It’s amazing how much more time consuming simply living is
in other countries. Everything takes so
much longer to do. I can’t just hop in
my car and go to a grocery store. I have
to set aside at least three to four hours out of my day for a big adventure
like that. It takes about a half hour to forty-five minutes to walk there, a
little over an hour to shop for the team, and about forty-five minutes to walk
home with my arms full. Plus, I’m
usually fighting off dogs with a stick which adds on some more time! Oh, and
laundry by hand… not cool. (videos to
come!)
All that said, I’m sorry this is just a quick update on what
we have been up to this past week….
We have been mainly focused on working alongside a small
church in Palenque. Noe is the pastor of Salim church, and he is
an energetic man with so much passion. He is from El
Salvador, and he and his wife have been
pouring their lives into starting this church in the heart of the city for the
past year. We have been going there just
about every night to walk alongside of them in their different ministries. I was even given the opportunity to preach
the other night. It was good, but very
difficult to communicate. Stephanie
translated for me but she is not completely fluent, so we are just hoping we
got our message across clearly. She did
an amazing job, though!
On our day off we went to the Mayan Ruins which is right
down the street from where we are staying. They were amazing to see!
On Saturday we were invited out to a rural village on theoutskirts of Palenque
for a big gathering. The small town of Jerusalem is a small
community of Mayan descent. One of our
small teams has been living and working there this past week. It was neat to go and see where they have
been living and working. Our teammates
were really happy to have some other people to talk to for a while! Their
living conditions are a lot more challenging than ours are this month.
Our team had a great time playing with the kids allafternoon in the river, and then spending the evening fellowshipping and having
dinner with some of the people from the community.
Finally, I have made it my mission to make the cat fat! The title is for Ashley M.! Did it make you read
my blog??
