The days are so busy

SUNDAY - Another busy day at the clinic

Today marks the day that I left the US exactly a month ago. 3 weeks left until I am in Texas once again. That´s 21 days - not alot of time to share the gospel! Time to kick it up a notch, and go at full speed every day until July 31st. But we only have 14 days left in Conima. That´s even less time! Yikes!!

This evening our team was discussing the coming week trying to find a good time to do community storying at the government building each evening on top of our regular storying appointments. Juggling all of it & trying to have all the right people at the right places will certainly prove to be tricky. We will be telling 2-3 stories a night which is such a blessing but will be pretty chaotic. I am coming to enjoy our storying time more & more as the anxiety subsides and I see the Holy Spirit at work.

Today being a Sunday, I got my second chance to volunteer at the medical clinic. All day I kept thinking I wish I knew spanish better so I could actually do more, but because I don´t and there were so many patients to see today I spent most of my time simply observing. Don´t get me wrong though, I enjoy being there even if I´m nothing more than a wall flower the whole time. We saw so many patients in the short 3-hour morning before lunch. The first patient I remember clearly because he had been in 2 weeks before. The chubby, happy-go-lucky 9-month-old baby boy I wrote about who I held while his mother got a vaccination - that was the first baby we saw this morning. His mother recognized me and greeted me before taking a seat to unwrap Cristean from the manta on her back. He has now advanced to the 10-month mark. Everyone in the room was pleased to see that Cristean could easily perform all the developmental tasks expected of him. At the end of his check-up he had to get another of the 13 vaccinations required for children. I use the word ¨required¨ loosely knowing how few children are actually given regular medical treatment. All the other children ages 3 & under that came in this morning were given a vaccination for one or more of the 13 illnesses listed on the poster that hangs behind the nurses´desk. That is always the worst part - watching these little babies lie on the table most of them happy & jabbering away until they are held down to squirm beneath hands that overpower them as they are stuck with a 2-inch needle. It comes out of nowhere and leaves them screaming in pain with tears wetting their bright red faces. But it has to be done. It is in their best interest. And as odd as it may sound, I rejoice inside every time I see someone receive a vaccination because that is one less person who will die of one less preventable diaease. A list of some other patients we saw:
- a 2 1/2 yr o boy also named Cristean who came in with a cold and no insurance to help pay for the medication which is so expensive & often unaffordable to these people. The medication was 5 soles - the equivalent of about $1.60
- a 5 month o baby boy whose light skin, thick black hair, and almond-shaped eyes could´ve given him to be Asian if it weren´t for his dark-skinned, traditionally-dressed Aymaran mother who brought him in wrapped up in the manta that was slung over her back.
- a 3 yr o girl whom I would´ve guessed to be more like 1 1/2 or 2 yrs o based on her size. It was obvious she had been born with a cleft palate by the disfiguration around her mouth & nose. The nurse asked about the young girl´s eating habits & such because of her small size. She was in the red-warning region on the growth curve so the nurse instructed her mother that the little girl needs to be eating more meat and getting more exercise such as playing fütbol to hopefully fill out her fragile form.
- 2 grown women, one being older & more aged who was the mother of the second woman. They came in carrying 2 baby history charts, but there were no children in sight. Jeremy & I couldn´t exactly figure out why it is that they had come to the clinic for 2 children but not brought them in. After a seemingly long, confusing conversation of mixing spanish & Aymaran, the nurse turned the 2 women away telling them to come back with the children if they want any medical attention.

There were several other babies that came in, but I can´t remember the specificies of them at this moment.


MONDAY - Every seat filled

I am taken back by the amazing ways God works! This morning was a perfect way to begin an overwhelmingly fantastic day. It was an intimate time of simply dwelling in the Spirit and being reminded of God´s great love (Romans 6). Then the day began and within the first couple of hours we had set up a time for community storying this week, confirmed a reservation of the municiple building for every evening, and begun inviting people to come hear a Bible story tonight at 7pm. All day I was praying that God would draw the people who He has to hear His Word and that He would do a mighty work, all the while keeping my expectations low as to not be disappointed. Well, little dad I know what God was going to do this evening.

