessie to be a part of it.

Thank you Jim & Jessie for seeking Him with your whole heart and being willing to step out in faith and follow His leading. Thank you also to each of you who are supporting them and making this possible. Only heaven will reveal the impact of your investments.

Bogota Colombia? Yes! And now I know why.

With all of our love, blessings and gratitude,

Mitch & Jennie Drake

Quick Prayer Requests

2007-02-19T23:34:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone,

There are a couple of things going on right now that I wanted to ask you to come along side us in prayer about.

1) Isabella has thrush
2) Isabella has acid reflux
3) Isabella's first tooth (it's on the bottom) made an appearance today

These three things do not make for a very happy baby, so please pray that the medicines for #1 and #2 will help and that she quickly bounces back to her happy smiling self (particularly in light of #4).

4) My parents, John and Lynn Chynoweth, who live in Singapore are flying into Bogotá tomorrow night for six days to meet their first grandchild, and if we can drag them away from her, spend some time with their son and daughter-in-law as well. Please pray for their safety and for the trip overall.

Thanks.

Chicken

2007-02-17T09:19:00.000-05:00

Well,

Praise the Lord we finally have a car! It's a 1997 Fiat Palio with 97,000km on its 1300 cc motor. It is such a relief to be able to go to the store when we need to, or grab a bite to eat, or even go to the office without being dependent on expensive taxis or the rarely available CDA drivers.

Driving here continues to be exciting. Everything, from changing lanes, to making a turn, to just staying in your lane is like a giant game of chicken in which you pit will vs will to see who will move first. It is a strange combination of being ultra-defensive (because everyone drives like an idiot) and being ultra-aggressive (because if you don't you'll just sit in the driveway - and you still may get honked at or hit!).

The Canadian team is here and working at a remarkable speed to finish our little house and the adjacent clinic. Because the construction is pre-fabricated panels and connectors (you'll see what I mean in the pictures) they can put up the walls really fast. the finishing work (plaster, paint, tiles, etc.) will take more time I think.

Besides coordinating transportation, the schedule, and logistics, I'm also continuing in my role as a translator. It is neat because over the last several months, as all of these foreign visitors have come, I have gotten to be a constant familiar face for the girls and so I kind of feel like an ambassador of sorts. I have gotten to translate some arts and crafts activities (pretty straight forward) and a few devotionals (not quite as easy :) but I really enjoy being able to bridge the two worlds between the Spanish speaking girls and the English speaking visitors.

It is unbelievable how cute Isabella is getting. Check out our picture link to the right for some great pictures of her grinning. She's also starting to get ticklish which is a lot of fun.

Please continue to pray for us. We've been here in Colombia for three months and the reality of missing our friends and family, as well as the ongoing adjustments to a new language, city, culture and jobs (me at school and the office and Jessie as mom)are tough. We expect that our adjustment process will realistically take between six months and a year, but even though we know that, it doesn't really make day-to-day living much easier.

Pressing On

2007-02-04T15:49:00.000-05:00

Well Isabella is a month and half old and Jessie and I have been living in Colombia for more than two months now - pretty remarkable! Life here in Bogotá is carrying on a a pretty quick clip and our family is working hard to keep up the pace. On January 15th I began a six week intensive Spanish course for foreigners at the University of Javeriana. Following an interview and a two hour test, I placed in the third level of the five they offer (all my muddled conversations with the CDA drivers and staff payed off!). So until February 27th, every day Monday to Friday 9 am till 12:30 pm I'm in class. And I've got to say that it is pretty strange to be back in a little plastic chair behind a desk instead standing up front and writing on the white board! My afternoons are spent at the office (which is a 15 minute walk away) or at home working on the computer as well as doing homework (yep - I still hate it).

My biggest responsibility at work right now is coordinating the next two short-term missions trips, both of which will be here for about two weeks each. On February 10th a group from Canada arrives and then later in March a team from the US. I'm arranging all the details from picking them up at the airport, organizing the construction schedule, and coordinating Vacation Bible School activities with the Girls' Home in Tenjo, and arranging for translation (which often means me). Additionally I'm answering a million questions they have, setting up meals, shopping trips and visits to the various projects. It is exciting and rewarding to serve as an ambassador both for the organization and for the country as I help create the lasting impressions that the teams will take back home with them. Coordinating the details is also interesting because I have to do almost all of it in Spanish since the drivers, security, project staff and teachers do not speak English.

During the last visit by the New Zealand team in January, there was one particular incident that stands out as an example of our ongoing commitment to flexibility. I'll let Jessie tell it since she was less directly involved than I was.

On Saturday night we found out that we were supposed to go to church out at Tenjo with the girls and the Kiwi team (the New Zealanders) so we woke up early (despite a very long night up with the baby) and were all ready to be picked up at 6:30 am the next morning by the CDA bus as we had been instructed. We were also expecting that after church we could come home and take a much needed nap. Well, 6:30 came and went and finally, more than an hour late, the driver showed up.

