Veiw from the top of Cold Water
Brett and Sergio discussing religion
Gran Sabana, and the tepuys
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Spirituality in the Lost World
by Brett Klingenberg
Carefully we walked barefoot through the shallows, one eye on our guide, Sergio, and another on the slippery rock below. As we neared the top of the falls, our senses were filled with the beauty of the Great Savanna - an immense sea of rolling green hills, valleys of scattered palm trees, and the ocasional glimpse of the mystical tepuy´s – gigantic flat topped mountains found nowhere else on earth.
We were only on the first leg of our two day tour of the Great Savanna, located in southern Venezuela, and already I was beginning to understand why the local town of 17,000 had a Hindu congregation, Buddist and Mormon temple, and several UFO sightings...this place brings out the spiritual side of life.
The next day as Sergio and I sat visiting underneath another perfect waterfall, I in my swimsuit and he in his underwear, he began to speak about how his entire family is Christian, but he is not. When I asked why, he explained that he likes to take the best of all religions, combine them, and seek to live a good life. He said he likes Buddism and Christianity, and reads the Bible a lot. He said he believes in forgiveness, and that being able to forgive the people who hurt you is the path to a fulfilling life. I couldn´t disagree. Then he said that it´s not just what you know about faith, it´s also about feeling it. "And living it," I added. I told him about my desire not only to know Jesus, but live out his commands and teachings. I mentioned how some of the men of the Mennonite Church had refused to go into the military because they desired to live out Jesus words to love without exception, and how some of them were persecuted and even killed in prison; how my own father had refused to fight in Vietnam and instead chose to serve in a hospital. I also mentioned my calling to be a pastor and how this was leading my wife and I to attend seminary and follow the Lord´s call wherever it may be. Then we changed the subject.
Did I evangelize? Did I do enough to point him to God? I think so. But I think more than these words, it was how our team interacted together...how we had fun, marveled at the land, and treated each other with kindness...that was what stuck out the most to Sergio, something he voiced more than once. I am finding that being a good listener is the key to witnessing - something Jesus taught, and that if our team had not been an example of Christian community, nothing I said would have had any weight. You´ve got to live the call.
Prayer Requests: That the Lord will empower us and lead us without fear into the Amazonas on Saturday, where we will live for a month.
That we will not be afraid when we encounter spiritual warfare, and that we will be bold in claiming the victory of Christ.
Praises - We were meant for an 8 month term, and already our team is beginning to bear even greater fruit in terms of unity, the desire to serve, and becoming completely immersed and present in Venezuela.
by Brett Klingenberg
Carefully we walked barefoot through the shallows, one eye on our guide, Sergio, and another on the slippery rock below. As we neared the top of the falls, our senses were filled with the beauty of the Great Savanna - an immense sea of rolling green hills, valleys of scattered palm trees, and the ocasional glimpse of the mystical tepuy´s – gigantic flat topped mountains found nowhere else on earth.
We were only on the first leg of our two day tour of the Great Savanna, located in southern Venezuela, and already I was beginning to understand why the local town of 17,000 had a Hindu congregation, Buddist and Mormon temple, and several UFO sightings...this place brings out the spiritual side of life.
The next day as Sergio and I sat visiting underneath another perfect waterfall, I in my swimsuit and he in his underwear, he began to speak about how his entire family is Christian, but he is not. When I asked why, he explained that he likes to take the best of all religions, combine them, and seek to live a good life. He said he likes Buddism and Christianity, and reads the Bible a lot. He said he believes in forgiveness, and that being able to forgive the people who hurt you is the path to a fulfilling life. I couldn´t disagree. Then he said that it´s not just what you know about faith, it´s also about feeling it. "And living it," I added. I told him about my desire not only to know Jesus, but live out his commands and teachings. I mentioned how some of the men of the Mennonite Church had refused to go into the military because they desired to live out Jesus words to love without exception, and how some of them were persecuted and even killed in prison; how my own father had refused to fight in Vietnam and instead chose to serve in a hospital. I also mentioned my calling to be a pastor and how this was leading my wife and I to attend seminary and follow the Lord´s call wherever it may be. Then we changed the subject.
Did I evangelize? Did I do enough to point him to God? I think so. But I think more than these words, it was how our team interacted together...how we had fun, marveled at the land, and treated each other with kindness...that was what stuck out the most to Sergio, something he voiced more than once. I am finding that being a good listener is the key to witnessing - something Jesus taught, and that if our team had not been an example of Christian community, nothing I said would have had any weight. You´ve got to live the call.
Prayer Requests: That the Lord will empower us and lead us without fear into the Amazonas on Saturday, where we will live for a month.
