Well, the school year is coming to a close. Steve was able to teach a psychology unit to the juniors and seniors. The content of the unit contained information about the different fields of psychology and how to evaluate secular psychology from a Christian perspective. The unit seemed to go rather well; he enjoyed teaching the unit and there were some good discussions that resulted from the lessons.

At the end of the week, we will go with our 11^th graders on a service trip to Villavicencio, which is about 135km Southeast of Bogotá at the base of the other side of the mountain, to serve local Christian schools in that town. We will be going to 4 schools, providing professional development to the teachers, teaching English to students and teachers and leading various day camps activities. Steve will be in charge of a group of students who will be leading games and activities and Marlayna will be with a group in charge of teaching English through science activities. Each group will share the gospel as it pertains to the activities. We are hoping to provide at least 30 hours of service for the 11^th graders over the 5 days.

We are looking forward to returning to the States for the summer and would like to schedule time with as many of you as possible. If you are interested in having us share what God has been doing here in Colombia with your friends, family, or church, we would love to do that, whether it be a social event or through an individual conversation.  Please contact us and let us know some dates you are available if would like to get together with us in the month of June. 

There are also plenty of positions still open at the school for next school year, http://eca.edu.co/get-involved/potential-teachers/current-needs. If you are interested in teaching or serving in Colombia, at ECA, please let us know and we will help get you signed up to come! We would love to have you come serve along with us!

"When was the last time you did something for the first time?"
5th Grade Family Retreat

Right around the time we were working through Marlayna's appendicitis, Steve received an invitation to be the guest speaker at a family retreat that some of the 5th grade parents were putting together. The parents wanted to do this retreat in response to the difficult time they and their children had at the 5th/6th grade retreat that ECA hosted. The 5th/6th grade retreat was the first time many of the parents had ever let their children spend the night away from home. A few parents had some difficulty letting their chicks out of the nest for a day, and as it turned out, the kids didn't seem to know how to handle their new-found freedom. We were told that the parents wanted Steve to give one workshop with the parents, and if we wanted to, another workshop with the children. After collaborating with the 5th grade teacher, middle school principal, and middle school chaplain, we decided to do a workshop on how parents can help their child transition from late childhood to adolescence. We (Steve & Marlayna) played around with some themes to do a workshop with the kids, but we didn't have a concrete plan or even certainty that we would be doing anything with the kids.


The retreat took place this past weekend, from Sunday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon. Being that this is Colombia, the schedule of the retreat was put together a day at a time each morning. In an attempt to have the most families participate in the workshops because some of them were not staying for the entire time, some coming late and other leaving early, it was decided around lunch time on Monday that we would do workshops for the kids and the parents later that afternoon. Fortunately, the 5th grade teacher had not left yet, so we were able to solidify a plan with the kids. Marlayna and Steve talked with the kids about the truth that if we claim to love God (which they all did) then we need to also love our neighbor: including others, meeting the needs of others, correcting and confronting others, and asking for forgiveness. The 5th grade class has been struggling with friendship and excluding others from activities. As a part of the workshop, we created real life scenarios and then discussed with them how each person's choices impacted everyone else, how we naturally blame others and deny our sin, and how to forgive one another. We then had the kids draw a picture or write about how the choices in the scenario could have been different so that each person would have shown love to their neighbor. We found out after the parent workshop, that the parents believed the problem of exclusion to be one of the major issues amongst the students. We praise God for the opportunity to be used by him to speak into the lives of the kids on issues that directly apply to their everyday life at ECA.


The parent workshop that Steve gave at the retreat was based on a number of the other parent workshops he had done early in the school year, primarily from workshops on How to Help Your Child Overcome the Stress in Their Life and another on the book Shepharding Your Child's Heart. If you have any interest learning more about or even receiving the powerpoint & notes of these workshops, feel free to email us: snmpence@gmail.com. We give Christ the praise for the encouragement we received and we ask that you pray with us for the families from the retreat, that they will continue to become a brighter reflection of Christ to the world and to one another.


On a side note, the retreat was a wonderful, refreshing cultural experience. The theme of the parent retreat came to life for us: it was the first time Steve was the guest speaker for a retreat, it was the first time Marlayna or Steve had ever sung Karaoke, it was the first time a scavenger hunt involved catching a live chicken, and it was the first time we tried to catch live fish with our bare hands in a swimming pool. We certainly hope we are given another opportunity like this to share in fellowship with other Christian Colombian families. You can see some pictures from the retreat on the "Ministry Pictures" page.