After about an hour of driving we picked up the Kiwis and headed for church. After we finally got there, I took my seat and just as the service was starting the pastor walked up to Jim and told him that he was going to translate everything from Spanish into English since the special visitors from New Zealand were there. Well, that sure made for an exciting hour-long sermon! Poor Jim, he did a wonderful job all things considered, but he was nervous, embarrassed and absolutely exhausted when he finished. Our "just go to church with team and come home" trip turned into a "go to church with the team to translate and then spend the next several hours driving into Bogotá for lunch" trip.

Before Jess and I moved here, we were reading a book to help prepare us for some of the challenges involved in moving to a foreign country. The book clearly extolled the importance of two virtues for all those about to embark on such a journey regardless of their reason for going: flexibility and a sense of humor. Now that we've been here for a bit, I must say that we agree whole-heartedly. Please continue to pray for us as we adjust to the myriad of changes we are facing: a new baby, a new language, a new job, new relationships, a new city, and a new appreciation for all the hard work our parents did :)

From February 4

Here's a picture of some of the girl's mobbing the van at our arrival - as long as I'm holding the baby, I always feel like a celebrity here! Oh, and we've got a few new pictures up - check out the link to the right.

Brief News

2007-01-21T20:52:00.000-05:00

I wanted to let everyone know that through a special financial gift Jess and I just received, in concert with the money we got from the sale of our Jeep Cherokee (another answer to prayer) we are now able to buy a car here. Please pray that we are able to quickly find a good car that will run well and reliably. It is quite an urgent need so please pray we are able to find and buy one this week.

I also wanted to let all of you know that I've uploaded more pictures - so if you're itching to see Isabella, check out the link on the right hand side of the page.

Saying "yes."

2007-01-18T15:02:00.000-05:00

In the midst of the business of the last two weeks, there has been one thing in particular that I wanted to share. I’ll worry about catching you up to date on family news and posting more pictures of Isabella later (sorry grandparents : ).

For the last several days, I’ve been enjoying the privilege of coordinating a team of Kiwis (people from New Zealand) who just arrived for a short-term missions project here with CDA and am getting to play translator, tour guide, and logistics coordinator for them. So far it’s been a lot of work and a lot of fun. The following thoughts sprang out of a conversation I had with them.

Since we all began our Christian lives, it has all been about saying “yes.” From that first moment He knocked and we answered, timidly in tears, or with laughter and joy, we all had to say “yes.” “Yes I accept you into my heart. Yes I believe in Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation. Yes.”

In some ways, not much has changed since then. My life and your life in Christ continue to be about saying “yes.” As we encounter various situations, choices, decisions etc. we all always have the option of saying, “yes lord, in faith I will do the right thing.” Not always because we feel like it, or because it sounds fun or exciting, sometimes it sounds downright horrid, but all those little “yes’s” piled up are what the Christian life is all about.

One of the things that Jessie and I have struggled with as we made the decision to move to Colombia to work with CDA is the term “missionary.” I often feel like it is used in an, “Oh he must be some sort of super-Christian to go do that work” sort of way and consequently, I’ve been much happier to tell people that I’m going to work in Colombia, or even volunteer in Colombia - anything but be a missionary.

What I want all of you to know is that we are exactly like you. Every morning, Jessie and wake up, (or are woken up as is wont to happen these days) and we are faced with that same old choice again and again and again. Will I say yes to the Lord’s voice? Will I spend time in His word, will I choose to resist the devil and temptation, will I say yes to selflessness, meekness, kindness, gentleness, love and all the host of other choices I will be faced with throughout the day? You see, us moving to Colombia wasn’t about Jessie and I having some greater spirituality, or some über-special honor from God. It was a decision to say “yes” when God said “go.” There are some days, or at least parts of days when I don’t say “yes.” When I choose to do things my way, in my strength, for me and I say, “no” when God asks me to do the right thing. Thankfully we serve a patient Lord and that he will be faithful till the day of Christ Jesus to complete all the things he wants out of me – and you.

You don’t have to move to Colombia and be a missionary to be a good Christian and moving to Colombia certainly doesn’t make you a good Christian. It’s a willingness to be available for whatever request God asks of you.

My prayer for you, and I sure hope that your prayer for me is that we will both have the strength, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to say, “yes” to all those little and big choices. It doesn’t really matter what the question is, our answers are always more important. And today is very much like that first day – Christ coming along side you and waiting for you to answer.

Isabella's First Words

2007-01-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

I'm working on a real post, but until that's finished, please content yourself with this video of Isabella's first words.

