Holistic Ministry

Here are some pictures of friends who have received a large amount of help

Samuel helped me a lot in starting both a church in Duitama as well as a church in Cucuta. He went on to study in seminary and is now back serving in the Cucuta church primarily, where the help of a very inteligent Bible teacher is quite useful. Besides supporting him monthly, I've encouraged him a lot in branching out to let more people know about what he's doing and in that way create a stronger support base.

Gabriel and his wife Yurbey and their daughter Gabriela are a wonderful example of how God can transform a whole family through the gospel, and through close friendship and their own personal hard work - can not only have a far more adequate living situation and sustainable businessthan than before, but also be very commited followrs of Jesus that help tremendously in the Refuge Church of Cucuta and now have gone on to both help and disciple others. Alejandra and I spontaneously give them gifts to help in their business endeavors as well as help pay for their transportation to go to Bible camps or united church activities in other parts of the country.

Leudimar is a hard working Venezuelan immigrant who, despite really complex situations, has managed to not only get by in Colombia herself, but also help her whole family arrive to Colombia and then make sure that they each get by themselves despite their own challenges. Alejandra and I decided to invest a significant amount of money in helping her start her own coffee shop in our church building. This next year will let us know if this project works in both giving her and two employees a steady income, as well as potentially helping the church atract new people. Next year I hope that Leudimar can host the Course Change weekly breakfasts in her coffee shop, while I lead them. She recently paid and did all the paperwork to get her own driver's liscence.

Yalinxon and Angela and their 3 young boys have become really close friends that Alejandra and I really enjoy being around and learning from. We invite them over to eat ocassionally, I help Yalinxon with his soccer club, and we recently gave Angela a month's worth of income to help in making the new coffee shop initiative succesful along with Leudimar. They are a Venezuelan immigrant family, and they've come to know the Lord and they participate consistently in the church. Yalinxon works in an ice cream factory where he gets paid minimum wage, and they started their own slushi business on the side, to suppliment their needs. Here are some pictures of friends who have comparitively recieved a significant amount of help

Darwin and Elizabeth and their two sons are a family that Alejandra and I met a few years back and just about every time we travel into Venezuela we try and visit. Unlike many of our Venezuelan immigrant friends who just moved into Colombia to start out fresh in the middle of their country's huge economic and political colapse, Darwin and Elizabeth stayed in Venezuela to weather the storm all these years and have survived by going back and forth across the border selling little cartoon sculptures that Elizabeth makes. Also, Darwin is an amazing musician and English teacher, and so through classes on line and ocassional in-person classes, they've been able to get by despite the tremendous dificulty of living in a country that is so backwaards in many ways. Every time Alejandra and I visit them we give them an offering for letting us stay with them in their house, and on a couple ocassions we sponsored them to come help us with different ministries we had going on in Colombia. This next year I'm trying to see if some of my American friends can help Elizabeth sell some of her action figures in the States.

Duvan is an amazing musician who started coming to our church in Duitama, and gets by by playing his yukelaley in restaurants as well as teaching music on line. As we quickly became friends, I presented him with the oportunity of traveling to and living in Cucuta to help the church there for about 4 months. Since he's been back in Duitama I ocassionally give him offerrings since he helps with our worship team and ocassionally gives lesser profesional musicians like me guitar lessons.

James is a young athlete and college student that has traveled both to Cucuta as well as San Jose del Guaviare for a month or two at a time to help the churches there. He was adopted as a young boy, and after his adopted father died, has had a lot of trouble with his siblings and adopted mother who have ostracised him. He gets ocasional jobs in Duitama to help pay for his college, and when he traveled to Cucuta and San Jose, Alejandra and I supported him. He has a lot of potential as a leader and already shows a remarkable knack for evangelism.

Juan David and Dorely have a really cool ministry towards recovering addicts, and just a couple weeks ago I had the privilege of marrying them, while Alejandra organized the wedding. Juan David is a musician and leader in the first church of Duitama that Alejandra and I started, and has a remarkable testimony as he himself, fell into the world of heavy drugs as he was serving as an undercover cop, but God has restored him in an amazing way. Though we usually don't support them as a couple very much, out of gratitude for all their help in ministry, we gave them a significant gift after their wedding. Here are some pictures of friends who have comparitively recieved a moderate amount of help

I've known and helped George and Milagros and their daughter for a few years now, and especially since they are Venezuelan immigrants and George doesn't have the freedom to move around very easily, I've helped them to invest in products they sell in their house/store... Recently they made the decision to move back to their home town in Venezuela, and so Alejandra and I contributed moderately for that endeavor. We're going to miss them at our Refuge Church in Cucuta.

Jose is a professional flute player that I met on the streets of Cucuta and after he heard the gospel and became a beliver and then I later had the oportunity of baptizing him - he eventually moved to Bogota and got incorporated into our church there. As we've been starting our second church in Duitama, I have invited him and sponsored him to travel on the weekends and join us with his musical talent. It's been great to see him gain some stability and to 'make it' in the professional music world, so to speak.

