I was still sick on Saturday, so no new mountain-climbing, volcano-hiking, or city-exploring adventures to share. I did get very acquainted with my warm blankets and monotone walls, but I won’t bore you with the, although few, details.
Thankfully, I was better on Sunday. This week I tried out a new church—completamente en espanol! (Yep that translates to exactly what you are thinking…) Everything about the church, from the name Rios de Aguas Vivas to the sermon given by Pastor Juan Carlos, was one hundred percent in Spanish.
A little bit of research, a little bit of luck, and, I believe, a lot of pre-planning from above led me to Rios de Aguas Vivas. What began as a simple email to Central American Missions International, ended up as an invitation to the church and home of a missionary family currently located here in Xela.
I showed up for the Bible study class for jovenes at 9:15 to later find out it is best to add at least twenty minutes to my still-American watch in order to show up on Guatemalan time. Nevertheless, by the time the pastor began to speak around 9:45 the room was filled mujeres y hombres right around my same age. Their paths in life were as different as the personalized Bibles they carried--students at the local universities, chefs at local restaurants, sons and daughters of church workers, and the list goes on. However, there was one common characteristic that tied them all together, which also set me apart. A characteristic also personified in the Bibles we carried. While all of our Bibles spoke the same truth, theirs spoke of gracia, la redención, y la alegría while mine spoke of grace, redemption, and rejoicing.
It was a little intimidating being the only foreigner in the room, there is something strangely comforting and less bewildering about being confused beside someone just as lost. But to my (pleasant) surprise, I followed everything the pastor said. I didn’t understand everything, many words flew straight over my head, but I comprehended all of the content.
Most excitingly, I experienced a small little glimpse of what I think signifies a strong grasp of a new language. To put it pictorially, there were no tiny translators working a mile a minute in my brain receiving the Spanish word at one end and spitting out the word in English on the other for me to then process the meaning. Instead, the words entered my brain in Spanish and formed together to reveal the meaning of the sentence without ever nearing their English counterparts. (…I hope that makes sense, it’s really hard to describe!) Although I am definitely still limping along, losing the necessity of my English crutches is at least one small step in the right direction.
The service, however, was a different story. It started at 11 (meaning 11:30…) and the next hour and a half was a struggle. Continuing with my previous analogy, imagine climbing up a steep mountain the very hour after you lose the crutches you needed to walk with your entire life. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. I was able to pick up on the topic and general idea of the sermon and could understand most of the songs once I made my way there; it was keeping up that was the problem. Fortunately, my new friends from the Bible study helped me survive the rapidly-fired hymns and scripture references.
Although it was challenging, I couldn’t help but feel excited knowing that one day I could be serving in a church just like this one understanding what the pastor was saying just like my other brothers and sisters in Christ sitting next to me. While the English service I attended last week was definitely more in my comfort zone, I have decided that I am going to make Rios de Aguas Vivas my church home for the next nine weeks so I can grow in my ability to speak Spanish, my understanding of church culture in Latin America, and my vision of the worldwide body of Christ.
After church, the missionary family with CAM International invited me to their house for lunch. Brandon and Jenny Scott have been living in Guatemala for the past four years doing informal pastor training with local pastors. They have three adorable little kids—Deacon age 5, Madeline age 3, and Keagan (almost) age 2. And they are Texan! Brandon is originally from Flower Mound and Jenny is originally from Lubbock.
The Scott family is incredibly gracious, and a spent a wonderful afternoon eating bacon for the first time since leaving America, building Lego ships with Deacon, playing princesses with Madeline, hearing all about Brandon and Jenny’s heart for missions, and reading “Goodnight Moon” over and over to three sleepy kids curled up in my lap.
Through hours of conversation about our backgrounds, married (and soon-to-be married!) life, ministry, and living in a foreign country, we discovered many random things in common and some pretty crazy coincidences; I will share with you the coolest. Jenny spent some of her fondest memories of her childhood in Seminole! (for those of you who don’t know, that is a super tiny town in West Texas where my twin sister just moved.) In Spanish, the phrase for that would be ¡El mundo es pequeno!
I was sick again on Monday, this time with the traveler’s archenemy, stomach problems. While my immune system valiantly fought this formidable foe, my mind was left with a slightly less romantic adventure, journeying the monotonous tan of my bedroom walls and endless white of an always-increasing word document. It was nice to slow down and have a little break from the orphanage and Spanish classes, though. My days have been really busy lately, filled with tons of palabras espanoles y ninos activos. And thanks to my new friend Jenny introducing me to the ever-interesting website Pinterest over the weekend, I spent a lot of my down time with a slightly more romantic adventure after all figuring out the website and daydreaming a little about my and Colton’s upcoming wedding.
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