Our Post-Christmas, Pre-New Year Update

2006-12-30T18:41:00.000-05:00

This will have to go down in history as my slowest entry. Typing with one hand while trying to hang on to a squirming week and a half year old is tougher than I thought it would be...

(This picture is fairly representative of my experience as a father till now - minus the squirming)

Well, I've given up and abandoned her to her vibrating rocker chair/lounger. Time continues to fly by, Jessie and I have been here in Colombia for a month and a half, and have been parents for 10 days, pretty remarkable! Jessie, though not quite back to normal, is walking around (a lot), cleaning, shopping and losing weight rapidly, much to her delight. Isabella is a feeding machine and remains perfectly healthy, except for fighting with us every night when we put her to sleep in her own little moses basket and not our bed with us. We are settled into our little apartment and I've been working from home quite a bit, since I don't have a desk at the office yet, and it's more convenient to work here as a result of the weird hours that our family has been keeping lately.

I'm currently working on editing/re-writing all of the English portions of the CDA website, which has been a long-standing need since the vast majority of CDA's sponsors speak English. I've also been coordinating and arranging the details of three different short term missions teams that are coming next year. The first team, coming from New Zealand, arrives in January, the second in February will be coming from Canada, and the third, arriving in March, hails from the USA. This work in particular is wonderful practice for my Spanish since I'm having to work closely with a number of other CDA people who only speak Spanish. Half of my work related email traffic is now in Spanish which hopefully won't result in anybody being left at the airport, starving, or building in the wrong place (all three teams are coming to help with construction projects at the Girls' Home in Tenjo).

One thing I really wanted to tell you about was a great evidence of God's hand-in-action that just took place. On Thursday night, we found out that funding for some of the construction had fallen through, which put CDA in a tough spot, since a team was flying out to build using materials purchased with that funding. Then, this afternoon, we found out that one of CDA's donors had just sent in an unexpected financial donation that covers the amount needed, and he had done it on Thursday night! God is truly faithful! I continue to be amazed at how different my timing and God's timing are.

In family news, Jess and I are eagerly preparing for the arrival of her parents. On Monday night, Mitch and Jennie will arrive for a two week stay to meet their first granddaughter. They are also bringing our dog Ransom as a checked bag (he'll be in a crate not a bag- don't worry) to bring the total number of residents in our two bedroom apartment to: 4 adults, 1 newborn, and 1 large extroverted lab. Excitement will no doubt ensue (in all its varied forms).

We have been so blessed during the last several weeks and are so grateful to all of you for your continued encouragement and support. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. And for more pictures of Isabella, since I know that's all 2/3 of you are interested in anyway, check out our picture link on the right side of the page.

Blessings,
Jim and Jessie

Isabella's First Short

2006-12-22T17:48:00.000-05:00

I’m a dad!

2006-12-21T15:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at 4:41pm little Isabella was born weighing 7.3 lbs. She was 52cm long (sorry you’ll have to use google to figure out what that is inches) and perfect. She scored a 9 and then a 10 on the apgar scale and doesn’t look like ET (which was my secret fear). I can’t believe how beautiful she is. She has thick dark hair and beautiful inquisitive blue eyes. All her thousand and one parts are perfect. Today they’ll give her a bath/clean up of some sort – she just got toweled off yesterday and so has these very punky dreadlock things happening, which still look very cute.

From Isabella's De...

Jessie was a champ and endured her labor with aplomb, especially considering that it was in a foreign country where most of the staff spoke only Spanish, and that most of the what happened was different than what she had wanted. She is doing fine today, tired and in pain but delighted with our new daughter and taking comfort that for the first time in 9 months, every day will be a bit better than the last. Please continue to pray for her, especially for a quick and full recovery with no long-term issues.

Sitting here typing on my laptop in the darkened hospital room with my sleeping wife and baby to my left, it’s still hard to believe that I’m really a father. Maybe when we get home from the hospital and I realize that little Isabella is here to stay, and that I can’t leave her in the car or the backyard like Ransom when I’m running errands then it will feel more real.

It’s funny as I’m writing this, Isabella keeps stretching or softly twitching in her sleep and I get these glimpses of her little hands (which are in little pink socks since we forgot her mits at home) waving above the top of her little sleeping basin/bucket thing. It makes it look like a four-legged critter swaddled in pink is in there.

Please check out our picture link to the right of the page for some of Isabella’s glamor shots (don’t worry, our selections have been edited for public viewing). And stay tuned for more updates on the most recent Colombian addition to the Chynoweth family.

(in case you were wondering, I wrote this earlier but couldn't upload it till we got home)

This is it!

2006-12-20T05:42:00.000-05:00

Well everyone,

We're off to the clinic for little Isabella's delivery in about 25 minutes! Please keep all three of us, 4 including the doctor, in your prayers. Please pray for the Lord's blessing and protection over this whole process and specifically pray that there will be no need for a cesarean section (Doctors here are a little too quick to pull out the scalpel for our liking).

