If you’re wondering at the relative influx of blogs this week, compared to the last three…well, that would be because we haven’t had ministry since Sunday. So instead of being out of the house for 12 hours at a time, we’ve had time to sleep and read and actually hang out with each other! Here’s how that played out.
Monday/Tuesday: Rest! Visit downtown, shop, eat crepes, watch movies.
Wednesday: Get ready. Eat breakfast. Wait. Pray for no ministry. Eat lunch. Wait. Finally told no ministry! Tomorrow ministry possible.
Thursday: Eat breakfast. Wait. Pastor arrives to chat/tell us there’s no ministry at all. Think about visiting the Salt Flats (major tourist destination in Bolivia) which would mean leaving Friday night. Everyone is still too tired to plan/pack up on such short notice.
Friday: Rest! Have lunch with pastors and church members. Our host is disappointed again that we are not doing ALL the touristy things in the province. Insists that he told us Monday we had no more ministry. Tells us we’re too young to be tired and/or sick (while half the team has had stomach pain/intestinal infection things this month). We just shrug.
Which brings us to Saturday, in which I foresee lots of packing and last minute shopping and a little cleaning and maybe a tiny bit of tourism, even.
This whole situation brings to the foreground all of the communication problems we’ve had this month, especially these past two weeks. Maybe not knowing anything about our placement before arriving was an omen!
We have dealt with having to wait 1-2 hours to get picked up and receiving no apology or explanation for the tardiness. And this even after double checking the time that our ride would show up.
We have been told one thing before ministry and then learned that the exact opposite is the case when we arrive. Like when we were going to hang out with the youth while they baked desserts – the pastor said, “You don’t have to prepare anything!” – and then we showed up and the 2 youth said, “What ingredients do you need for your brownie recipe?”
Even though we’ve had written schedules, they have rarely been followed, leaving us constantly uncertain when or if we’re going to eat/do ministry/get home.
“Hurry up and wait” has never been more true that this month.
So, needless to say, it has been stressful to try and get direct information ahead of time from the church leaders who’ve arranged our ministry. I am very glad to be back at our host home, where they are much better at sticking to a schedule. (We also have kittens now!)
All this, combined with the fact that a few of us just watched Pride & Prejudice, a plot riddled with miscommunication, has me thinking about how well I communicate.
I studied plenty in college about interpersonal relationships, so I theoretically know how I should communicate. But that doesn’t make it any easier to put it into practice. Especially when you’re an easy-going person who is friends with lots of other easy-going people.
In contrast, living full-time with five unique other people is a great way to force yourself to have to communicate better. (Or going on the World Race, when you have to send weekly updates about yourself to leadership for a whole year!) Teammates are also great at pushing you to talk to strangers, especially when you’re able to speak the language…definitely not my forte.
So especially over this past month, I’ve gotten more and more excited to go home and really talk to my family and friends. I’ve gotten excited in general about all the things I’m going to get to do at home – both things that I miss and things that I want to change.
But we still have one more month left on this journey, so I would appreciate prayers for continued positive communication and attitudes as we serve one last ministry in Santiago, Chile.