We had 3 appointments tonight. The English lesson went really well. I told Armando the second story tonight, and upon my suggestion we told the story BEFORE the lesson which captured his attention much better. After the English lesson, Emily, Alison, & Heather went to story with Sophia at 7:30pm. Her husband was busy elsewhere once again, but she had a friend with her that stayed to listen to the story. Alison shared with them the story of the Flood in English with Emily reading the translation in spanish. From what they said, Sophia´s friend was very interested & enthusiastic to hear another story. the fourth story with them is scheduled on Friday at 7pm.

But the most shocking & fantastic part of the day came at 7pm. After I told my story to Armando, I came back to the house with Jeremy Lou where he was preparing to share his story at our community storying. Then at 6:45pm he & I left to walk over to the municiple building where we had invited members of the community to join us at 7pm. The door was locked but we had written permission to use the building so Jeremy climbed up to a window & squeezed himself btween the bars on the window. We then went upstairs to the main room where we turned on the lights & moved some of the plastic lawn chairs into a circle. There were 12 chairs in the cirlce - one for Jeremy, another for me, and ten others in hopes that maybe half those chairs would be filled.

7 o´clock came & went. 7:15, 7:20...well John did say we would be lucky to see maybe one or two families come. I asked Jeremy how many people he expected would show up. He said he honestly wasn´t sure if anyone would come, but he was hoping for maybe ones, two, possibly three people. The challenge we run into here is that people say they will come to be nice, but they never really planned to show up. As we sat there silently in that big, empty room, we began to pray. ¨Lord, if it be your iwll fill these seats, every seat with someone eager to hear Your Word. Give them a desire that can only be quenched by Your presence. Draw people to hear this Good News whose hearts have a longing they don´t understand, a longing for Your love & grace.¨

7:25, 7:30...finally after over half an hour of waiting we hear footsteps up the stairs & voices jabbering in spanish. I turned around to see the 2 nurses from the clinic that I work with every Sunday. Then a few minutes later in walked a young boy, Ismael, & his cousin. We sat talking for several minutes. Jeremy said we were waiting on some other people that were coming. ¨Who else is going to come?¨I thought. ¨We are lucky to have 4 people, especially considering we had just been discussing the possibility of calling it a night & trying again tomorrow.¨ They in walks Katarina, one of the first little kids to become our friend here. Okay, 5 people now! That alone was a surprising turn out and puta smile on my face. Not too long after that an older man walks in the door. Jeremy went to greet him & offered him a seat which he gladly accepted. 6 people was more than anyone had expected so after a few moments, Jeremy began telling the Creation story. As the storying went on, my amazement grew as more & more people came in to join the storying. We ran out of chairs in the circle and had to go get more from the stack in the corner. There were a couple construction workers we had given gloves to, the man who runs the internet cabina, a couple of bogeda owners, and many faces I had never seen. By the time people stopped coming in, there were 18 Aymaran people who had come to hear the Word of God! 18 people!!! What an answer to prayer! And most of them participated in telling the story back to Jeremy. The last time the story was told, Ismael took Jeremy´s spot, and stood before the whole group telling the Creation story. I can´t even describe how I felt getting a chance to see God at work drawing all those people to hear and opening their hearts to be receptive to His Word. I had goosebumps on my legs, the biggest smile on my face from ear to ear, and this amazing tingling sensation that radiated all over my body. My heart was jumping in my chest as I shouted praises & thanksgiving to God from the depths of my soul. Our God is an awesome God!

P.S. Tomorrow I am sharing the story with the community, and the thought of doing that in spanish from memory in front of possibly 20 people or more is pretty nerve-wracking. I pray that God will give me a supernatural peace and speak through me guiding every word I say and every motion I do.

**More blogging to come soon. I know I am behind, but the days are busy with Bible school and so much storying. Having the second team here has been wonderful. God has certainly blessed our efforts in all we´ve done.**