We are staying at a small Bible school here in Palenque for at least this week of training. At the end of the week, Squads A and B part ways, and A heads a couple hours away to work with some local ministries. Squad B (that I’m a part of) is staying here in Palenque and we will be doing church planting!! Woo hoo! Scary, but oh, so exciting. We will do some door knocking, handing out invitations to a ministry, some street ministry and whatever else God asks of us.
We may continue to stay at this school, Shakinah, but that is not yet determined. It’s nice here and our host, Eliazar is wonderful. There are girls and guys dorms, but not enough room in the girls room so several of us set up our tents on portions of the flat cement roof – myself being one of them. It is quieter up there and a little more private. It has rained for the past two days straight, and though it lets up for a bit here and there, it has been pretty much consistent. My tent has proven to be waterproof, praise Jesus, even though it is sitting in half an inch of water!
The rain has been reflective of the refreshing of our souls and the downpour of the Holy Spirit in this place. I have never seen so much rain, so continuously, and it’s normal for this time of year here. It’s beautiful, jungle like – green, mountains, parrots, and lots of new sounds.
Sunday morning we went to a church about an hour away and celebrated with the body of Christ in that village. It was a village of Chol Indians who actually speak Chol instead of Spanish, so the service was translated in 3 languages. But so much fun. We prayed for them and they for us. What an incredible experience.
Afterward, they served all 55 of us barbequed beef with rice and tortillas, with fresh pomegranate juice to drink. They mayor of the village actually donated a cow and they killed it for our visit. The whole village showed up to watch us white Americans, most of who can’t speak even a lick of Spanish, let alone Chol, but somehow, we connected with them anyway. It’s a beautiful thing.
We visited an absolutely phenomenal waterfall, and we all spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the tropical blue green water and some even jumped off the falls.
To use the restroom cost 4 pesos (40cents), so some of us girls created a makeshift changing room with sarongs behind the building. A couple of the young Mexican girls who sell produce and baked goods came to sell to us, but when we declined, they became interested in our little production. They pointed out that the bottom corners of the sarongs posed an opening that people could see through. Linda and Rosa each took a corner and held it closed until we were all finished. How cute they were. Lynette and I gave each of the girls 1 peso for helping. What a refreshing day to begin our intense week of training.
As I write this, we are getting ready to head out for our first real in town ministry as a small team. We will pray together and ask the Lord where He wants to lead us, and follow Him. Look for that story later!
Also, check out my pictures link, as I have posted some new ones there!
