Our last day in Panajachel was one that is difficult to put into words. It was one of those you had to be there moments that lasted the whole day. A few days before the last day Pastor Ben said he wanted to finish up our bible studies with us before we left. We were told to be at the church at 10 AM and bring lunch because we would probably go until 5 PM. We woke up a little before 9 AM only to find out that there was no gas to use the stove, so Angie and Haile ran to the store to buy granola bars and stuff for sandwiches so we could eat breakfast and make lunch at the church. Alana and I took our laundry and Angie’s and set out to find a place open on Dia de Los Muertos. Thankfully we ran into Miriam and she had Abraham take us to a house where they could do our laundry for us. Then I ran all over trying to find an ATM that was open so I could take out money for laundry. It was kind of a crazy morning. We made it to the church exactly at 10 AM and ate breakfast there.
Pastor Ben asked Alana to lead us in a few deep worship songs. He didn’t want the happy dance around kind. He wanted us to sing powerful songs and see us worship. So we did and it was awesome. After that the day took a weird turn. He invited Moses to come and talk to us about the lock-in that we had for the youth group. We thought we did pretty good with it and sure there were a few glitches, but everything seemed to work out fine. Apparently Moses had thought otherwise. He said few good things about that night. It was hard to hear, but we had to keep in mind that Guatemalan expectations are very different than American expectations. I took it alright because I was in the mindset that we were leaving tomorrow and we had 10 months still to work on perfecting things. Other people took it quite harshly. After Moses was done Pastor Ben told us to check ourselves and make sure we didn’t have haughty eyes.
After those few hours, yes all that took about 2-3 hours we started into bible study. We finished up with Demonology, praise the lord! We learned all about different demonic symbols and all that stuff. Some of what he said I took with a grain of salt because I found it difficult to believe. There are things I am definitely going to have to have a heart to heart with God. For example, apparently putting birthday candles on a cake is demonic because you are technically passing your child through fire, or wearing a wedding ring comes from a pagan tradition so that could be considered as demonic. I don’t know, but I believe that God will clear it all up for me. Pastor Ben seems very radical, but we have learned a lot from him. We watched the movie Angora, which I hated, and we talked about it. If you haven’t seen the movie it’s about the Christian church 400 years after Christ died. They were awful people and I couldn’t believe they considered themselves to be Christian. It was a lot of massacres and stoning of people.
The next bible study I found refreshing. It consisted of stuff I needed to hear. About this time it was 7PM so we took a break because we had given Miriam money to make food for about 23 people. We wanted to have dinner with the people that we became close to. That dinner was awesome. Why? Because it was spent with people we considered family. We laughed and worshipped, Miriam prophesied over us, and we said our farewells. We cleaned up from that and jumped into our last bible study. This one was over the Jewish faith and I found it quite interesting. We had a chance to blow a Shofar, and we learned about the different anointing oils, and all that jazz. When we finished that bible study about 10 PM, Pastor Ben had us listen to the Lord’s Prayer sung in Aramaic. Then we listened to “A Letter from God�, I’ll post a copy soon because it is pretty sweet. After that Pastor Ben said goodbye to us in a way only could pull off. I am telling you this guy is full of surprises. How did he say goodbye? Well hopefully I can get a video up soon, but he turned off the lights and told us that he learned this from a little Israeli woman. He than began to do this crazy fire dance to a song. Totally Awesome! I think we were left speechless.
It was now about 10:30 so we said our final goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. Feedback took us until about 1 AM and we still had yet to pack. I quickly jumped into an ice shower and then packed up my bag. I think I finally went to bed about 2:30 AM and was up again at 5:45 to get on the van at 6 to head to Guatemala. What happens after that is for another blog.
