hello my people! I am halfway done with the race & have written a lot of blogs, but I’ve been thinking lately about how little stories I’ve shared about what daily life is like. I also realize it is extremely hard to accurately portray life on the field through photos, videos, and blogs, because often cameras are only out during exciting, adventurous moments or time at wifi. I usually don’t capture the unexpected golden moments that take place mid-mundane-afternoon or the miracles that take place at ministry. I am going to start a series about things that portray life on the field! Whether it be silly little moments or life changing ones, I am excited to get to share it with you! With that being said, please tell me what kind of stores you want more of. If you want to hear more about ministry, I’m happy to share, if you want to hear stories about public transportation, I’ll make it happen, if you want to hear stories about meals, you bet I’ll share some!
To make up for a lack of sharing stories, I’ll share a few here.
Okay first story: the time I slapped SJ in the face in front of a bunch of old people!!!
So on Mondays we do ministry at a senior home; it’s truly a blast! Well, at the end of our lunch break our team was playing ninja. If you don’t know the game, the story won’t make as much sense but basically it’s a game where you karate chop the people around you and try to hit their forearms to get them out. If you’re being aimed at, you try to move your limb out of the way. Well, SJ had her arm right in front of her face. I knew she’d be quick to defend herself so I tried to be quick and went with a full force swing to her forearm. Well, she was quicker. She moved her arm and my full force swing resulted in a slap straight to the face. I’m definitely guilty of laughing way too hard and not feeling very bad of it because it was s o f u n n y!!! The old people thought so too. Wow. SORRY SJ!
Second story: the time my broken spanish failed me miserably and I made a humiliating mistake… ugh.
Okay so in Peru my team had the best neighbor ever. He and his wife took such good care and loved on us so well! Keep in mind he speaks only spanish, and I speak semi-decent but very imperfect spanish. One day we were talking about the world race and he was asking about requirements. My friends and I were answering all his questions. He asked if we had to get vaccinations. Also keep in mind the letter G often is pronounced as an H in spanish. Not really sure of the word for vaccines, I responded, “Sí, tenemos vaginas (va-hee-naws).” He gave me a weird look then we continued in our conversation. It wasn’t until I got home I realized I told him we have vaginas instead of that we had vaccines (actually vacunas, pronounced va-koon-naws)!!! Wow. So awkward. Thankfully he knew what I meant and saved me the embarrassment of pointing it out. It’s something my team and I laugh about often now despite how mortified I was at the time.
Third story: the time Selina and I went on a relentless pursuit for brócoli… and possibly experienced a miracle???
Selina and I really wanted to make chicken and broccoli for dinner last weekend. It was a couple hours before sundown so we headed to town to get the stuff. We went to the store and bought chicken and then came to the conclusion they didn’t have broccoli, they only had cauliflower. We desperately wanted broccoli so we decided we’d head over to the street market to buy some. We got there and realized every single vendor was already shut down and probably home enjoying dinner. We decided to walk back to the store to buy cauliflower, but on the way there I had a brilliant idea! We could walk to our favorite pizza shop and ask the owner (who speaks english and loves world racers) if he had an extra broccoli we could buy off him. We got there and he hated letting us down but said he only has tiny tiny pieces of the top of it that he sprinkles on pizza, nothing we could actually cook. Ah, it’s okay, we thought. But he consulted with his employees and let us know there was a tienda a block or two down that sells some, and he even offered us his bicycle to get there. We politely declined but headed toward the tienda. We never actually found the tienda we were looking for but stopped at about ten or twelve other tiendas asking first if they had broccoli, and second if they knew where we could find some. We walked almost the entirety of the town we were in and spent at least an hour searching, when finally we found the second best veggie: green beans. Not what we wanted, but we said it would do. As we left we realized we also had Allyson eating with us so we’d need more. So back to the plan of going back to get cauliflower. On the way to the store I was halfway joking praying outloud “Lord puuuhhhllleaaaase let us miraculously find broccoli on our way to the store!!!” We got to the dispensa, walked to the cauliflower, and what do you know… two perfect heads of broccoli just waiting for us. So we had the most perfect chicken, green bean, and broccoli dinner. Still unsure if we were just blind or if God really helped some sisters out, but either way it was one heck of an adventure and made me so thankful as I ate that yummy dinner.
Best for last!!! Fourth story: someone was healed today!
On Thursday’s we do something called activation where we spend three hours hearing a teaching and processing it. Then after lunch we go and put it into action. Today Gabe taught on healing, and so when it was time to go into our village we anticipated a day of praying over a bunch of people, but instead ended up spending an hour or two with our leader Miguel just talking and doing some emotional healing as a team. We spoke words of life over each other and got to hear truth from each other. After that, Miguel asked if we wanted to go home or go pray for people. I remembered a lady I met last week who said she had really bad back pain and asked if we could go pray for her. We got to her house and asked if we could pray. She said yes of course! In order to tangibly measure if someone’s pain leaves, we usually ask for a scale of 1-10. She said her pain was beyond a 10, she often can’t even walk, and she can never touch her toes. We asked her to try touching her toes and she couldn’t do it. We prayed and she said she felt a little better. That wasn’t good enough!!! So we prayed again, because it is ALWAYS God’s will to heal. She said her pain was lessened even more, hardly even there. We prayed again. She felt better! Pain gone! She could walk and she could touch her toes with ease!!! God healed her of her back pain. Praise!!!