I am so exited and nervous as I write this. I can't wait to finally meet her, I can't wait for Jessie to feel better, but I'm scared to death of this whole labor/Jessie in pain thing (ironic coming from the former-Marine, war-vet, who's jumped out of an airplane with special forces and who let his friend learn how to give stitches in my chest, etc.). It's also a bit overwhelming.

Well, sorry for my ramblings, I've got labor cold feet I guess. Thanks for all your prayers. We'll post pictures as soon as we can.

Jim

False Alarms and Moving

2006-12-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

Well, two interesting pieces of news, first, we just had our first false alarm delivery! Isabella is still healthy and apparently happy to stay put where she is (although Dr. Caceras says she could show up any day). Following a bit of frantic packing and a nice fast drive to the hospital Jessie was monitored and checked out by the Doctor who said that everything is fine. Apparently these were the sneaky, start-for-a-few-hours-and-then-stop kind of contractions that can happen in the last days leading up to a real delivery. Praise the Lord for Dr. Caceras speaking English, for his willingness to meet us at the hospital at 10:30pm, and for the clean, friendly, professionalism of “Clinic Santa Fe.” (here in Colombia, clinics are private hospitals - nice, and hospitals are government run hospitals - not as nice)

The second exciting thing is that the very next morning we got our own apartment! It is a really nice furnished place on the ground floor in the more-secure northern part of town, and has two bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths. We will live here for three months and then (cross your fingers) we will move into our little cottage that will be built out at Tenjo. Jessie is delighted to finally have her own place again and unpacked all of Isabella's things getting the second room ready for the baby even before she unpacked her own clothes.

Check out our pictures link to the right for some recent pictures of Tenjo and of our new apartment.

Personal Update

2006-12-06T07:35:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the long silence, we’ve been battling with a few technical difficulties here. Well, Jessie and I are still living with Pastor Luis (who continues to be a very gracious and grandfatherly host) but we are really hoping to move into our own place soon. Please pray that all the details work out as we are rapidly approaching Christmas and Isabella’s arrival. It also remains difficult to establish a routine or feel settled in while most of our things remain in suitcases and we are working around someone else’s schedule.

Jessie is still pregnant and is hoping and praying that Isabella decides to show up soon. We have had one of the birthing classes and it remains to be seen whether or not we will make it through the remaining seven (Jessie doesn’t want to have to wait long enough to have even one more class ☺ ).

On Friday of last week we had a chance to visit the girls’ home at Tenjo where we were treated like celebrities! There was confetti and balloons; I managed to get decorated with so many paper hearts that I looked like a Christmas tree. Jessie was promptly surrounded by a crowd of smiling little faces all thrilled at the prospect of a new baby sister, and convinced that they could hear Isabella’s heart beat when they put their ears against her. I don’t think I’ve managed to give Jessie’s belly so many pats or kisses in the 37 weeks she’s been pregnant as they did in an afternoon! Jessie loved the home and her confidence in my judgment remains intact now that she has seen what it is that I dragged her down here to do! The girls can’t wait for us to move there and were bitterly disappointed to learn that we weren’t moving in the very next day.

I have gotten a more thorough job description from CDA and have begun to work on my first big project already. My primary responsibilities until we move to Tenjo (besides adjusting to a new country, learning a foreign language and anticipating the birth of my first child) are the editing, revision and proofreading of all the organization’s English communications. My first task is to edit the English version of the web site, which will keep me pretty busy for now. Another part of my job will be to help coordinate with short term missions teams coming from New Zealand and Canada – I will get to serve as an English speaking liaison of sorts, which should be neat especially since the next scheduled team is a group of volunteers coming to build the little cottage that Jessie and I will be moving into in March!

Thank you for all your prayers and the encouraging posts and emails, we miss you.

Jim and Jessie

Quinceañeros

2006-12-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday Jessie and I had the privilege of attending a quinceañeros celebration here in Bogotá. In Latin culture, the quinceañeros fiesta celebrates a girl’s 15th birthday and her transition from being a girl to a young woman. Such parties are similar to weddings in their elaborate planning, the dresses, flowers, band, food, cake, etc. and are something that every girl grows up looking forward to. What made this particular quinceañeros so special is that the three girls who were honored are from the girls’ home at Tenjo. Lilliana, Ericka and Sarah were born into poverty and never in their wildest dreams believed that they would be able to have a quinceañeros, so imagine their delight at spending an evening as princesses surrounded by about 70 of their friends and family. Following months of planning, praying and networking with local businesses, CDA was able to procure evening gowns, flowers, decorations, a private ballroom, a wonderful band, party favors, a fully catered meal, and a beautiful ring for each of the three girls.