Victor is an amazing street evangelist that I met in a Venezuelan refugee camp and later started to do a lot of ministry with in Bogota. He has since migrated up through Central America and is currently serving the Lord in Mexico. We still keep in touch, and every once in a wile I send himm a donation.

Juan (pictured on the far right) is a friend of a friend who I welcomed into our church in Duitama, and then into our house and church in Cucuta. Though I don't support him fianncially very much, I did help with his transportation to get to Cucuta and I let him stay for free in our apartment in Cucuta as well as in our apartment in our church in Duitama when he was there. He has helped with a few odd jobs here and there, and in the picture above, he was helping encourage some Venezuelan walkers we picked up and hosted for a night in our church building.

Tello and his family are Venezuelan immigrants whom Alejandra and I have helped ever since we started the first church in Duitama. We paid Tello well while he helped remodel our church building, and then we helped him get a steady job with a construction company. His wife gets paid to clean our church building once a week, and we sometimes hire his son (who had/has an addction problem) to do odd jobs around our house.

Manuel is a Venezuelan immigrant baseball player friend that mostly wants to teach and be involved in sports for a living. On a few occasions I've invited him to travel with me while I simultaneously share the gospel with him and disciple him. We've also played baseball together, and I've encouraged him with some of the dreams he's had.

Cristian is a young college student that has believed the gospel and I'm discipling. We paid him to make a sign in neon lights for our church, and Alejandra and I ocasionally invite him over to our house or out to eat, and recently we bought him a cool Christmas preseant

Alonso is a single parent magician that has been a consistent part of our church in Cucuta for a couple years now. I traveled with him to his home town in Venezuela a while back, and I've sponsored him and his daughter to join us for two different Bible camps we've had more than 10 hours away from Cucuta. He's a good friend, and currently hosts a Bible study at his house in Cucuta. It's been awesome to see how his business as an illusionist has developed, and it's great to see his daughter grow up knowing the Lord.

Jair and his wife and two children are great Christians who work paralel to the Refuge church in Cucuta. They have their own congregation up in the mountain and work with a poor popultaion of believers that are rich in the faith who eagerly meet together every Sunday afternoon. Twice a month members from the Refuge Church (like Samuel and Gabriel) go up to the shack in the mountain where they meet to help them with their services. Recently while in Cucuta I got to visit this church for the first time, and it was very inspiring. I gave Jair a donation to encourage him in his valuable service for God.

This family of Venezuelan immigrants I got to meet in Duitama a while back while hosting and leading a missions team of high school students. The High school students were very generous in paying for this family's rent for a couple months as they were living on the street at the time, and the students also bought various things to accomodate them in their home. Eventually this family decided to go back to Venezuela, and some of the money that the students left to help this specific family was given to them to help them in their joourney back home.

Carlos is a young Venezuelan man that was taken in by a Colombian family when he was just a child and has had really serious problems with depression and has tried to take away his life on a few ocassions. He has achieved a fair amount of economic stability by working at a hardware store, but spiritually and emotionally he continues to be extremely weak. I've reached out to him as a freind on various ocassions, and when he was in a really serious situation I invited him to accompany me on a week long road trip where he was able to see my life in ministry and I was able to share the gospel to him.

These young Venezuelan guys and girls were traveling back to Venezuela all the way from Peru, and Alejandra and I met them on the street and invited them to eat and shared the gospel to them. They had been walking on the highway for more than a month to get back home, and so to help them get to their destination in 20 hours as opposed to 20 days, we paid for their bus fares back to the border with Venezuela. Here are some friends who have comparitively received just a bit of our help

In many cases these friends and I have an ongoing relationship, as I see them on the streets and sometimes invite them out to eat and talk with them about their informal businesses and sometimes give them small domations to help them buy supplies to sell. I've shared the gospel to about all of them, and many of them I've invited to church. Some of the other friends above are Venezuelan walkers and maybe the only interaction I had with them was when I picked them up in my car along the highway as they were walking from or back to Venezuela and helped them along the way... In the case of helping Venezuelan walkers, I usually stop somewhere to eat lunch or dinner with them, and then give them a bit of cash after I pray for them and we say goodbye. Recently with many of the street vendors in the above pictures, a missions team that I was helping to lead a few weeks ago and I bought a bunch of their products and helped sell them, and then gave the proceeds back to our friends again. This type of incarnational ministry was a huge eye opener for the high school students I was working with, and it was a huge encouragement to the street vendors as well. Here are a couple of pictures of friends that have thrown away the oportunities Alejandra and I have given them, but we hop and pray that they can be reconciled to us and especially to God

In both of these cases I helped in providing these men with descent jobs, but they ended up robbing either their employer or someone else and then fled town to avoid getting caught.