Tomorrow, at the crack of dawn, I'll leave home and head for Malaga airport for the first leg of my trip to Colombia. Yes, I'm heading down to South America, but first I'll need to head north, as I catch a domestic flight from Malaga to Madrid. After I've changed terminals and waited a few hours in Madrid airport, my second flight will leave around lunch time. This transatlantic flight will be the longest leg of the journey; it takes ten and half hours to cross the North Atlantic Ocean and get from Spain to Colombia. After another three hours hanging around in Bogotá airport, I'll leave the capital of Colombia and take a short flight northwards to the city of Bucaramanga, which is not far from the border with Venezuela. There I'll meet up with a friend who'll have just arrived after a similar trip from Switzerland; our hosts will meet us and take us to the Youth with a Mission training centre in Bucaramanga. By the time we arrive at our destination, although the time difference will mean I'm arriving on the same date that I left, it will actually be exactly twenty four hours after I left home.
The next two days, 6th and 7th March, are set aside for meetings with the core leadership team (CLT) of the international KKI ministry. We're a group of five people and our task will be to prepare the ground and finalise the schedule before the arrival of the rest of the KKI international leadership team (ILT.) From 8th - 14th March, the ILT will be meeting together to work on a process of leadership restructuring, as well as hearing regional reports and taking time to to pray together, listening to what is on God's heart for our international ministry in the years ahead. Those six days of meetings with the ILT will be held in a retreat centre that's about an hour outside the city of Bucaramanga, in a setting of natural beauty that will be conducive to our times of prayer, worship and seeking the Lord. (At least, we hope so; there's also a possibility of rain and thunderstorms at that time of year.)
Our stay in Colombia will also be an opportunity for us to connect with current and emerging KKI leaders from Colombia and Venezuela. Some of these people grew up and were discipled in King's Kids Colombia, ten or twenty years ago. Now with families of their own, they are dedicating their lives to serving, discipling and mobilising the young people and families of their nation.
When the ILT meetings come to an end, I'll be staying on an extra two days in the Bucaramanga region. A busy season lies ahead for me when I get back to Spain, and so I felt it was a good idea to take a couple of days holiday in that beautiful part of Colombia before I head back to Europe again.
Thank you for your prayers as I travel and take part in this intensive week of leadership meetings.