What made the evening even more special is that the parents of the three girls were there in attendance. While the girls’ home at Tenjo provides a safe positive environment for girls from terrible backgrounds to grow up in and receive an education, CDA works vigorously with their families to try and bring about spiritual, emotional and financial restoration. It was amazing to be sitting in an exclusive club in a nice part of Bogotá along with this group of parents from some of the worst neighborhoods in the city, who were crying with joy and thanking God and CDA for the opportunity to see a fairy tale come true. During the many years that these three girls have lived at Tenjo, their parents have made tremendous strides and it was a great testimony to God’s love and faithfulness to see the restoration of lives and families, and their renewed hope for the future.

the band played wonderful traditional Andean music (flutes, bass and drum not pictured)

Sitting there watching these three young women beaming from ear to ear, and their parents caught between tears and laughter, those famous words from Isaiah 9:2 that we so often hear around Christmas came alive in a new way for me: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

Some initial impressions

2006-11-24T15:17:00.000-05:00

One of the interesting oddities about living in Colombia is bags – milk comes in plastic bags, so does ketchup, and mayonnaise, salad dressing and yogurt. The dairy products require you to snip the corner off the bag, pour, and then fold it up and clothes-pin it shut, the condiments have little screw off caps on the upper part of the bag allowing you to squeeze out the desired quantity.

A wonderful surprise has been the national love of hot chocolate. I’m a hot chocolate fan, and now I’m living in a country where it is customary every morning to have a steaming fresh cup. There is a key difference however, hot chocolate here, is made by breaking big squares off of a special “hot chocolate chocolate bar” putting it in milk, and then heating. The process is completed by mixing it up by hand with a special kitchen utensil specifically designed for this purpose called a "molinillo."

Well, Jessie and I have been making good progress in the “getting set up” department, we are very close to having a cute apartment within walking distance of both the office and Javeriana University where we will be taking Spanish lessons. We will begin taking an intensive immersion Spanish course in January that will meet all morning, 5 days a week, for six weeks. Until then however, Jessie and I will be taking private lessons from a Spanish tutor so as not to waste any of the valuable learning time between now and January 17.

Thank you for your prayers; please press on in them. We continue to be surprised and overjoyed by the Lord's grace and provision and know that your faithful intercession is a key part of our ministry here.

Bienvenidos a Colombia!

2006-11-21T19:21:00.000-05:00

Praise the Lord, Jessie and I arrived safely in Bogotá with all of our luggage (no small feat with 8 checked bags!). It’s hard to believe that it’s Tuesday already – we've been here a week! Time has flown by in a blur since we arrived last Wednesday and for now we are staying at Pastor Luis’ apartment (the spiritual director for CDA) until we get a place of our own (which may take another week or so). Jess and I have been spending a bit of time in the office, visited one of the CDA schools in a poor slum called Cazuca, and begun planning the myriad of details necessary to restart our Spanish lives.

Today we had our first visit with the OBGYN who will deliver little baby Isabella. In another great answer to prayer, he also speaks English! Dr. Ricardo Caceras did a lot to allay our fears and doubts about moving to a foreign country a few weeks before going into labor, and both Jessie and I were pleased with the Hospital de Santa Fe, which is the best hospital in the country. We got a tour of the labor and delivery ward which was very clean and very modern. We were blown away by the 3D images and the fact that we got 4 pages of printed pictures, a DVD of the whole ultrasound, and a CD with all the pictures on it. So far, I'm a big fan of Colombian medicine. Here is one of the pictures of Isabella - who is perfectly healthy (the doctor checked EVERY single one of her 1000 parts and organs), weighs about 5lbs and is 34 and a half weeks old. Check out more pictures at our picture link on the right hand side of this blog. (Yes, she's definitely a girl, and the weird smudge on her face is the placenta wall, she's got her face smashed up against it)

We have also checked out the local grocery store, The Home Centre (similar to Lowe’s or Home Depot – you would have loved it dad), and Carrefour which is like a Super Walmart. We’ve had the chance to try some local food and see some of the sights – we both continue to be amazed at the size of this city. Bogotá lies in an Andean plain and is relatively narrow running North to South. This picture is taken from the mountains on the East side of the city looking West across the narrowest part of Bogotá and is only a thin slice of the whole massive metropolis.