Appendicitis in Colombia

While preparing to come to Colombia, one of our big concerns was about the health care available to us. During our visit, our concerns were put to rest as we learned that we would receive comparable health care to what we were used to in the States. Throughout our time raising our support team, health care questions were common questions we received, right after whether or not it was safe to come here with the guerrilla warfare. We had several concerned ladies ask if we were bringing our infant daughter due to safety and health related concerns. We assured those we spoke with that we had looked into the health care here in Bogota and that we felt comfortable with the care we would receive.  This month, we learned more about the health care system here in Bogota as we utilized different aspect of the hospital care.

To hopefully answer many of the questions around this event, I will start from the beginning.

Monday afternoon, I (Marlayna) started feeling ill with an upset stomach. I thought it was food I had eaten for lunch was not agreeing with me. I left school early because I didn’t think I would make it through the rest of the day.  I made it home just in time to throw up three times in three hours with a remaining upset stomach.  At this point, I still wasn’t thinking anything about of. Tuesday afternoon,  I started to have more intense abdominal pain, starting on the right side and then spreading to the rest of the abdomen.  Now we were starting to wonder what illness I have: a parasite? A virus? Or just the flu?  I made it a point to get in touch with our school nurse the next day, Wednesday.  Wednesday the pain remained, about the same intensity, so she came to me at the apartment.  After basic triage, questions, and the rebound test to test for appendicitis (negative result), she thought I had a virus that was going around that has similar symptoms to appendicitis. The rebound test is when you push on the appendix area and when you release from the press, there should be greater pain than while pressing down.  She gave me some medication but also told me that if the pain increases and localizes to the right side to go to the hospital in the morning to get it checked out. 

As the evening progressed, the pain did localize but not intensify and the rebound test was still negative.  Steve started to do research and decided that we were going to the hospital in the morning no matter what. Period. No discussion. Because “there are too many things it can be that are fatal; we’re going.”

We found a sitter for the ‘morning’ for Elleazah and a helper at school to be our translator at the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 8:15 and by 9:15 I had been through the hospital triage and was being seen by the first doctor. Again the rebound test was negative and I did not show all the normal signs of appendicitis. But, because I had such sharp pain on the right side he ordered for me to have a scan of my abdomen.  But, I was dehydrated and needed to be more hydrated for the test. So I spent the next 3 hours hooked to an IV getting fluids. At 12:15 I had the scan, which turned out to be like an ultrasound and the man said that it was in fact appendicitis. I was still in denial because I didn’t think I had all the symptoms for appendicitis and, furthermore,  I don’t remember the doctors using an ultrasound machine to diagnose my sister with appendicitis when she had it while in college.  Did they really diagnose me correctly? I didn’t want to have surgery unless necessary.  I asked  as many questions I could think of to make sure they were confident that it was appendicitis and not a virus or something else that would be a less invasive ‘fix.’

We were then in the phase called: waiting. The original doctor needed to be notified of the results and a surgeon needed to be contacted.  Nothing seemed to happen quickly. Steve updated our sitter of the situation and they were willing to keep her into the evening.  Our school nurse had called up to check on us and when she found out the news she let people know at the school to 1. Start praying for us, 2. Help us get the extra help we would need.  For example, one lady at school who had often asked to watch Elleazah, even overnight if needed, was notified of the situation and she was willing to alter her evening plans to watch Elleazah that night so Steve could stay with me as much as possible.  Another lady offered to make a meal and help around the apartment since my sister was scheduled to visit for spring break week.  Steve then made a trip home (about 20- 30 minutes by public transportation) to get Elleazah’s things ready for her first sleepover and get other things together we would need for the next couple days.

Steve was back at the hospital by 6 that evening.  I had just met my surgeon, a wonderful older man who spoke some English. He told me he was going to do a laparoscopic surgery, which is the method my sister had, so the news of a similar surgery was comforting. He even told me, reminded me, that “God is in control, He knows.” Oh how comforting it was to hear those words come from his mouth.

By 7:15 I was being moved to the surgical area of the hospital.  We waited for another half hour for the operation room to open and get prepped for me.  I went in shortly before 8pm. 

