Teaching – colombiatotheworld

The La Viña Bolivia conference part 1

I honestly laughed when Leo told me that the Bolivian pastors were asking us to lead their national conference. They are all dear friends, so they know that we’re not pastors (and at the time of the conference we were no longer even on staff at a church).

But, nonetheless, they felt like we were the people that their people needed to hear from.

The theme of the conference? Next Generation.

As we were preparing, I felt strongly that we wanted everything we did to be in a “workshop” model… where there would be time to process the different points we felt led to bring up.

And after all the preparing, only one of the messages went the way we planned, the very last message on Sunday. All of the other ones changed course a bit, but were exactly what was needed.

Friday night, we shared our testimony and talked about how the Kingdom is a family. Most of the people there came with at least one family member, so we encouraged them to sit together and talk about different points.

At the end, we asked everyone to speak blessing over their family members. It was powerful to look around the room and see people speaking forgiveness, life, hope, healing and love. I truly believe that the Lord did something new in many of the families that night!

Saturday, Leo and I switched off teaching in the morning. He led worship and then taught about the worship values and how we write music for our communities, and I taught the kids!

There were a total of about 10 school-age kiddos at the conference, and we wanted to make sure that they felt included. So, after working with them in the morning, they were able to lead worship for the afternoon session.

We wanted to model what it was like to teach and let the littles lead. It was beautiful to watch the congregation respond with all their hearts during the worship time!

The kids did a phenomenal job, and, like always, I made the person running sound work hard with trying to control/boost the volume.

Saturday evening, we went way out of the box with a Worship in the Round. We asked the different songwriter/worship leaders to prepare 2-3 songs that they had written for congregational worship, and we put all the chairs in a semi-circle around, with the mics on the floor. We had 3 guitars, 3 mics, a simplified kit and a djembe.

We even placed art supplies and paper on tables behind the chairs for people to be able to draw or write as they experienced the Holy Spirit.

We knew it would be something totally different for everyone, and it took a few songs for people to really engage, but once they did, it was amazing!

Worship was just so beautiful! God is really breathing on a few of the songs, and the response from everyone was encouraging for the worship leaders.

I had planned a sermon for after the worship, but felt strongly that we needed to open up the floor for anyone to share what they were experiencing.

People came up to show their pictures, shared things that the Lord had laid on their hearts, one woman shared a drawing that her daughter had made for her, another asked for forgiveness… people kept coming to the mic sharing their hearts, and it was a true picture of “Everyone gets to play”.

Then, Kimber had the idea of doing ministry time with all the lights out except for the lights coming from the cross. It was perfect.

We encouraged people to not only come forward, but to pray for those around them. It lasted such a long time, and again, people were just so hungry for more of the Holy Spirit!

I really don’t want to forget that night or the moments that happened during the whole conference; the deep conversations, the way everyone loved on Elias, the absolute dependence on Jesus for strength and energy (the sleeping situation wasn’t ideal), and how we worked hard and pushed each other towards excellence.

At the end of the conference, it was obvious why we were chosen for this theme, this time. There is something new brewing in the La Viña churches in Bolivia, and we are so grateful to have played a part in what the Lord is doing.

La Viña Cochabamba

There is a legend from Cochabamba about the women.. the “Cochabambinas”. When a big war required all of the men to leave to fight, the women stood their ground and stopped invading troops from taking the city. They are strong, powerful, capable women.

And that translates into the church! The women who serve, preach and minister are amazing. And Esther leads the way!

I have seen a lot of couples minister in my years of traveling and ministry, and Pastor Remberto and his wife Esther are a power couple. They work so hard, serving and giving everything to their flock.

We were blessed to learn from them, spending time with them ministering side by side.

They have recently been pouring into a young group of musicians. Remberto has become like a father to them, and you can see how they respect and love him.

And while Remberto is an incredible pastor, he didn’t know how to help the team grow musically, or how to help the church’s sound be more appealing.

So, that’s where we came in.

We did worship/music/sound workshops, and Leo helped completely re-wire the sound, hanging the speakers and new sound treatments.

And when I say “we”, it was Leo who designed the speaker stands and the sound treatments, and then he found someone who could do the metal-work and fabricate everything from simple aluminum. And when it came time to putting the foam inside the aluminum frames and hot-glue the fabric to everything… that was me. Then the guys measured and drilled holes in the cement wall to hang all 6 sound treatments

We spent a LOT of time with the team… playing music, goofing off, eating delicious food, and sharing life. It was an instant connection! Even Elias loved getting to church because he knew his friends would be there!

