so how's life in bolivia you ask? ha, it's still weird to me that i would even be able to answer such a question. i'm living in bolivia right now... that fact still shocks me. it's even crazier because i know that as soon as i get used to that fact, i'm going to be packing up and heading to chile (yay for chile!!). oh how life is never the same, always changing.
well, in recent news from bolivia. i'm starting to feel better. this weekend i finally realized that i was never going to get better if i kept convincing myself i felt well enough to go out and do stuff, so i made myself stay in the house all day saturday while everyone else went out and had fun and woke up with just a little bit of a headache sunday morning, a vast improvement on the aching body and dizziness i'd been experiencing for days. after waking up on sunday feeling alot better i debated back and forth for a long time about whether to go check out a church i'd heard about. it really took all the courage i could muster to decide to go in the first place, b/c i was going to have to go alone, but i finally decided that being around some christian community was worth enduring a potentially awkward situation, so i went for it. after making the last minute decision, i quickly got dressed and walked the ten or so blocks to the church. the church is called ekklesia and i'd been told about it by some bolivians i met at new heights back at home. i was honestly terrified as i walk all by myself into the building full of bolivians, not knowing a sole. i chose a seat on the end of an isle toward the back where i felt out of the way and just sat back and waited for the church to start. the church was pretty big and had a really impressive worship band which i really enjoyed because i knew alot of the songs from my time in chile. the pastor was kind of hard to follow, i think partly because i couldn't understand him very well over the PA system, partly because his talk was kind of all over the place, and partly because his sermon was about an hour and a half long. they then took communion, ended with a little bit of worship, and then everyone was dismissed three hours after the service had started.
those three hours i spent in that church service made me realize alot of things about church that i had never realized in quite the same way before. i've always known that church was about community. the very definition of what a church is is a body of believers, not a building or a service where people come to hear some guy talk and sing some songs. obviously those things are great, but they're not what it's all about. church is about participating in the body. we come to church on sunday to worhsip and share with our fellow believers. we come to learn truths about the God we serve and to be encouraged and spurred on in our walks. while it was great to get to participate in coorporate worship, i realized there was little for me in that church, sitting on the end of a row, completely alone, which was definitely not what i had expected to find there. i guess i hoped that by going to a sunday service at this little church i'd somehow experience a bit of the community i'm starting to miss so much, but i realized that community can't be experienced alone at the end of a pew. so... looks like i'll have to look elsewhere for that community.
today, i got up and went to the orphanage for the first time since last tuesday. it was really good getting back to doing what i came here to do, but i'm still a bit run down from being sick, so i only stayed a half day. mauriel, one of the tías that i usually work with the most, and i came up with a game plan of what i should do with the rest of my time in the orphanage. i think we're going to work out a therapy schedule of different kids for me to work with and we'll going to pick specific things for me to work on with each of them. this will be really great, b/c it will give me some direction where i've kind of felt like i've been wandering around for a while. i also talked to her about my thesis project and we talked about what kids would work best, so it looks like i'll be able to get started on that soon as well. then, my day at the orphanage ended with a yummy lunch of... chicken hearts. the kids always eat first, and when i saw these little, dark brown mystery foods on their plates my stomach started to churn. i asked a guy volunteer named robert what they were and he told me "corazon de pollo"... i think they all liked watching me squirm as i told them i'd never tried them before. finally, after freaking myself out about how band they were probably going to be the whole time the kids were eating, my time to eat finally came. i put just two on my plate, not wanting to waste any of course, and much to my surprise... they weren't too bad. i think i'll stick to the breasts, but they weren't nearly as terrible as i'd figured they would be. and now i have a cool story about eating weird food. yay!
well, that's about all i have of interest now. please pray that i would continue to feel better as i get over this being sick junk. also pray that my spirits would rise, as being sick has gotten me a little down in the dumps and lonely. i'm just trying to trust in the fact that i know the Lord has brought me here and i know that He has a reason and a purpose, even though i'm at times having a hard time seeing it.
bueno, i hope you all are well. please send me updates on your lives. emails and comments from those i love really do make my days!
hasta pronto!
