Some Final Thoughts (part 1)

Howdy folks, Josh here with some final thoughts as Krista and I have now finished our time with the SEED learning tour and are preparing to return to the States in a couple of days. Krista will post at some point as well.

To put it simply, SEED was easily my favorite part of this trip. We had a very enriching, challenging, and in a lot of ways unique experience over the past week. 16 people made up the learning tour delegation, and we were joined by 4 SEEDers and 2 SEED administrative-type people. We arrived Wednesday evening at the MCC office in downtown Bogota, introduced ourselves to the group, who quickly became good friends of ours, had some pizza, and then we were off to our host family's house. On Thursday, we had a number of presentations about the SEED program and and their various projects. It was a very info-heavy day, but a great intro to both Colombian context and the context of SEED work in Colombia as well. This prepared us to some extent for our trip to Cazuca on Friday, a very poor barrio just outside of Bogota in Soacha, where two of the SEEDers work. We experienced a little bit of what the SEEDers do there firsthand, as well as seeing some of the more extreme poverty present in Colombia. We spent the night in Cazuca, visited another project in the morning, and then headed to northern Bogota to contrast that poverty with the more wealthy side of town. We ate at a nice restaurant and walked around Usaquen, one of the richer barrios in Bogota, and then reflected on the differences we felt and experienced in each place. On Sunday, we split into groups to visit three different churches, visiting with the respective pastors to talk about their work with peace in Colombia. We spent the afternoon in downtown Bogota, and then went to a wonderful dinner at a restaurant owned by a friend of the one of the SEEDers from Bogota. On Monday, we heard presentations from Mencoldes and Justapaz, both partners with MCC Colombia who also work with SEED. These were very informative and challenging presentations as well. Tuesday evening, we had dinner together, some final singing time, and then said goodbye to both the SEEDers who hosted us here in Bogota as well as the rest of the learning tour, who left for the coast this morning.

So that is a very brief overview of our time with the learning tour. Krista and I will both be posting again on more specific pieces of the tour, but I wanted to give a general overview of our time there. So yes, more specifics to come, and know that we very much enjoyed our time there, though at times it was both physically and mentally exhausting. For now, ciao!~

-Josh