We had 3 days of training in Atlanta and were told that we were going to be in a town in the northern coast of Puerto Rico with 2 other teams on our squad. We were going to be doing construction, outreach, and children’s programs. I was pumped to say the least and was really excited to be working and living with the 2 other teams from our squad. The night before we left for Puerto Rico we were told there was a change of plans.
That moment made it real. They kept telling us how we needed to be flexible with changes and starting off with one all I could say to myself was, “Alright then, welcome to the World Race!” The reason was that there were 2 other teams staying in our town (Arecibo) but at a different ministry site. Our teams switched with one of them because the pastor needed more people who spoke Spanish. Before, there was only 1 person out of 12 people who spoke Spanish from our squad. When switching our team with them that made 6 people out of 12 being able to speak Spanish. I was excited nonetheless. The other team we’re with is called “Fire Starters” (if you want to look them up you can read stories about Puerto Rico and what we’re doing here too). We’ve been in Puerto Rico for about 3 days now. The first night the pastor took us to a Puerto Rican restaurant
called El Buen Mofongo. I ended up having mofonogo relleno de biftec. Mofongo is a dish that is made up of smashed plantains and then it had beef mixed in it with a sauce. It was delicious!
We’re staying in a church compound. It’s gated and pretty secure. It has a huge yard that if you run around it once it’s just shy of a quarter of a mile so I’m able to run in the morning praise the Lord! We have a kitchen, shower, and an air conditioner so we’re pretty spoiled here. The church is really nice and open and the climate here it’s great! It’s hot but has a cool breeze and at night it gets pretty cool.
Our first full day here I was dubbed translator. Since we have 6 people who speak Spanish we decided to have a designated translator for the day for those who don’t speak Spanish. I was super nervous because I k
now there are people on my team that speak better Spanish then I do but thankfully they are very encouraging and if I stumble or get stuck they jump right in but at the same time are patient with me and my Spanish and help me when I have a question. That day we cleaned up the church yard and under the trees there were a bunch of sticks and some trash so we went to every tree and hauled it do the dump pile in the back.
They have jovenes (youth group) on Friday nights and the pastor said he’d give us a half hour to do music and a message. So I played my mandolin and Cathy (another girl from Nebraska and on the other team) played guitar and with some of the guys too we led worship songs in Spanish and English. I was able to share my song Es Por Ti and it was SO cool to hear people worship the Lord with the song He gave me while I was in Colombia last year. 
Saturday was a day of rest and they had rehearsal for the service on Sunday and some of those people have kids so I played with the kids all afternoon and then today (Sunday January 12) Cathy, Justin, and I played music in the church service and again we sang Es Por Ti.
What we’re doing for the rest of the month (until January 31) is up in the air but nonetheless we’ll be helping out the church and doing outreach in the community. Thank you for your prayers!
