Update from Bogota, Columbia
Dec 2nd, 2025
Hello New City family! Warren here!
As many of you know, I’ve been blessed to spend another year teaching at ECA, a Christian school in Bogotá. It has been so rewarding to continue growing in this community, especially with the students who I now know so much better than last year. I have to admit that it has been a lot of work, even more than last year (due to two new courses), but it has been truly rewarding to witness the impact that a teacher can have on students over time. I am currently teaching geography, history, and math, to grades 6 and 7. It’s been so rewarding to show them what God has done around the world and through time which reveals his greatness and power.
With my Grade 6A class on my birthday
Field Trip!
ECA is a mission-oriented school, which means that both students and staff are constantly participating, going on, and supporting mission trips. I had the immense privilege to travel to the Amazon with a group of ECA teachers to encourage fledgling Christians in the indigenous communities there. We learned about their culture and their language (Tikuna) but we were also able to bring bibles, workshops, Sunday school for kids, and tools for the community in general. While being there, we also served doing maintenance work at the YWAM base where we were staying.
From the YWAM base in the Colombian Amazon we also traveled by boat to an indigenous community in Peru where a church is being established. We were able to bring short seminars for women on personal hygiene and menstrual cycles, and I helped teach a workshop on small engines for the men. The communities there rely on wooden boats with small 4 stoke engines to get around and get supplies. Many of them do not know the basic workings of these and it was a huge joy to be able to fix one of the broken engines that very afternoon and leave them with one more functioning boat!
A personal fun thing for me this trip was the crazy number of animals that I found. There were massive whip spiders in the bathrooms, geckos longer than my hand, a viper in the woodpile, a toad that needs two hands to pick up, and even a piranha got a bite out of me when I was chasing some water buffalo in the river. (Ask me in person to elaborate on that one if you are interested! 😉) The worst were mites that got into my skin and I carried them back to Bogota with me. Took two weeks and a lot of itching to kill those off!
My whip spider friend
Working on a motor with the locals
As I wrap up the end of semester 2 here, I miss my country, my family, my community, and my church but God has been faithful and I’ve built meaningful relationships, seen every financial need provided for, and grown even more excited about my calling to long-term ministry in Colombia.
I’m looking forward to seeing you all soon during the Christmas break!