8am—wake up
All 12 of us are staying in a single Sunday School room in a church compound in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. We’re far enough from the beach that we’re not in a tsunami danger zone but close enough that we could drive there after ministry if we decided to.
8:30—breakfast
Typically hardboiled eggs, scrambled eggs, or oatmeal.
9—leave for ministry
It’s been a lot of manual labor. We’ve cleaned up the church property, painted the home of a single mother, scraped decades worth of dirt from the home of a widow, etc.
12—lunch
Typically peanut butter and jelly and chips. Sometimes things get crazy and we have bologna, ham, or salami. But usually pb&j.
1ish—back to work
Pastor Peter’s hilarious, driven, and loves Fritos.
4… or 5… or 6… or whenever—return to the church
We’re staying at a church with cold showers and a kitchen.
7—dinner
Oscár and Salome cook for us on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It’s really good and always something different. Sometimes it’s authentic. Sometimes it’s spaghetti. We never really know what we’re going to get but we always know it’s going to be good. It took the boys on our team a whole three days to admit I can out-eat them.
8—home visit/worship service
Sometimes we visit people just to hang out at their house. Other times we go to lead a worship service. It’s a lot of fun to get to know the locals. On Friday nights there’s a youth service at the church we get to be part of. Sometimes that means we listen and sometimes we lead.
10:30pm-ish—team time
Every night our teams get together (sometimes together as 12 and sometimes in small groups of 6) to debrief the day, talk about the next day, give feedback, pray, etc. “A short team time” means an hour.
12pm—bed
At the earliest. When twelve people sleep in the same room, it’s hard to all go to bed at the same time.
