This has been the most incredible week. Every day since Tuesday has been the new “best day on the Race.” My joy is finally back! In my next post I’ll explain everything that was terribly wrong and how it all got so wonderfully fixed, but I’m writing about ministry first and me second.
I’m a firm believer in keeping training camp a secret, so I won’t get into details, but they showed us there what it was like to shop at local markets around the world…and it was my least favorite activity of the week. At the end of it I felt like crying and quitting the Race.
So of course when I heard we were doing market ministry this week, I was terrified and wished I had the excuse of food poisoning (like a couple of my squadmates) so I wouldn’t have to go. To make matters worse, the market we went to was twice as big and ten times as scary as the small ones we’d been going to. But it turned out to be the best ministry day I’d had yet(which I’ll be saying a lot in this post because EVERY day got better than the one before it). I stepped off our bus and felt like I was walking onto the set of Slumdog Millionaire, which made my ethnocentric first world mind happy(the rest of Peru had looked way more modern than I expected; none of the World Race promo videos show you this, but not everywhere you go is full of grass huts and stuff like that). I actually liked the feeling of being scared; it had been awhile since I’d been someplace where I was begging God to protect me every second. It was ironically comforting. We went around inviting people to church and praying for them, and we saw lots of dead animals, and lots of semi-creepy strangers took pictures of us.
The next two days we went to a few schools and did a bunch of skits and dances for them, then went to another market to talk to more people.
Saturday morning we got on a bus at 7:15am to go minister outside a men’s prison because we weren’t allowed to go inside. I’m absolutely not a morning person(a week into this month I wrote in my journal, “The only thing I hate about all-squad month is that my team knows not to talk to me until 10am, but the rest of the squad can’t seem to catch on.”), so even if we were going to an orphanage to hold babies all day, I still would’ve been cranky about it at that hour. Not knowing what there was to do outside a prison made it really hard for me to have a good attitude.
But God loves to surprise me.
What happens is that the wives or mothers of the prisoners go visit them on saturdays to bring them food and other things they need, and they wait in a forever long line to get in. Our squad leader explained this to me and a few other grumpy non-morning people, and suddenly my problems seemed pretty small and selfish. These women wait outside for hours just to spend a little bit of time with their loved ones then say goodbye to them again. If seeing a bunch of white people dance will make them smile, I’ll get up at the crack of dawn and dance my heart out every day.
After we were done, Pastor Solomon preached a quick word and asked anyone who needed prayer to raise their hands so we could spread out and pray over each of them. I went over to an older lady standing near me and asked how I could pray(one of the few sentences I can say in Spanish). With tears in her eyes, she pointed at the prison and whispered, “Mi hijo.”(my son) My heart broke. I’m not usually good at praying out loud for people(I have too many feelings and not enough words), but I put my arms around her and I prayed and prayed; God gave me words faster than I could say them. Finally I just stood there for a few minutes and held her as she cried. God was moving in her even though she couldn’t understand my words.
I got sick that afternoon and couldn’t help lead youth group that night; that’s funny because the last time I was in another country working with a church, I got sick for their last youth service too…but it was sad. Lying in bed listening to my team having fun is lonely.
The best part of my week(and the Race so far) was Tuesday night. But that story is too long and way too good to not give it a post of its own, so check back later.
This week is pretty laid back; we have today and tomorrow off, then we’re helping with the preschool where we live and doing some miscellaneous things that we haven’t been told yet. My team is leading one more church service on Wednesday and Derek is preaching, so pray around 5pm central time.
Sometime at the end of this week we’ll be leaving for Ecuador; we haven’t been told yet so I can’t yet tell you when to pray for safe travels. But it’s happening. I’m not ready to leave yet…I can’t decide if it;s more because I love Peru itself and will miss it here, or because I’ve so loved being with my whole squad and will be so lonely when I have only 6 people to hang out with instead of 44(all my introvert friends just read that sentence and cringed).
Either way this month has been a huge blessing. I’ve learned so much in so little time. I feel so much more ready for the rest of the Race now; I wish I’d felt like this 2 months ago. But God is good and he made it all work.
In case this is the last time I have internet this month(very likely), keep an eye on my squadmates’ blogs to see when we’re leaving!
