My morning began by waiting at a random bus stop with Brooks and Laura, in anticipation that Brooks’ phone conversation with Kildare, the pastor of Gloría de Libano, had resulted in Brooks correctly asking for a ride to church, and describing the correct location in Huehue for him to pick us up. He was late, which we thought was just in typical Guatemalan style, but we found out once we got in the car that he had been having a lot of difficulties with his car, and it just stopped running at certain times. At one point during the drive, the car simply refused to drive up a steep hill, and Brooks, Laura and I had to get out to remove some weight from the car, while Kildare rolled back down to the bottom and gunned it up the hill. And at the end of the church service, in true Guatemalan form, we needed three guys from the congregation to push the car so that it would go. The service this morning was again very beautiful. It started with an older woman of the congregation praying and saying some words, and after that everyone began singing. They sing almost everything a capella, and their songs always break out into a fluid display of compassion for Christ. They sing whatever is on their heart, and everyone joins in with them. After a couple of song, with prayers and crying out to God mixed in, Kildare got up to give the message. Seeing as how it was given in Spanish, it’s difficult for me to both mentally translate a message, and get substance out of it. But he is a very passionate speaker, and I caught myself nodding along multiple times even if I only understood a couple of words or a sentence. After the service they had a bit of a “coffee hour”, which consisted of us standing around some chairs, eating tamales and drinking a warm punch made out of pineapple, apple, and papaya. The church has a pretty small congregation, there were only about 15 people there this morning including ourselves, but it made chatting with people after the service a little less intimidating. Some of the younger members of the congregation even asked Laura and I to sing worship songs in English for them, right there on the spot. I guess they’re so used to breaking out into song, they assume we do it too. I amused them with the chorus of one song, and promised next week we would have more (in reality hoping they would forget the promise). As I said in an earlier blog post, this church is such a real and raw presentation of people yearning for and hoping to see Christ’s face. They weep and fall to their knees praying to Him, every Sunday, and their passion for His way is so inspirational. It’s beautiful to see people so desperately wanting to live their lives for God, and so desperately seeking Him. Guatemala is a very religious country; where one would usually see a really gangster windshield sticker, they have “Cristo es mi vida”, and other things like this. There are so many churches in this city, and Bibles sold on almost every block. It’s such a stark contrast to what I’ve seen in Oregon, where faith is counterculture. It surprises me every time I see religious references, and puts a little smile of excitement on my face.
After the church service, Laura and I walked to a small craft supply store, buying markers, glitter, paper, and glue. I spent a good portion of my afternoon tracing out a picture of the United States on a poster board, and adding pictures of various famous monuments. I am actually pretty proud of my artwork; it’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to draw on a poster board, and I loved it. My proudest creation, though, is that of a paper mache football. For some reason I really wanted Brooks to be able to show the kids how to throw an American football, and what it looked like. So I took a small soccer ball, added some points to the end, and covered it in brown paper. It looks more like a brown lemon than a football, but I like it nonetheless. I’m excited for our Estados Unidos presentation at the orphanage tomorrow; hopefully we get the words out correctly in Spanish and don’t make too big of fools of ourselves. :)
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