I have been away the last couple of weekends at camps for our Children’s Club leaders.

Last weekend, I met a remarkable pastor who partly supports himself by growing rice, the staple crop of the area we were visiting.

This is part of the conversation I had with him:

Me: So do you own land?

Pastor: No, I rent the land I farm. I used to have 2 hectares but I started sending my children to school and one year I didn’t have the money to pay the school fees so I sold my land. I decided I was going to get my children an education. I didn’t get one. My parents were of the generation who said, ‘We didn’t get an education and we’re still alive,’ so I didn’t go to school. I started my education when I started walking in the paths of the Lord. I did primary and secondary with my wife, as an adult. But I made sure my eight children got to study. So that’s why I don’t have land.

I’m sorry to have to report that my stylish new flip-flops have not held up to the pressure of a trip to the coast.

For flip-flops to be of any use on the coast, you have to be able to wear them from 6 in the morning to 11 at night and by about the second day of our camp, my right foot was cut to pieces. If my colleague hadn’t been able to lend me a pair of crocs, I don’t know what I would have done.

So it’s back to these faithful friends:

A little gem from this week’s Semana magazine:

There has been a pothole in a road in a certain neighbourhood of Bogotá for 15 YEARS.

The local people marked the occasion with cake.

On our way to and from the venue for our camp, we passed this impressive pile of junk.

“That’s a pile of junk here but it would be a work of art in a gallery in Europe,” I said.

We asked the owner if we could take a photo of his junk pile and he agreed, but, interestingly, he didn’t want to be in it himself.

In the place where we held our camp, there was a beauty salon with a painting on the wall.

We were walking back to the pastor’s house, behind some of our leaders, when I overheard one of them say, “Look, that’s exactly like Fiona.” She turned round to see me and nearly died of embarrassment.

She was pointing at this painting. What do you think?

Sorry for the silence; thank you for noticing it!

Last weekend we travelled to quite a remote area on the Coast to hold a camp for our Children’s Club leaders in that area. In fact, it was so remote, it was the end of the road. As someone told me, there was nothing else in one direction but the jungle and a few indigenous people.

About 70 leaders came to hear talks on The Lord’s Prayer (have you ever thought what “Hallowed be your name” actually means?) as well as to receive training in activities they can implement with the children in their Club.

One of the activities was a “model lesson”, in which I taught 5 adorable children aged 4 to 10 one of our lessons while the 70 leaders took notes. I enjoyed it, although it did remind me of the dreaded “crit lesson” from my teaching training.

The class ended with me asking the children what we could ask Jesus for and one of the four-year-olds, a little girl, looked at me with big, round eyes, and said, questioningly: “Amen?”