It all started with a bang, running off to church in Cerro Alto for the first time in the middle of the morning. I suppose in most places that doesn't count as starting off with a bang, but in Chile it does. Depending on how late the night before was. Dad had been asked to preach through a translator, but there was a mix up somewhere along the line and the translator couldn't come. They asked if Mum would be able to translate instead,which Mum thought was a far fetched hope; the Pastor preached from 1st Timothy instead. With intense concentration we understand enough Spanish to pick up the general ideas in sermons now. It's so exciting when we pick up entire sentences! It doesn't happen very often.
During the afternoon the Pastor and his wife visited us and introduced us to an English teacher and her husband. The English teacher had agreed to translate Dad's sermon for the evening service, but as she wasn't used to it she came beforehand to learn the general lay out of the sermon. Considering the short notice, she seemed to do good job at translating, and we were happy to hear a sermon in English. We understand now why it's written that there should always be a translator in church if someone is going to speak in tongues!
It would be an utter shame not to mention that the music at church was amazing. It was better than going to a concert! Most of the songs we don't recognize, but there have been a couple that we do. During the prayer time one of the older men sang Great is Your Faithfulness after sharing that someone in his family was sick, I think.
Monday was another work day on the church, doing more form work in prepartion for the concrete pour on Wednesday. On Tuesday Dad helped finish the prep work by midday, getting the afternoon off.
Meanwhile, Beth and Madd were on their way to Canete to help people from the church as they assisted in a Samaritan Purse distribution of shoebox gifts. They caught the bus to Canete and walked through the town to in indoor stadium, which was eventually filled with about 2,500 children, and many parents. If we'd been told that we would be organizing all the children into age and gender groups, performing songs and accompanying actions that we didn't know - on stage, and helping keep the peace, I don't think we would have left our beds that morning. Surely what you don't know doesn't hurt you! And considering how many children there were, everything went really smoothly. The group that was distributing the boxes was Canadian; it was good speak a little English again. We had a lunch with them afterwards at a small place called Mesa de Jesus, or The Table of Jesus. The church that owned it served sitdown meals for more than fifty homeless people after the earthquake last year. The Chileans are nothing if not hospitable.
Concreting on Wednesday started at about eight thirty am. We discovered just before the pour began that the steel work was the wrong height in two of the five width-wise trenches. The steel helps strengthen the concrete and helps prevent it from cracking during big earthquakes. So while one team concreted, a handful of people kept one step ahead changing the steel work to the correct sizes. Thankfully it was a cool morning, as concreting isn't 'sweat free' to quote dad.. By late morning it was all finished, and we wouldn't strip the forms off until Saturday.
We've managed to fill those respective days off pretty well, however. Sleeping in, socialising, studying for school and Spanish and Preaching this Sunday, food shopping, washing, checking our internet stuff and catching up on correspondence etc.
We haven't had any temblos this week, so far. An interesting outcome of tembos is that things move around.You never know if the lock on the gate will line up, if your doors will stick on the floor when you open them, or if they'll click shut! It's an amusing state of affairs, except when it's the bathroom door that won't shut. ...
P.s. sorry about the lack of photos. Next time maybe, but at the moment time's already run out!
No comments:
Post a Comment