In the OR, the anesthesiologist told me that I was going to have local anesthesia, meaning I was going to be awake for the surgery (I actually preferred this)! I was thankful they had pretty good English. They gave me a shot in the back, similar to an epidural, though I don’t remember my epidural hurting so much when I received it for Elleazah… maybe because the induced contractions hurt SOOOOO much more than the epidural ‘prick.’ Anyway, the drug seemed a lot stronger than the epidural dosage and they continued to angle my body in different directions so gravity would pull the drug where I needed more numbing. For the most part, my feet were higher than my head so I would be numb up to my mid chest. Though I felt like my breathing was restricted, I could see my chest rising normally as I breathed normally. By 8:25 I was numb and they started the surgery. They put a sheet up so I couldn’t see all they were doing (bummer- though I might have been really freaked out seeing it all). But an anesthesiologist sat next to my head so I could tell him if I was uncomfortable. A clock was just behind him so I was counting the minutes until it was done!  The only things I felt was my belly button being tugged at as they were making the incision putting in the tools (maybe)  and then the pressure of them inflating my abdomen with air so he had space to work. The air added pressure to my upper chest, making it hurt to breath. When I told the anesthesiologist this, he gave me a shot of pain meds… great more medication. Well, the surgery lasted until 8:41 when I was all done getting my stitches.  They moved me out to the recovery room where I was supposed to be for a couple hours. Steve came in to visit after about 30 minutes after I asked 3 times to see him. When Steve came in he told me that the doctor had said that my appendix had broken and that he did his best to clean me out. I was going to be in the hospital for a minimum of 3-4 days due to the inflection.  At this point, I was so glad Steve  insisted  we go to the hospital to get it checked out.

The infection caused me to have a high fever the first 36 hours.  I was on antibiotics and pain medication, which I started to have trouble with (migraines and nausea) so they switched me to strong Tylenol. I was glad for this switch because I knew that was what I had after my knee surgery  11 years ago.

Once out of the recovery room (which wasn’t until the next afternoon due to the crowded hospital), I was moved to a regular room, which was similar to a room we were in while in the States after having Elleazah. The accommodations were very comparable.  The nurses were nice, talking slowly in Spanish and using words I knew. One nurse even tried to teach me some more vocabulary, which I appreciated.

Overall, we were very pleased with the care we received. The only negative would be the amount of time we waited to have the surgery after we found out it was in fact appendicitis. After all, we think my appendix broke sometime between the scan and the surgery. 

It was really neat to see God working out the details of those five days. Prayers were being answered and we are so thankful for our prayer warriors.

I think my parents were especially thankful my sister was coming to visit me. She was able to send them more detailed information about my condition faster than Steve. Though our plans for her visit changed due to my surgery, it was nice to see her and have her part of my recovery time.

Holy week reflection

This past week has been Holy week here in Bogota. Many families from the city leave to go on vacation; many families that remain make their trips to Mass for their religious obligations. Church buildings that I thought were no longer in use are now rather busy with worshippers and people selling candles just outside the doors. It is sad to see many trying to earn their way into God’s good graces by being good and completing tasks. And yet, when reflecting on our own lives, it is not too difficult for us to find areas where we can be just like the Pharisees in doing good things with the wrong motives. What a refining processes we are in but we are thankful that it is through God’s grace we are saved and not from any of our own works that we gain favor with God. This past week, as a family, we have been reading through parts of the Gospels that make up Jesus' last week. How thankful we are for Christ’s sacrifice on the cross so that we may have a personal relationship with God.

Activities in the High School

We just got back from the high school retreat, the theme: honoring one another. We about just over 50 students attend the retreat along with the small group leaders of each grade. We had four sessions followed by small group discussion. Due to the lower turnout of students attending the retreat, the small groups were a bit smaller than usual which resulted in honest, heartfelt discussion that were fruitful and profitable.- praise God.

Currently during lunch time, there is a soccer tournament taking place between each of the high school grade levels plus a staff team. Marlayna surprised the students by being able to hold her own with the best of them out there. The surprise may have come from not advertising her years of playing soccer growing up, nor did she start out playing with the teams at lunch due to discipleship scheduling conflicts. It almost appeared that the staff had a ‘ringer’ on the team. We have enjoyed playing together despite the different skill levels.

We recently celebrated a day called ‘Dia de Idioma’ meaning day of the language. Really, it was a day of celebrating the culture. At school, each grade, and a group of staff learned a cultural dance that they performed for the parents and other students. Steve was part of the dance because they needed males to participate.  All those participating in the dances got all dressed up in traditional outfits to go along with the dance.  It was a fun day.

Parent Workshops

Ever since my training in graduate school, I have desired to do parent workshops. Parents have so much more influence over their children than teachers, and so I believe the greatest potential toward influencing children is through training parents, especially training from a Biblical worldview. ECA has some structures in place for parent workshops, in that it is required for parents to go to at least one workshop each year. I have been very encouraged by ECA's desire to provide parent workshops and have me expand what they have been doing.