That we will not be afraid when we encounter spiritual warfare, and that we will be bold in claiming the victory of Christ.
Praises - We were meant for an 8 month term, and already our team is beginning to bear even greater fruit in terms of unity, the desire to serve, and becoming completely immersed and present in Venezuela.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Good morning America!
Its almost nine in the morning in Charallave and already I'm sweating and frankly, smell bad. The days and nights are pretty much always incredibly hot but we are now entering the rainy season so now things are wet and hot. Somehow the rain does not cool the temperature and the heat doesn't dry anything. I did laundry yesterday and now have clean clothes, unfortunately none of them are dry and my host mother said I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow. Might as well wear dirty ones, I'm going to sweat through them anyway.
My team returned to Charallave last saturday from niños de la luz. It was incredibly hard to leave these boys with whom we had built relationships and will always have a foothold in our hearts. The boys come from various situations: most have parents, only their parents cannot support them, they do not know where their parents are, the parents have drug or alcohol addictions or missing mental facilities. The boys have been in and out of group homes and the streets of Caracas. As a result, a few do not know how to read or even know their alphabet. The farm on which niños is located has a small school for the boys who are too far behind to go to real school, but there is no teacher. In our six weeks at the farm, we taught school. Praise God! One boy, who struggles with retaining information and is 11, now knows his alaphabet and simple math and substraction! Another boy, can read simple sentences! We saw incredible growth in these boys while we were there, but it took a lot of time, perseverance and pouring into these boys. Pray for a teacher for these boys. Unfortunately, the host parents are either exhausted from the time they have dedicated to these kids or are fairly new and untrained. So a lot of things fall between the cracks of complete exhaustion and inexperience. All I want for those boys, is that they would be able to just be boys but circumstances have not allowed that. Niños de la Luz is an awesome ministry but they need help. There are three houses: El Camino, Manatial and Esperanza. Pray for them. There are three sets of host parents (called uncles and aunts by the kids): Omar and Josephina, Jose and Mirtha, and Soltela. Pray for rejuvenation of their bodies and minds. Also please pray for more staff. At one time there used to be six sets of aunts and uncles, that would rotate when one set needed time off. Please pray for them, your brothers and sisters in christ.
Only through the love of God above,
Alyse Haldeman
Praises:
- For the time we spent with the boys at the farm. For what we learned and what we taught them.
Prayer requests:
- For the needs of Niños de la Luz
-We are leaving for Brazil this coming monday to renew our visas. Then at the end of May until the beginning of July, we are going to be in the Amazonas. Please pray that God will prepare the way for us and go before us. Especially with all the fish (including eyes and heads), yuca (otherwise known as yucka), monkey brain and snake (don't worry, I think these were jokes) that we are going to eat.
Its almost nine in the morning in Charallave and already I'm sweating and frankly, smell bad. The days and nights are pretty much always incredibly hot but we are now entering the rainy season so now things are wet and hot. Somehow the rain does not cool the temperature and the heat doesn't dry anything. I did laundry yesterday and now have clean clothes, unfortunately none of them are dry and my host mother said I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow. Might as well wear dirty ones, I'm going to sweat through them anyway.
My team returned to Charallave last saturday from niños de la luz. It was incredibly hard to leave these boys with whom we had built relationships and will always have a foothold in our hearts. The boys come from various situations: most have parents, only their parents cannot support them, they do not know where their parents are, the parents have drug or alcohol addictions or missing mental facilities. The boys have been in and out of group homes and the streets of Caracas. As a result, a few do not know how to read or even know their alphabet. The farm on which niños is located has a small school for the boys who are too far behind to go to real school, but there is no teacher. In our six weeks at the farm, we taught school. Praise God! One boy, who struggles with retaining information and is 11, now knows his alaphabet and simple math and substraction! Another boy, can read simple sentences! We saw incredible growth in these boys while we were there, but it took a lot of time, perseverance and pouring into these boys. Pray for a teacher for these boys. Unfortunately, the host parents are either exhausted from the time they have dedicated to these kids or are fairly new and untrained. So a lot of things fall between the cracks of complete exhaustion and inexperience. All I want for those boys, is that they would be able to just be boys but circumstances have not allowed that. Niños de la Luz is an awesome ministry but they need help. There are three houses: El Camino, Manatial and Esperanza. Pray for them. There are three sets of host parents (called uncles and aunts by the kids): Omar and Josephina, Jose and Mirtha, and Soltela. Pray for rejuvenation of their bodies and minds. Also please pray for more staff. At one time there used to be six sets of aunts and uncles, that would rotate when one set needed time off. Please pray for them, your brothers and sisters in christ.
