.jpg)
.
Anyway, that was a little sidetrack there and some background. Well, Saturday night and Sunday we had special services to celebrate the anniversary. As missionaries, even thoughwe are technically here to plant our own churches, we are here for the church in general, for God's work in general. So Franci and I took the day off from going out to our sites on Sunday to help out our mother church. We left in the morning to go invite a gal to the service/party. We tried calling her to make sure she was home but the phone number was incorrect. So we figured since we had her address, we could just run by her house to leave the invitation with her or a family member. The address was something like 118 Sillustani. I had seen a hotel Sillustani the night before and with a low number, thinking in terms of Colorado streets, I thought it must be down from our house and by that hotel. Franci and I walked through the center for a while then started asking people if they knew where this street Sillustani was. Nobody knew. Franci asked some policemen while I asked a Bajaj taxi thingy. They are these weird little mototaxi/taxi combinations. Anyway, he told me it was up the hill. So, with little time to spare before the next thing on our agenda, we hopped in the Bajaj and let him take us to this street and house we had been looking for. Come to find out, the house we were looking for is literally a block from our house! You can see this house from our street corner! wow! I blame it on the fact that we don't know the city too well yet. But, I guess I can't say I'm as good at directions as I thought! And after all that, the girl wasn't even there and her mom told us that they are with a different religion and not interested.
.
We moved onto our next item on the agenda for the day which was to help Milagros, a gal from the church pick up the cakes, decorate them with flowers (her mom owns a flower shop), an make sandwiches for the party. We met up with Milagros at her house and with her mom we left for the center, again. Franci, Milagros and I went to get the cakes while her mom opened up the flower shop two blocks away. They bring the cakes out to us, totally peruvian complete with little streamers around the cake. Milagros was not happy with the cakes for many reasons. First, the Nazarene logo was not how she wanted it, second, they put grapes on the sides which she specifically asked them not to, and third, there was a dead fly stuck in the icing on one of them. Yummy! So after a bit of debate, they brought down the price and we carried the cakes to the flower shop. They were sheet cakes and somewhat heavy but the two blocks to the flower shop wasn't a huge task.
.
Franci and I sat down and watched as Milagros created floral arrangements to decorate each cake. This took quite a while but they looked beautiful in the end. Then, what came next, we had to take the cakes to the hotel where we had rented a room to hold the service as the church location we have right now barley fits us on a normal Sunday. I thought, surely we would get a taxi even thought its close because we had all this stuff to carry. Wrong. Milagros and I each carried a cake while Franci carried the flowers about 7 blocks. Milagros and I had to stop 3 times to rest our arms from carrying the cakes and manuvering them through the narrow sidewalks and crowds of people. But we made it! I remember thinking about how different the cultures are while carrying that cake. Thinking about how lazy we are in the states and how we take our conveniences for granted. What would you do without a shopping cart? There's no such thing down here. And do you get grouchy that you have to make more than one trip to unload the groceries from your trunk? Try carrying several pounds of groceries on your back across town!
.
Finally, the cakes were ready to go but it was now 2pm and we still had to make the sandwiches, eat lunch, oh yeah, and get ready as I was still in my pijamas running around town! From the hotel we walked back down to the center (3rd time) to go to the market. Milagros introduced Franci and I to her caseritas, the gals she buys from in the market. We got some veggies to make soup and then across from the veggies bought some chicken. I just can't even describe to you how unsaintary things can be down here. There was a lady selling raw chicken, the chicken lined up on the counter in front of her, and I watched her eat her lunch with her hands sitting right by all this raw chicken. How much do you want to bet she had'nt washed her hands with soap after touching raw chicken and before eating her lunch?! And while she was eating, the vendor next to her was taking a butchers knife and hacking these dead chickens in half with chicken juice spraying all over the place. But, we got the chicken, had the vegtables, and didn't have much time and were very tired so we took a taxi back to Milagros house. Miliagros and Franci cooked lunch while Amanda and I got the sandwiches ready. It was simple, we sliced the bread and spread a smidge of Mayo, one piece of cheese and one piece of ham on each one. We made about 100 sandwiches and packed them up.
.
Finally, lunch was ready at 3 or 3:30pm. Gathered together, we ate our delicious soup and conversed. And I was still in my pijamas! Then after the soup we said goodbye to Milagros and her family for a few hours and went home to rest for an hour and get ready for the party. I dosed off for a little nap leaving myself ready 20 minutes t get ready before leaving the house.
.
Sandwiches in hand, we arrived to the hotel and got set up for the service. As the hour of 7pm came and went, I was so nervous and frustrated because barely anyone was there! We had a huge room with many open seats and I know how frustrating and hard that can be on the pastor and the core of the church. I prayed for more people to arrive. The day before I had 3 different people tell me they would come and none of them ever came. But the good news is, the seats filled up. By the end of the service we probably only had about 15 chairs open and we had a few people accept Christ!
.
I helped serve cake and sandwiches and once everyone was served, I sat down by a little family to talk. I talked with Celina, Manuel and their son Jesus. Jesus is a member of the church but his work takes him out of town often. His mom, Celina, has come a few times but isn't very committed. And his father, Manuel, an adorable, tall, old man dressed nicely in a suit, had never been. But that night, he was touched and started a relationship with our Savior! I had a great time talking with them, laughing and getting to know them all. That time with them made the whole day of preparation worth it.
.
When I found out about Extreme, when God lead me down this path, what excited me was the thought of buildng relationships and friendships with the people here. I'm really not one to go preach the gospel, that's not my spiritual gift or what gets me going. What gets me is the relationship.
No comments:
Post a Comment