So far this school year, I have had the blessed opportunity to do 3 workshops for parents: 1. Having a Biblical understanding of stress and how parents can help their children counteract its effects; 2. Preparing your child to go to college in the states; 3. The pictures seen below based on the book Shepherding Your Child's Heart on understanding the motives of our children and how parents can shepherd them toward righteousness. The 5 pictures found in "Ministry Pictures" are of my most recent presentation based on the Shepherding book. I did this presentation because last year the elementary school at ECA (pre-k through 4th grade) began using the philosophy and methodology of the book for discipline (although not the "Rod" portion of the book). All the parents invited were parents of elementary children. (Pic 1)

I will be doing 2 more presentations this semester:

1. Procrastination & Perfectionism
2. Understanding English Language Learning.

Liana Moguel, a parent of current students and a former staff member of ECA with the "Learning Center", translated the powerpoint and the presentation for me. She also marketed the workshops for me by making personal phone calls to parents. She has been a great asset, and I could not have been able to reach the parents without her! (Pic 2)

At my most recent workshop, I was really struggling to find my rest in God as I had tremedous difficulty with extraneous circumstances. 1st, The teacher van brought us to school late because of the rain and traffic being particularly heavy; 2nd, I was originally supposed to be presenting in a large conference room, but the room was under rennovation; and 3rd, the school internet went down, so I was unable to print my handouts in Spanish, nor was I able to use my "enhanced" version of my powerpoint. I was very thankful that Mrs. Moguel had saved a version of it on her computer!! Praise the Lord! I learned a valuable lesson: to never rely entirely on technology to work and to always bring your materials on a pin drive. (Pic 3)

I was very grateful that our High School principal was willing to allow me take over a classroom. Although we started late, didn't finish the intended material, and had to move locations, the parents were very gracious and gave me a lot of positive and constructive feedback. (Pic 4)

Over the 3 workshops, God has given me the opportunity to share his truths with over 60 parents, some of whom have come to multiple workshops. (Pic 5)

A Little New, a Little Old.

Older news: A few weekends ago, we decided to venture out of the city limits to a ‘national park’ called Chicáque where there would be fresh air, many hiking trails, some great sites to see! We were excited to venture out with some ECA staff friends.  We wrote down the directions to get there and set off. The only problem was the directions were a bit vague with multiple options of how to get to the park. We could take two or three buses, depending on the route we would take. We were not sure where we would catch some of the buses, so we had our two most fluent Spanish speakers ask for directions. The random lady they chose to ask suggested that we take a taxi to a park where the final bus would pick us up. So, we all piled into two taxis and told the drivers the name of the park. The taxis took off fighting the traffic and heading the direction we came from!  After a 30 minute taxi ride, with really nice drivers, we finally asked again if they knew were the park was for us to catch the final bus ride. We showed a written name of the ‘national park’ and the name of the intermediate park and his face dropped. He wasn’t headed toward the right park, if fact, he couldn’t take us to either park because both parks are out of city limits and taxi drivers are only allowed to stay within the city limits! Oh no! So the two taxi drivers pulled over to discuss where to drop us off to give us the easiest route to the national park! They even flagged down a public bus for us, talked to the bus driver and told him to tell us where to get off to catch, yet another, bus! We were blessed to have such nice drivers.  The taxi ride turned out to be a $8 (per taxi) mistake that took an hour to correct. So, after 3 buses, a taxi ride, and a 45 minute hike, (4 hours of commute) we arrived at the gorgeous Chicáque Park. Now that we have been there and making mistakes along the way, we now know an easier way to get there. Next time, which I hope there will be a next time, we will arrive at the park in half that time and only use two buses. Pictures are already posted from our beautiful hike to a tall waterfall. Plus we had the neat opportunity to watch the clouds roll back from the mountain as the sun came out, which exposed the valley from the mountain we were on.

New news: This past week a work team from a co- staff member’s home church came to ECA to do a work trip and help out the school. A couple of the project included fixing the ceiling of the multi-purpose room, building a new playground set, and doing some maintenance to different apartments.  We were so thankful to this group for fixing several things around our apartment, a leaking shower (which they had to replace a pipe), re- ‘plastering’ the toilet paper dispenser to the wall and re- anchoring our blinds into the cement ceiling. Furthermore, they noticed that the handle on our fridge handle had broken off which we had become so used to it being broken that we had forgotten to write it on our ‘wishlist’ of things to get fixed! But they noticed it and added little medal cabinet handle to the door! A small fix, but a wonderful fix!  We, as a school, are so thankful for the work and help from the group, as the school continues to grow and reach out to the community, it is nice to have a more improved campus!