For those of you who know me, most of you would say I am pretty laid back. Not much tends to bother me. While others may freak out when the proverbial "milk" is spilled, I'm usually more surprised at their crying over the spilled milk than the spilled milk itself. Thus, I thought of myself as having a mellow disposition. . . until I spent a month in Peru. I quickly realized that that my "chillness" doesn't hold a candle to much of the people who live in South America.
For example, here is the schedule of one of our typical days while in Pucallpa, Peru:
8:00 Breakfast
9:00 Leave in a moto-taxi to go work at the church
9:15 Arrive at church. . .wait 30 min. or so for secretary to arrive
10:00 Begin working after having gathered necessary items for the work project (we painted, beautified the outside gardens, cleaned the inside of the church)
12: 30 Return to Pastor Lister's house for "Almuerzo" (Lunch- the main, large, high-in-carb meal of the day)
1:00 – 2:15 Eat lunch
2:15- 3:15 Siesta (Nap time…oh yeah!)
Now, pause, what happened after lunch was always a very ambiguous time depending on what we were asked to do. . .maybe return to church to work, maybe stay home and work on a skit, maybe "descansar" which means "rest". . .a term used to say "hey, you're working too hard….take the rest of the day off." Back to the schedule:
6:30 Get ready for evening church service
7:00 Leave house thinking we are late for church (church "started" at 7:00)
7:15 Arrive at church and are surprised that we are early and the worship team is still practicing
9:30 Go back home
10:00 Have dinner (which usually consisted of bread and a hot drink….or armadillo )
10:30-12ish – Talk, play card games, have team time, dance around the kitchen, etc.
With this being said, it was hard to find a daily rhythm. This coupled with that our ministry wasn't centered around ministering to people, which I personally prefer. Needless to say, I was STUGG-UH-LIN! If I could've had it my way, I would have had us sharing the gospel and praying with people. However, I am glad for it. It brought to the surface that I am not as chill as I thought; I am performance driven even in my spiritual life. I wanted to be found successful: seeing people saved left and right, God using me to do supernatural things, counseling people into His presence, etc. All these things are wonderful and even commanded, but I realized that I cared more about checking these things off to become a "successful Christian" rather than caring about the heart behind great these spiritual deeds. Presently, God is moving me from this state of striving to become to a state of serving out of who I already a in Christ.
But I want to close this blog with saying, I do not consider last month to have been a negative experience at all. The things God showed me and the people I built relationships with were invaluable. I honestly should write a blog just about the people we met in Peru. Pastor Lister Ponce(our contact) and his family we're absolutely wonderful. He had two college-aged children, Joseph and Karen, who became our close friends. I will, no doubt, stay in contact with them. The Ponce's were truly a gift from the Lord.
