On a lighter note...

Buen tarde, Friends,

Just thought I would let you know about some of the more light hearted moments of my trip:

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On our last day with MCC before changing over to the service part of our trip, our team went to eat at a Brazilian resteraunt in Santa Cruz. While browsing the buffet I stumbled accross a bowl of lemonade. While I was pondering whether I might want some of this lemonade, Matt, one of our faculty leaders, approached me and told me that that lemonade had something special in it.

"Limes?" I asked.

"No, something a little more special than limes," he replied.

"Oh, that kind of special," I said, chuckling and nodding my head with enlightenment.

Later, as one of my friends (who will remain unnamed until he or she is willing to own this story) entered the patio where we were eating, that person coughed and made this statement:

"Man, this is really strong lemonade."

They had already had a glass and a half.

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On the first night with my host family, I had gotten pretty fed up with the fact that I had no watch or generally any way of being able to tell what time it was when I discovered that my electronic dictionary had a clock in it. Since I had no way of knowing what time it is in order to set the clock, I decided in my brilliance to simply guess the time (based on my estimation of how many hours had passed since the seven o´clock church service that we had attended).

This probably would not have been so bad, except throughout the night and the next morning, I kept time according to the clock in my dictionary, causing much confusion to myself.

I have since bought a watch.

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Last Sunday our team returned from a visit to an archeological sight in Samaipata with the plan of eating dinner with our host families. The host mom for my house was gone to a party that night and left instructions for my house mates and I to heat up dinner while she was gone.

The instructions were fairly simple: put the garlic bread in the oven for three minutes with the setting on "grill." I put the garlic bread in and set the dial, but when I returned a few minutes later, the bread was uncooked. As one of my friends and I examined the uncooked bread, we recalled that we were operating a gas stove, and that we would need to light the gas in order to cook the bread.

"See, this is the ignition here isn´t it?" I asked, my finger poised to press the button on the front of the stove.

Thankfully, three minutes worth of gas is only enough for a funny story (without any singed eyebrows, trips to the hospital or calls to the fire department). The explosion was mostly contained within the oven.

Lesson learned?

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Today (Aug. 6) is Independance Day in Bolivia. Google is celebrating accordingly:

Blessings,

Sam

P.S. -- After some medicine, a good nights sleep and your prayers I´m feeling much better--although I kind of need to blow ny nose right now. Thank you for praying, and thank the Lord for my improvement. Keep praying for the health of the rest of my team as well.

Let us not love with words or tongue...

Hello, Friends,

The face melting moments have been scarce on this trip, but I think that God is still speaking. A pair of anecdotes may demonstrate sufficiently:

As a group of us were exploring the city of Sucre on our way to Potosí, an indigenous man with a piece of paper approached us. He was a Quechua man with a thin, square and well worn face--a feature that he shares with many of his people. In broken Spanish he explained to my friend Gonzalo that he needed 20 Bolivianos (about three dollars) to pay the fee to obtain his identification, and he asked if we could spare ten Bs. or so to help him out. The five of us stood around awkwardly for a few minutes while Gonzalo explained to us what he had said and continued to converse with him. We all seemed to have the same feeling of reluctance in regard to giving him anything (lest he should spend it on alchohol). Finally, Gonzalo offered to buy him something to eat (which he gladly accepted) and we went awkwardly on our way.

A few days later, a much larger group left the MCC house in Santa Cruz to go to phone and internet business and call home. The clerk at the phone place graciously allowed me to take a glass bottle of Coke with me when we left (normally I would only be able to purchase the soda and the glass bottle would be reused). When we stopped in a plaza to buy caramel apples on our way back, a little boy approached me with longing eyes and pointed at my Coke. Feeling partly the pressure of a cute little boys desire to drink Coke, and partly the pressure of the group of people around me, and popped the cap off and let him chug it down. Then I took a picture with him (almost like a real tourist).

A felt a tinge of regret on both occasions. On the first, I realized shortly afterwords that I really believed the indeginous man who asked us for money. He may have been a scam artist (and a pretty good liar) but the only part of me that really though he was lying was the part of me that has been taught to hold onto its money because of what might be the case. Maybe I can use it to buy a coffee in the States later.

In the second case I realized that as much as it may have felt good in the moment, giving a Coke to a random kid on the street may not have been such a great idea. Besides the fact that he didn´t really need it, I risked contributing to a spirit of dependency and may have offended his mother, who I later realized was close by. Moreover, I gave in partly out of a desire to be seen by others on my team in an act of kindness rather than one of rejection, and ended up making a hero of myself to them and a fool of myself in reality as I took on the demeanor of a "benevolent" [North] American.

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." (1 John 3:18)

Lesson learned?

Our God is a God who is concerned with the real needs of those who are in need. I hope I can learn to be a little more like Him.

Yeesh. It´s hard to tell what God´s doing. We´ve been about a week working at the daycare in Santa Cruz now, and I think our work is beginning to make more sense to me. I can see why it´s important (i.e. the little children), but the vertical connection has been difficult in the past few weeks. Keep our team in your prayers in that regard--that our service in these last few days would not be simply to people, but to God and through the power and with the energy of the Holy Spirit.

Because we don´t have anything worth blogging about apart from the work of the One through whom we´ve been crucified to the patterns and desires of this world.

Thank you, Jesus.

Blessings,

Sam

P.S. -- A few of my teamates and I are wishing right about now that we had taken the school nurses advice and gotten seasonal flu shots before we came. Keep that in your prayers as well.