Niñolympics and Church Marathon
This morning, the team got to sleep in a little; and boy, did that extra reserve of energy come in handy! Alfred played soccer and worked translating for Jason in the medical clinic a little too hard yesterday and he woke up with a pretty nasty cold, so he was forced to stay on the sidelines (in bed) for the morning activities. The rest of us rolled into the town square–also known as a huge dirt lot with goals at each end– at about 9:00 a.m. to be greeted by a herd of kids.
David, our translator, is truly gifted at inventing games, so we just took our cues from him. We played Pacho, Pacho, Gonzo (Duck, Duck, Goose) and Tug-of-war, and then the original games started flowing. We played one where we “went fishing”: throwing a hula-hoop with a rope tied to it at a bunch of kids and hopefully catching a few! We also played one that involved throwing a soccer ball at a stack of paint cans and– as far as we could tell–when all the cans were knocked over, the entire throwing team was supposed to run and grab the cans and try to take them to the corners of a square while the other team ran and grabbed the ball and tried to tag as many of the opposing team members with it. Total chaos! We mostly ran around and screamed with the younger kids during this portion of the game.
We stopped for lunch and in the afternoon went back for more games. By this time, Alfred was feeling a little better, so he went too. Pam’s sponsored girl, Judith, showed up, having walked an hour into town!
Tonight, we visited the new church that Food For the Hungry is partnering with. One of the main issues we have seen La Perla deal with over the years is a division between churches in the community; so we prepared a group message about how we are being supported by two different churches at home and the unity between them. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that many members of the church that formerly partnered with FH attended tonight and that the members of the new church will be attending the first one tomorrow morning!
Now, you might think that a 3 hour church service (yes, I said 3) sounds unbearable, but it was actually amazing! There were multiple dance performances by kids, teens and us. There were some wonderful singers and some very talented rappers. We gave our message and the pastor of the church gave one, too. I know there is still a lot of progress to be made in the area of unifying the church and the community, but tonight was a really wonderful step in the right direction!
Praise God for this wonderful day! Please pray for Alfred to continue to heal quickly and for the health of the rest of the team. Christi worked especially hard today playing games and translating, so please pray for her to get good rest and continued health. And please especially pray for the church service tomorrow to continue to open doors between these two churches and to turn them outward toward helping the community.
