I've quickly learned that time is relative here in El Salvador. Church that is supposed to start at 5:00 starts around 6:15. If we're supposed to be ready by 8:00, we know now that means around 10:00. We have a weekly schedule but rarely do we end up following it. A three hour ride was actually closer to seven hours–in the bed of a truck going 80 mph at that.
I don't consider myself to be a huge "routine" person. I like change and am usually up for last minute adventures. But never knowing what we're doing in an hour, let alone next week has been more of an adjustment for me then I anticipated. I'm not used to having this much free time either, but it's nice to have time to spend in the Word, in prayer, and bonding with my teammates. I'm learning to let go though and live fully in the present moment.
This week we were blessed with the opportunity to visit a rural community about 45 minutes outside of San Vicente. Our friend Carlita's parents run a church there so we camped in their backyard (with the cows, chickens and pigs), performed skits at a school, played soccer and worshipped with them for several hours a night. It was nice to get away but I think we all realized how lucky we are to have such nice accommodations here in San Vicente when we were without Internet, beds, toilets you can sit on and a shower for the past few days. In exchange for all that we had some "luxuries" of our own, such as drinking fresh coconut juice, long games of Phase 10 all crowded in one tent to avoid mosquitos, witnessing a handful of people accept Jesus, and gazing at the most beautiful stars I've ever seen.
One of the biggest things I'm learning so far is there is more than one way to worship our God. I used to think that holding church in a movie theater with a live band was pretty crazy. Consider my eyes opened to a whole slew of different ways to praise God and experience the Holy Spirit. Some of it I love, some I'm still getting used to, and honestly some of it still freaks me out. We have church several times a week, and it usually lasts anywhere from 2-4 hours. We sing and dance and kneel and shout and weep and lay hands over people praying out loud for healing. People talk in tongues and scream and shake and sometimes even fall down. God is showing me new sides of Himself everyday and teaching me I don't have to understand everthing about Him to love and trust Him fully. My teammates have been wonderful about helping to explain things and encouraging my doubting self to be more open to the Holy Spirit. Yesterday during an extremely long fire revival service, I was reading the introduction pages to my Bible and this sentence spoke volumes to me:
If God were small enough for your minds, He wouldn't be big enough for your needs.
We're halfway through our first month in El Salvador and have already starting making arrangements for next month in Honduras. Here a few more pictures from our first two weeks in this amazing country!
Working with families in San Antonio, an extremely poor community about 10 minutes away.
Visiting a waterfall on our day off.
Picking beans for dinner.
*Many thanks to my teammate Bethany Bernard who took most of these photos. Lots more pictures posted on Facebook if you want to check them out. Also be sure to follow my teammates' blogs by clicking on their links to the left. Zach just posted an amazing blog that really captures how we all feel. Read it here: http://zachcobos.theworldrace.org/?filename=broken-and-unfixable