well, in recent news from bolivia. i'm starting to feel better. this weekend i finally realized that i was never going to get better if i kept convincing myself i felt well enough to go out and do stuff, so i made myself stay in the house all day saturday while everyone else went out and had fun and woke up with just a little bit of a headache sunday morning, a vast improvement on the aching body and dizziness i'd been experiencing for days. after waking up on sunday feeling alot better i debated back and forth for a long time about whether to go check out a church i'd heard about. it really took all the courage i could muster to decide to go in the first place, b/c i was going to have to go alone, but i finally decided that being around some christian community was worth enduring a potentially awkward situation, so i went for it. after making the last minute decision, i quickly got dressed and walked the ten or so blocks to the church. the church is called ekklesia and i'd been told about it by some bolivians i met at new heights back at home. i was honestly terrified as i walk all by myself into the building full of bolivians, not knowing a sole. i chose a seat on the end of an isle toward the back where i felt out of the way and just sat back and waited for the church to start. the church was pretty big and had a really impressive worship band which i really enjoyed because i knew alot of the songs from my time in chile. the pastor was kind of hard to follow, i think partly because i couldn't understand him very well over the PA system, partly because his talk was kind of all over the place, and partly because his sermon was about an hour and a half long. they then took communion, ended with a little bit of worship, and then everyone was dismissed three hours after the service had started.
those three hours i spent in that church service made me realize alot of things about church that i had never realized in quite the same way before. i've always known that church was about community. the very definition of what a church is is a body of believers, not a building or a service where people come to hear some guy talk and sing some songs. obviously those things are great, but they're not what it's all about. church is about participating in the body. we come to church on sunday to worhsip and share with our fellow believers. we come to learn truths about the God we serve and to be encouraged and spurred on in our walks. while it was great to get to participate in coorporate worship, i realized there was little for me in that church, sitting on the end of a row, completely alone, which was definitely not what i had expected to find there. i guess i hoped that by going to a sunday service at this little church i'd somehow experience a bit of the community i'm starting to miss so much, but i realized that community can't be experienced alone at the end of a pew. so... looks like i'll have to look elsewhere for that community.
today, i got up and went to the orphanage for the first time since last tuesday. it was really good getting back to doing what i came here to do, but i'm still a bit run down from being sick, so i only stayed a half day. mauriel, one of the tías that i usually work with the most, and i came up with a game plan of what i should do with the rest of my time in the orphanage. i think we're going to work out a therapy schedule of different kids for me to work with and we'll going to pick specific things for me to work on with each of them. this will be really great, b/c it will give me some direction where i've kind of felt like i've been wandering around for a while. i also talked to her about my thesis project and we talked about what kids would work best, so it looks like i'll be able to get started on that soon as well. then, my day at the orphanage ended with a yummy lunch of... chicken hearts. the kids always eat first, and when i saw these little, dark brown mystery foods on their plates my stomach started to churn. i asked a guy volunteer named robert what they were and he told me "corazon de pollo"... i think they all liked watching me squirm as i told them i'd never tried them before. finally, after freaking myself out about how band they were probably going to be the whole time the kids were eating, my time to eat finally came. i put just two on my plate, not wanting to waste any of course, and much to my surprise... they weren't too bad. i think i'll stick to the breasts, but they weren't nearly as terrible as i'd figured they would be. and now i have a cool story about eating weird food. yay!
well, that's about all i have of interest now. please pray that i would continue to feel better as i get over this being sick junk. also pray that my spirits would rise, as being sick has gotten me a little down in the dumps and lonely. i'm just trying to trust in the fact that i know the Lord has brought me here and i know that He has a reason and a purpose, even though i'm at times having a hard time seeing it.
bueno, i hope you all are well. please send me updates on your lives. emails and comments from those i love really do make my days!
hasta pronto!
a chicken heart. this is pretty much exactly what my lunch looked like today. yummy...
2 comments:
i'm so proud of you chica! yay for being brave enough to go to a strange church AND eat crazy animal parts! love and miss you a LOT!
I bet chicken hearts are right good, if you know how to fix 'em...
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