Our devotion times with the team were equally as wonderful. We spent time talking about the Vineyard worship values, reading the Word in the Lectio Divino style, and praying for one another. In one of our sessions, Pastor Remberto started singing out “Ven con tu fuego”. I felt strongly that the Lord was giving us a new song, so we started singing and talking through what it looks like for God to come with His fire.

After about 15 minutes, we had the skeleton of a song!

The team was so excited because they had never written a song before!

We kept working on it, and Remberto was able to translate the song into Quechua, his heart language! When we introduced it at church the following weekend, it was a HIT! We could feel the Spirit all over it!!!

A new experience for me was preaching in Spanish! (As a Baptist pastor’s daughter, I grew up with the idea that I need to be ready to preach, pray or die at a moments notice… I’ve always loved to preach, but had never shared more than a testimony in Spanish… so this was totally new!)

I was honored to preach 2 weeks in a row, and as I was preparing, I felt strongly that the Lord wanted me to go with Ephesians chapter 2.

There is spiritual oppression in Bolivia, but a LOT in Cochabamba. There are practices that would shock you if I wrote about them, and we could feel oppression in the air at times. The churches can even be oppressive, which is why La Viña is so counter-cultural… but that’s for another post.

As I was preaching about what it means to be fully accepted sons and daughters, I could see God touching hearts. I ended the sermon reading through Psalm 139, and could hear people crying as they were receiving grace and forgiveness.

Ministry time was powerful. Whole families were coming up for prayer. Even Elias got in on the action, with helping Kim pray for people. He LOVED it.

We are still just so grateful that we were able to give out of our strengths to this beautiful place. The conversations we had were sometimes silly, sometimes deep, and always honest. We hold everyone there in such high regard; and we are just so excited to see how the church keeps growing, both in width and depth. They are ready.

On finding your voice

This past year, I’ve ended my Wednesday night teaching schedule at the house of a fun young couple who inherited an incredible grand piano from a relative. They have the most beautiful space for it in their living room with 2-floor ceiling. There is a stunning chandelier that hangs from the ceiling above, and the husband even painted an incredible 10 ft x 8 ft abstract painting to hang on the wall beside it. He had to stretch the canvas himself and everything!

This couple is incredibly talented.

And, upon inheriting their piano, they decided to take lessons. The husband had taken lessons as a child, but nothing “stuck”, and the wife is a viola player.

Our first lesson, par for course, we went over the basics… where the notes are on the piano, where they are on the staff, and we had fun improvising (getting the fingers all moving!).

As the weeks went on, they grew incredibly in their abilities to where the husband could expertly play Moonlight Sonata, and the wife could play Vietnamese songs from her childhood with such skill!

But, one week the conversation changed from piano to voice. Both of them work in public speaking, and they thought that taking voice lessons would help them develop stamina and learn vocal health.

During the conversation, the wife shared that in elementary school, she had auditioned for the choir. The students were all scored based on how well they could sing, and she got the lowest points possible.

It scarred her so deeply that she decided to never sing again…. not in the shower, not in the car, not even humming. Never.

I can’t imagine that!

Now, when I start with a new student, I let them in on how I work: our lesson is a safe space to make mistakes, to try something new and hard, and to keep trying!

And, the truth I speak to my nervous voice students is this:

Everyone can sing, they just have to find the right song in the right key.

So many people compare themselves to singers on the radio (who, lets be honest… are processed and auto-tuned).

My goal is to help everyone find their voice, and to help them sing in a healthy way so that they can sing for their whole life.

So, I let my student in on all my thoughts, and we started with finding her range.

She could sing over an octave, all on pitch! For someone who has NEVER sung, I was super impressed with her!

Once we got the initial jitters out of the way, and with even more encouragement from her husband, she sang “You are my sunshine” perfectly.

It was so beautiful!

For Christmas? She is singing “Mary did you know”, and the sound that comes out of her is absolutely stunning. I get goosebumps every time!

I am just so blessed and honored to be a part of the story of this amazing woman finding her singing voice.

So, what about you?

Have you ever been told you couldn’t do something and you actually never tried again?

What would it feel like if you actually took a chance?