During our Month 10 we were going to be doing radio ministry for the month. We also were going to be just outside a major city. So we get to that city and we get on a bus since it is a ways down the road to get to Villa Tunari. The bus was very cramped, more than I was use to having to deal with. So we pack our stuff and then embark on the short 6 hour ride (this does not include the other bus ride we took earlier that day) on the bumpy road. We make one stop to use the bathroom and then we got off the bus in the middle of the small town (check it on google maps its very small).
After we get off the bus we get our team phones activated but due to problems we had to use the international sim to call the 1 phone number that we had. The guy that comes is not our contact and just a member of the church. He shows some of our team where we would sleep, and it was in an open room with no doors in the storage room. So we said we wanted to see the other place, and that was an abandoned clinic a good 25 minute walk from town. So we decided that the church would be best, but due to security concerns we looked at a nearby hostel. The hostel was not that great but it would be better than the church. Then the pastor comes and opens the doors of the church and we agree to stay there. We were told that we might need to move but in the end we stayed there the entire month (we only had $0.50 usd for lodging a day).
We got a tour of the town and people go down to the river to wash their clothing since no one has a washing machine (except the hostels). There are also a lot of payphones on the streets, this is common overseas though. There also was no Wi-Fi in the entire village except one place far down the street at a restaurant that we only went to once. Everyone went to the internet café and it was load and smelled like bad BO.
When we asked what he wanted us to do he said that he did not know. So on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday we got to lead the church services. They did Bible study, Sunday school, Student night (always the most full), and I forgot the name of the other one but they were not what the titles said they were. They were the same thing church, sing songs, message, and sing songs. In that church you stand up and sit down about a dozen times and church started around 8:30pm and got done around 10:30pm. I watched the kids during most of the church services, and the younger ones got tired as the night went on. Once I let one of the young ones us my phone for 15 minutes then took it from him (since they do not know how to share there) and he started to cry. On Thursdays we also passed out flyers to the people who were there to come to church. During the offering people would fake putting money in the basket. There were a lot of issues with the church that we came to realize as the month went on, but that we could not do much about since we were going to leave so soon after we figured them out. One was that the church had no mission statement. We did get the some Christian DvDs in Spanish that they could play but they got them as we were leaving.
We also went to different churches throughout the month to lead that church and “encourage, that means you are doing the message” at the church. We also did outreach in the jungle just outside the main area to people who had stopped going to church for various reasons. We did house visits but they just turned into church in that person’s home. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing I was just expecting to see us talk with that family and see how they were doing rather than just doing church there (They do go to church every night as well). We got to spend a lot of time as a team just hanging out and spending time with the Lord this month.
Most days we long that we did not have anything to do so we prayed as a team every morning for different things. We went to the same places to eat most days since we did not have a kitchen to cook the food. At first we ate lunch as a team then as the month went on we went to different places to eat since we found what we liked the most. Dinners we almost always went as a group of 3-4 somewhere. Most places where we ate were people’s homes that opened up the front rooms to serve food and since it was in budget ($4.47 usd). It was like I was in a town from the 90s, with the way they looked.
If I could sum up the area that I was living I would say that “This is the town that time forgot.”