The city is hard to characterize since it is so full of contrasts; buses, cars, taxis, pedestrians, and the occasional horse drawn cart compete with the motorcycles and bikes for space on the crowded roads, glass covered skyscrapers, quaint boutiques, electronics stores and ultra-modern malls complete with movie theaters are scattered around between old dilapidated buildings, hole-in-the-wall cafes, and car repair shops. About 10% of the city could be in London, New York or Paris, but the majority of the population will never see or experience it. The remaining 90% is a poor, desperate population, eking out a living selling gum, cigarettes, fruit, and candy out of hand drawn carts, or begging at stop lights, or living in the dirty, graffiti covered slums. In the North part of town, globe trotting executives chat on their Motorola Razr cell phones, while college kids with dyed hair and facial piercings text message each other on their way to internet cafes. However, as one leaves the North and drives South, you quickly begin to notice the forgotten masses, and the huge slums that dominate the Southern end of the city. All of CDA’s Bogotá projects are in the South part of the city and it is there among the poorest of the poor, and particularly with children, the most vulnerable and needy residents of the slums, that CDA labors to restore hearts and lives.

This is a picture of a street in Cazuca, a slum on the South side of town where CDA works

Jessie and I are both excited to be here, a little overwhelmed by the massive transition we're going through, and missing home a bit, but eager to begin the work that the Lord has called us to do here. All of the CDA staff have been so friendly and unbelievably helpful and selfless as they have begun walking us through a Spanish speaking bureaucracy, setting up medical appointments, and arranging transportation etc. Parents - we are being well taken care of : )

Thank you for your continued prayers, we know that it is only through prayer and God's grace that we can settle in, and have an impact here in Colombia.

We're Off!!!

2006-11-14T15:19:00.000-05:00

Well, the months of planning and preparation are at an end. Tomorrow morning Jessie and I will leave Jacksonville, fly to Atlanta and by 9pm be in Colombia. Please continue to lift us up in prayer as we tidy up the last minute details, say our goodbyes and begin concentrating on our arrival. We are both pretty excited about what comes next, and a bit scared about the unknown. Thankfully we can press on in the confidence that God is always with us, knowing that NOTHING will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Jess and I are still in the process of raising support and have not yet met our monthly support goal, but are continuing on in the faith that the Lord promises to meet our daily needs. Thank you all for your encouragement and prayers.

Visas!

2006-11-02T10:51:00.000-05:00

Well, they're here - Thank You Lord! After a second trip down to Miami (this time we wised up and used the Florida Turnpike), Jessie and I are the proud owners of two temporary special NGO Visas (where NGO stands for Non-Government Organization). We now have permission to stay in Colombia for one year as volunteers with CDA, at the end of which we will have to reapply for our second year. Two months of effort in both Colombia and here, two road trips to Miami, and several hundred dollars in translation, notarization, and apostille services have made these the two most expensive little pieces of paper I've ever seen. (all that time and energy and my picture still looks like a police line up :)

With plane tickets, visas, and a sponsoring church all lined up, Jessie and I are in the final countdown to our departure in two weeks. We are still praying for our support to come in, and need to complete our final packing but we are almost ready to leave. Tomorrow, we drive up to Gainsville, GA to visit Mason, Jessie's brother and his wife Emily who just had their first child. It will be a chance to meet our new nephew, say goodbye, and drop off our beloved 1980 CJ5 that Mason will be babysitting for us. (see below - isn't her belly cute?)

We now have an online photo album! Click on "Chynoweth Pictures Online" link on the right hand side of this page to view it. We will periodically update it with new images.

(Google is awesome - all this storage and hosting - for Free!)

The Details...

2006-10-25T10:36:00.000-05:00

Well, praise the Lord, the details are finally falling into place! Jessie and I had a great trip down to Orlando and Miami, and our time with family and friends was wonderful! In Miami, Jessie's grandpa was even kind enough to take me out and play 9 holes of golf giving some help and tips along the way (it doesn't take much to improve your game when you're as bad as I am).

Friday morning Jessie and I had our consular appointment which didn't quite work out as well as we had hoped. Although we had repeatedly checked to make sure that we had all the required documents prior to our appointment, Ms. Monica Trujillo, the sole woman in charge of visas at the consulate, suddenly determined mid-appointment that despite my previous conversations, we didn't have all the necessary paperwork. So Jessie and I will be driving back to Miami this Friday to hand deliver 2 additional pieces of paperwork. Please pray that everything goes smoothly and that we can finally get our visa approved.

In bigger, better, shinier news, Switzerland Community Church has agreed to be our sending church! This was a major answer to prayer and now your financial contributions can be sent to the church as a tax deductible charitable donation, and the church will pass along 100% of those funds to Jessie and I. All gifts should be sent to:

COLOMBIA MINISTRY
Switzerland Community Church
2179 State Road 13
Jacksonville, FL 32259

Checks should be made out to SCC (or Switzerland Community Church if you like to write a lot) BUT leave the memo line blank. Due to current tax laws, Jessie and my name should not appear anywhere on the checks or envelopes. As long as you write COLOMBIA MINISTRY prominently on the outside of the envelope, the check will end up in the right place.

But wait! There's even more exciting news - we also have airline tickets! Lord willing, Jess and I will leave for Bogotá, Colombia on Wednesday, November 15.

