Flexibility is always key. The two groups originally working with Pastor Peter in Arecibo would have made up 12 people with only 1 Spanish speaker. Our squad leaders Sam and Bethany wanted to honor Pastor Peter and his ministry by providing him more Spanish speakers so another team leader and I were asked to switch ministries.
Everything happened very last minute. At 11:00pm, the night before flying out we were figuring out our new budget, reading over our new ministry information, and trying to wrap our minds around what our new contact and what our month might look like. The alarm rang at 3:00am and we were all in the lobby and boarding the shuttle to the airport at 3:45. It takes a lot of time and effort to get 47 people checked in and through security so our two logistics coordinators had their hands very full. We all boarded the plane safely at 9:00 and after some delays took off for our 3 hour 10 minute flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Fast forward to today, Jan 11th. Pastor Peter has been so great. He has such a loving and giving heart. We stay, all 12 of us, in a room specifically for us at the church and except for Friday evenings during the youth group service and church on Sunday morning we have the place to ourselves. There’s a kitchen around the side that’s for us to use so we have been eating meals together as a big group. Yesterday I went with one of the logistics coordinators and the other leader to take care of some errands such as getting a local sim card for our team cell phones and the rest of the group helped Pastor Peter clean up around the church. The youth group service last night was awesome, we met 14 of the youth ranging in ages from 15 to 28. It was really cool to see how God’s love and gospel is true across the nations and languages. Schuylar from my team wasn’t feeling well in Atlanta and hasn’t gotten better so her and I spent today with one of the church members going to a local doctor. The doctor was awesome, he too is a missionary so he didn’t charge Schuylar for the office visit and gave her a prescription for an antibiotic which we went and got at Walgreens. The houses here are all very colorful so the area reminds me of places I’ve seen in Mexico but there’s a Wal-mart, JC Penny, Crispy Cream, Red Box and of course McDonald’s. The water is safe to drink out of the tap and they use the US dollar so this has been an easy transition for us. We haven’t made it to the beach yet as we have been told many areas are dangerous due to currents and rip tides but Pastor Peter has promised to take us around to historical sites and to the beach. The area is so beautiful, we all feel very safe and loved and can’t wait to spend this month serving Pastor Peter. It sounds like our ministry here will differ from day to day. Pastor Peter has apologized, he hasn’t had a group our size from the World Race for 3 weeks before so we will be working a lot out in the community with different churches and organizations, one possibly being the Salvation Army. We learned “havichuella” for beans instead of “frijoles” and “gufiou” (goofy-ow) means cool. I’m thinking of you all as I enjoy this glorious sunshine
