Cali, Colombia: A City of Hope

To the outside world, my hometown of Cali, Colombia, is notorious for the drug cartel of the 80’s and 90’s; but I want to tell you a story of hope, of how God is using this city to spread the Gospel to other parts of Latin America. 

Since 1998, I have had the privilege to be the distributor of El Aposento Alto, the Spanish edition of The Upper Room daily devotional, in Cali, Colombia. Starting with just two copies in 1998, within five years, we were distributing more than 6,000 copies, mainly due to the many school students who bought issues of the magazine to share with their families. After a while, the distribution for all of Colombia was given to me.

 Over time, due to friendships and connections in various denominations, our distribution spread to Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, and Costa Rica. When my wife and I served as missionaries to Honduras, we used the devotional in our ministry to people incarcerated in the main prison of San Pedro Sula, the city that is considered the most violent in the world. Inmates there continue to find solace and spiritual nourishment in El Aposento Alto. After our return to Cali, we bought a printing press so that we could improve the production of the magazine and have more control over the distribution. At times, we even custom make the covers, such as the issues that featured “Ovejita,” a delightful Christian character, popular in Colombia and other Latin American countries. Today, we are printing 14,000-15,000 copies of El Aposento Alto for each issue.

My hopes and dreams for El Aposento Alto in the countries where we serve are to make the production of the devotional more efficient and to make the ministry self-sustaining. We also want the magazine to be in all bookstores, and we are looking for ways to make English copies of The Upper Room available to people who live in San Andres Island, a Colombian English-speaking territory. 

Your gift to The Upper Room has made it possible for me to distribute El Aposento Alto in Colombia and in other Latin American countries. You are helping to make Cali, Colombia, a city of hope spreading God’s love to the world.