One thing that Jessie and I keep being asked is, "how can we pray for you?" Great question. This trip and our work were God's plan before they were ours, and we know that it is only through Him that we are able to do anything of real value. The following is a specific list of things Jessie and I are hoping and praying for:

our visas to be approved quickly following this Friday's meeting
the remainder of our financial support to be raised in monthly commitments to give
safe travel particularly for Jessie and little baby Isabella (who is due Dec. 31)
supernatural assistance for rapid language acquisition
wisdom, grace and patience as we settle in to life in a new culture and country (just figuring our the details like bills, a car, grocery shopping, etc. will all need to be relearned)
godly, like-minded friends; particularly for a couple who could serve as spiritual/cultural mentors for us, teaching, encouraging, and shepherding us.
a good Doctor/Midwife in Colombia to take over Jessie's prenatal care and safely deliver our little girl.

Till next time...

PS: Here is a picture of my beautiful wife kayaking in Trout Creek.

In Limbo

2006-10-10T13:39:00.000-05:00

The last several weeks have been odd. As you can imagine, our impending international move has left us feeling the urge (panicky urge sometimes) to rush around frantically getting things done. This urge however, continues to crash into the reality that most of what we can do to help the process along has already been done and we are waiting on people and processes beyond our control. Praise God we have our interview at the Colombian Consulate in Miami to apply for our Visa scheduled for the 20th (and we have all the required documents already). We also have a key meeting on the 23rd of this month with the Missions Board at Switzerland Community Church to discuss our move, financial support and the possibility of the church coming alongside us to act as our support team "clearing house." Both of these meetings are obviously very important, and I would ask that you all continue to pray that there are no problems or delays getting our visa approved and that the missions board agrees to both support us and accept third-party support gifts on our behalf.

So here we are, just a few short weeks from moving overseas and we find ourselves with some unexpected free time in between taking care of life's details. "So what are you doing with this free time?" Well, this week Jessie and I just embarked on a miniature road trip to visit some friends and family on our way down to our consular interview that is scheduled for 11am Friday. During the last couple of weeks however, we've been enjoying the opportunity to read, sleep in, spend time with Jessie's parents; Jessie has been sewing and getting baby things ready, I've been learning to climb trees since my father-in-law is an arborist (not the barefoot scrambling of my youth, but huge, way-up-high adventures with ropes, harnesses, rappelling etc. All of which is awesome!) We are enjoying Kayaking on Julington Creek which feeds the St. Johns River and taking our first and hairiest child, Ransom, on walks.

Here's a self portrait of me monkeying around about 50ft off the ground

Our very own rocket dog - named Ransom. (He's turned off right now)

To everyone who has emailed, called, posted or in someway come alongside Jessie and I, and particularly to everyone from Switzerland who organized and came to our shower/send-off on Sunday, THANK YOU! It is encouraging to know that people are praying for us and cheering us on.

I'll close with one of my least favorite Bible verses of all time, Hosea 10:12b "for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes." (I've always secretly wished that it said, seek the Lord and He will quickly come when it is convenient for you."). Once again, Jessie and I are learning to walk by faith not by sight, and to rest patiently in the Lord's will trusting His timing not ours.

Keep on Hopping (and hoping)

2006-09-25T14:41:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a busy week. Jessie and I moved out of our beautiful little house on Dover Road (which was very sad) and have moved in with her parents for the last couple of weeks before we leave for Colombia. Moving was a nightmare but the worst of that is over and we are now in the final stages of sorting through our stuff (it's amazing how much junk you can collect in two years). A revealing part of this process is the hold that our possessions have on us. We certainly wouldn't have described ourselves as materialistic, but all of a sudden when confronted with storing it, giving it away or throwing it away, we found ourselves awfully attached to a lot of it. We have to keep reminding ourselves that all of our things ultimately belong to God and they have just been loaned to us. There's a great quote from somewhere that goes something like this, "...they are called possessions, not because we possess them, but because they possess us." How true.

I'm digressing though. This week we are working on getting our visas and raising support. We continue to be surprised by how God is providing for us and how people keep coming to us and asking to support us. It is easy to get discouraged while wading through the paperwork and all the planning that goes into an international move, but God patiently keeps reminding us that He's in control and faithfully working out the details and the kinks (in life and in my heart) one at a time. Please continue to pray that we are able to get our visas and finish raising support soon (because of Jessie's pregnancy, the sooner we leave the better).

I'll finish this post with a quote that I love from Shane Claiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution, "All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tiptoe."

ps: feel free to leave comments if you'd like

On the Move!