Only through the love of God above,
Alyse Haldeman
Praises:
- For the time we spent with the boys at the farm. For what we learned and what we taught them.
Prayer requests:
- For the needs of Niños de la Luz
-We are leaving for Brazil this coming monday to renew our visas. Then at the end of May until the beginning of July, we are going to be in the Amazonas. Please pray that God will prepare the way for us and go before us. Especially with all the fish (including eyes and heads), yuca (otherwise known as yucka), monkey brain and snake (don't worry, I think these were jokes) that we are going to eat.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
When a Park Bench is Your Bed
By Dani Rupp
As dusk set in over Plaza Altimira in Caracas, the neon green vest of a policeman caught my eye.
"Give me what's in your hand, " the policeman demanded to a young teenage street boy, dressed in raggedy clothes and no shoes.
"No," the fiesty boy responded, struggling to get away from the authorites. Despite his small size he held is own.
"Give it to me!" the policeman ordered again.
Again the boy refused, a wild, glazed look in his eyes.
The policeman grabbed the boy's hand tighter and the teen finally relented, giving up two small white pills. The boy, still agressive, walked angrily way, shouting threats and obsenities.
"Wow, he's usually not like that," one volunteer for Contactos de la Calle (Contacts in the Streets) sadly obsereved. "He's usually well mannered and calm, but tonight he's high."
This was my first encounter with a boy living on the streets of Caracas. Last Friday night Brett, Cassie and I had the opportunity to go out with Contactos de la Calle, an organization that pairs up with Niños de la Luz to help kids on the street. We me up with about ten Venezuelans and split into three groups to hit different parts of the city. After buying bread and pop to hand out to the kids, my group headed out. Besides the boy mentioned above, the plaza was mostly vacant of kids, as the presence of the police scared them away. We kept moving around and over the next hour or so we met up with mostly older teenage boys, talked, ate and prayed with them. It was eye opening to see where some of the boys we work with at Niños probably came from. After seeing kids on the street first hand I have a better idea of how to pray for the boys still living on the street and for the boys living at the farm.
Prayer Requests
* Niños de la Luz- for the boys living there and the staff, especially since they are short on help
* Contactos de la Calle- continued strength in their ministry and for males to volunteer to make going out at night safer
* Kids still on the street
* Our team as we leave Niños, prepare to renew our Visas in Brazil and then head to Amazonas
Praises
* Health and safety
* Connecting with kids and staff at Niños
* All the memories made the past 6 weeks at the farm
As dusk set in over Plaza Altimira in Caracas, the neon green vest of a policeman caught my eye.
"Give me what's in your hand, " the policeman demanded to a young teenage street boy, dressed in raggedy clothes and no shoes.
"No," the fiesty boy responded, struggling to get away from the authorites. Despite his small size he held is own.
"Give it to me!" the policeman ordered again.
Again the boy refused, a wild, glazed look in his eyes.
The policeman grabbed the boy's hand tighter and the teen finally relented, giving up two small white pills. The boy, still agressive, walked angrily way, shouting threats and obsenities.
"Wow, he's usually not like that," one volunteer for Contactos de la Calle (Contacts in the Streets) sadly obsereved. "He's usually well mannered and calm, but tonight he's high."
This was my first encounter with a boy living on the streets of Caracas. Last Friday night Brett, Cassie and I had the opportunity to go out with Contactos de la Calle, an organization that pairs up with Niños de la Luz to help kids on the street. We me up with about ten Venezuelans and split into three groups to hit different parts of the city. After buying bread and pop to hand out to the kids, my group headed out. Besides the boy mentioned above, the plaza was mostly vacant of kids, as the presence of the police scared them away. We kept moving around and over the next hour or so we met up with mostly older teenage boys, talked, ate and prayed with them. It was eye opening to see where some of the boys we work with at Niños probably came from. After seeing kids on the street first hand I have a better idea of how to pray for the boys still living on the street and for the boys living at the farm.
Prayer Requests
* Niños de la Luz- for the boys living there and the staff, especially since they are short on help
* Contactos de la Calle- continued strength in their ministry and for males to volunteer to make going out at night safer
* Kids still on the street
* Our team as we leave Niños, prepare to renew our Visas in Brazil and then head to Amazonas
Praises
* Health and safety
* Connecting with kids and staff at Niños
* All the memories made the past 6 weeks at the farm
Monday, April 14, 2008
Ninos de la Luz
Brothers Joseph (11), Matt (10), and Luke (7) who have lived at Ninos de la Luz for almost two years. (Names of the children have been changed for confidentiality purposes)
Jeremy helping learn the alphabet in the school.