2006-09-20T10:29:00.000-05:00

Yes it's true, after months of talking and praying about it, Jessie and I are Oscar Mike (on the move in Marine-speak) to South America. We are packed up and moving to Bogota, Colombia in the end of October (no exact date yet) to work with a Colombian Christian organization Corporacion Dios es Amor (that's Corporation God is Love for those of you who no habla espanol). This whole journey - and we haven't even left yet - has been an unbelievable experience of watching God provide and our faith grow; neither of which is always a comfortable experience I might add.

It has been humbling and good for me to recognize and remember that I'm not in control and that my own efforts and strengths don't measure up to God's overflowing gracious provision. To borrow a quote from the Chronicles of Narnia, "Of course he's not safe! But he's good." God has been knocking our expectations apart, stretching us, growing us, and cornering us into reliance on him and not ourselves - not fun, but thrilling in the same way that Noah nervously chewed his lip and kept building the ark, or Abraham awkwardly convinced his wife that packing up and heading out into the wilderness with the whole family was the right thing to do even though "he did not know where he was going."Here is the letter explaining what we're doing and why:

During the course of the last year or so, Jessie and I have been talking and praying about what to invest our lives in once she graduated Nursing School and I fulfilled my obligation to the Marine Corps. As we passed those two milestones, we considered many options and then, quite unexpectedly, God opened a door to a ministry opportunity in Colombia, South America. In early August I enjoyed the privilege of spending a week in Colombia investigating Corporacion Dios es Amor (Corporation God is Love), meeting their staff, and visiting many of their projects. It was an amazing trip and a wonderful opportunity to see Christ’s love in action.

As I left Colombia, I was challenged to come back with my wife Jessie and serve with CDA, and after much prayer and discussion, Jessie and I feel that it is God’s will for us to pack up our home and move to Bogotá, Colombia. In October of this year, we will begin a two-year adventure of walking by faith in a foreign country. Following several months of language school, we will begin working at a small orphanage for girls from abused backgrounds. The orphanage in Tenjo (a small town on the outskirts of Bogotá) is home to around 60 girls as young as 4 or 5 and as old as 15.

One unusual aspect to the home at Tenjo, is that while the girls benefit from a healthy Christian school, solid nutritious meals, Christian counseling and medical care, the parents are not forgotten. In as much as the parents are willing, CDA sends Christian social workers to help the parents, and actively works to help rebuild their lives, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to renew hearts and minds with the hope that one day, the girls can be reunited with their families.

Jessie and I will live and work at the home in Tenjo providing leadership and support to the staff members, overseeing daily operations and working to help build the home into a more family environment and not just an orphanage. Jessie and I will have the opportunity to work with the CDA staff, encouraging them, planning activities, organizing fun things to do with the girls on the weekends or after school, and helping develop a long term vision for the home. In addition to this fun but challenging role, a key part of our work will be to live as an example of what a marriage and family can be – working through problems, loving each other, modeling Christ. None of the girls come from healthy homes, and most have no concept of what a marriage should even look like, so we will be sharing our life and investing in the lives of the girls and other staff as we go about our daily routine.

While there, Jessie will also have an opportunity to use her nursing degree and will be responsible for monitoring the growth and nutrition of the kids as well as helping treat the numerous bangs, bumps and sicknesses that children get. I will also spend some of my time at CDA’s main office where I will be helping the organization with English communications, writing about the exciting things that God is doing in Colombia to rebuild lives and a country.

While CDA will be covering some of our expenses, Jessie and I are beginning the process of raising support to cover the remaining needs. We are trusting God to provide $1,500 per month to cover our living expenses as well as additional one time support to cover the special needs of moving to a new country. In addition to financial support, Jessie and I covet your prayers. Please pray that our hearts and faith will grow, that God’s love will flow through us into others, that we will put aside our selfish desires and ambitions and let Christ shine in us. We are claiming Philippians 2:12-18, so please join us and pray that for us as well.

Although moving to Colombia is a big step for our family, we believe that we will be faithfully following God and that we will be true to the calling given in 1 Peter 4:8, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”

Pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of us,

Jim and Jessie Chynoweth

More About CDA:
CDA is a Colombian, non-denominational, Christian organization that is headquartered in Bogotá, the beautiful capital city. Their vision for ministry is to follow in the footsteps of Christ by sharing the Love of Christ in both word and deed. Through schools, clinics, and vocational training they meet the physical needs of the poorest of the poor in this long troubled nation. But there is also the urgent recognition that without the saving blood and grace of Jesus, a full stomach, or an education do not affect a person’s position in eternity. As Pastor Luis, who heads up the spiritual development of the organization said to me, “every activity we have is an excuse to preach the gospel. When people ask, ‘why are you doing this for me?’ we are able to reply, ‘Because God loves you.’” Every CDA project teaches the Bible and uses Christian values; there are devotionals, church services and Christian counseling from the youngest students in Kindergarten, to the oldest mothers and fathers receiving business training, job placement or micro-loans.

Check out their website:
http://www.cda-colombia.org