Cassandra Klingenberg
4/14/08
Jeremy helping learn the alphabet in the school.
Cassandra Klingenberg
4/14/08
When we moved to Ninos de la Luz, we expected to be busy, but didn’t know with what. Within three days, we realized there was a need to teach at the Esculita, a school on the farm for the boys who are not yet ready to enter the school system. Only weeks before our arrival, the teacher of eight years left. We are serving as substitute teachers until they fill her position. Some of the boys can’t go to the public school because of behavior, learning disabilities, or being academically behind. I’ve been working especially hard with Joseph, age 11, who struggles with identifying numbers, colors, and letters. He’s slowly been progressing as we combine learning the numbers with BINGO, UNO, and flash cards.
Joseph’s dream is to be a pastor one day. Before bed each night, he asks Brett and I to pray for him and his little brother, Luke (7). If we forget, or come in late, he’ll whistle quietly until we come into their room. I’ve never seen a young boy so hungry to pray, sing, and learn scripture. We feel the presence of the Lord is upon him, and believe one day he will be called to be a pastor.
Praises:
-The relationships we have been able to build with the boys
-We have successfully cleaned over 20,000 eggs in the last 3 weeks!
Prayer requests:
-Discernment as we will need to leave the country in a month to renew our passports again.
-Continued energy and strength as we pour into the lives of the boys
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Vigilia
Jeremy Spangler
April 1, 2008
Vigilia. What does that mean? Over the months that we have been here, I have learned quite a bit about this word. It is Spanish for wakefulness or vigilance. In our first month here, I had a roommate named Johnny. Johnny said this word to me one evening in a conversation not long after we got here, and I did not know what it was, so I looked it up. I was still confused as to what he was getting at, and over the next month with him I saw what he meant. Johnny works as a plumber with long hours. He would spend the night in the upper room of the church next to our house and he told me he would read and pray until about midnight, then sleep for about three hours and get up and read and pray then go to work at five.
The night of Thursday, April 28, about 120 people from the Shalom Congregation gathered in the front yard Brother Carlos in La Mata, not far from central Charallave to have what was called La Gran Vigilia: Adoremos al Rey (The Great Vigilance: We adore the King). We stayed up through the night praying and worshipping and having theatre and singing contests. It was a lot of loud music, testifying, and passion, all for the King, all night long. The reason for a vigilia on this night was because it is ‘the night’ that Jesus prayed and sought the guidance of God before he was crucified and in the same way we adored the King and sought his guidance through the night.
The one thing I saw through the whole night was love. Love for our King and love for each other, which represents all the more loving our King. It did not matter how someone sang, acted, performed, or anything else, it was known they did it because they loved the King and wanted to adore Him.
The next day I asked Pastor Ceferino about noise annoying the neighbors and he responded, “Ni importa, están acostumbrado.” Which mainly means it does not matter, they are used to it. It is not unusual here for parties to have extremely loud music, which can be heard for blocks and can go for hours into the night. Though we have been here for the time we have, it does not mean that we are used to it though.
April 1, 2008
Vigilia. What does that mean? Over the months that we have been here, I have learned quite a bit about this word. It is Spanish for wakefulness or vigilance. In our first month here, I had a roommate named Johnny. Johnny said this word to me one evening in a conversation not long after we got here, and I did not know what it was, so I looked it up. I was still confused as to what he was getting at, and over the next month with him I saw what he meant. Johnny works as a plumber with long hours. He would spend the night in the upper room of the church next to our house and he told me he would read and pray until about midnight, then sleep for about three hours and get up and read and pray then go to work at five.
The night of Thursday, April 28, about 120 people from the Shalom Congregation gathered in the front yard Brother Carlos in La Mata, not far from central Charallave to have what was called La Gran Vigilia: Adoremos al Rey (The Great Vigilance: We adore the King). We stayed up through the night praying and worshipping and having theatre and singing contests. It was a lot of loud music, testifying, and passion, all for the King, all night long. The reason for a vigilia on this night was because it is ‘the night’ that Jesus prayed and sought the guidance of God before he was crucified and in the same way we adored the King and sought his guidance through the night.
The one thing I saw through the whole night was love. Love for our King and love for each other, which represents all the more loving our King. It did not matter how someone sang, acted, performed, or anything else, it was known they did it because they loved the King and wanted to adore Him.
The next day I asked Pastor Ceferino about noise annoying the neighbors and he responded, “Ni importa, están acostumbrado.” Which mainly means it does not matter, they are used to it. It is not unusual here for parties to have extremely loud music, which can be heard for blocks and can go for hours into the night. Though we have been here for the time we have, it does not mean that we are used to it though.
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