Day 6: Some type of way
Is how I feel. It was a good day, for sure.
We took another extended morning, which felt good. I mostly just napped. We got to UNA (that's the school) and the team jumped into the classroom to talk to students. Lagos pulled me aside and we talked a bit about strategy and how he feels doing ministry and how he views our church. It was really good, though I feel for the leaders here. They all feel pretty lonely, since there are not many of them and they work in different sections of the church.
The students and gringos came out of the classroom and I was able to reconnect with a guy I had met previously. He also is connected to a bunch of people from the Ohio team, which is exciting. They've made a lot of good connections and have spent some fantastic quality time pouring into the students here. I'm very proud of their work; it's laying a great foundation for H@ngout (which just started this year, btw). I got to meet a lot of other students and talk about accents and language and religion and sports and dancing...it was fun. We may go dancing tomorrow (Thursday) night before we leave on Friday morning.
We took an Uber with Jovany into the city and met up briefly with Carlos Gomez. He introduced us to Carol, who is amazing. She introduced us to a couple of women she knows who live on the streets and we went to get coffee and talk. All the talking happened in Spanish, with a girl named Melany translating for our girls. Melany, it turns out is Carol's daughter. She had her when she was very young and said the coolest thing to her while we were all talking. She said, "you were never a mistake; you are God's gift to me. But the circumstances into which I brought you were a mistake." They seem incredibly close, it was beautiful to see them ministering together.
Carol did a fantastic job of facilitating our conversation with the women, Carolina and Gloria. She didn't have us interview them, she told her life story and then asked for theirs. Then as they shared she encouraged questions from us to dig in deeper with them. It was so organic and natural and beautiful. They had really hard stories. My brain was struggling to keep up with the Spanish, but I followed well enough to understand the basics. Afterwards, Carol asked us to share our stories, which was unexpected on our part (especially after the intensity of their stories), but was brilliant. Baller move, Carol, baller move. Hector and I shared the basics of our stories, but included the gospel. Rachel and Katie killed it with powerful vulnerability and fantastic affirmation.
The whole exchange was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. I don't often get to see the inside of women's ministry, so. It did feel weird for Hector and I; we felt like eavesdroppers on a women's lifegroup. It was what it needed to be though. God is good.
Afterwards we took an art museum tour with Marta and Melany. I think the plan was to give us an evening off, but also to give Carlos Gomez and evening off as well. We had a lot of fun. A lot. The first floor of the first museum was something else. The building was really old and built by fashioning vast amounts of cedar wood (which is all but gone now here) with just axes. All the smooth columns and stuff were shaped and smoothed by hitting them with axes. The entire first floor was just dedicated to the building, it was the art. So, what that means is it was a giant empty building. I really enjoyed it, but it was funny. We walked to another museum, which was huge. We learned about the Diquis Spheres, which are giant stone spheres that were found all around the country. There are like 300 of them and no one is 100% sure where they came from or how they got made. There's lots of weird sculptures around town though of women holding the spheres or being birthed from the spheres.
After museum time, we got dinner at an a m a z i n g place that felt like it should have been in downtown Austin. I was so sad that I didn't have room to finish other people's food, but a man who lives on the street came by and we were able to share with him. Talking with Melany and Marta was really encouraging and pulled on my heart. They're working really hard here and are solid in their faith, but they don't have the discipleship and leadership community they need to really truly thrive. I hope more leaders get raised up soon. We hung out in a plaza and joked and talked and played and were obnoxious and hilarious (see photo below).
We pulled up to the hostel and came in the gate and the whole Ohio team was on the porch where we've been worshiping each night. We had invited them to join us, but through miscommunication they had thought we wanted to worship by ourselves. Tonight they worshiped with us and prayed with us and it was beautiful. Then we did some debrief afterwards as a Texas team and talked some with the girls from Ohio and Honduras about relationships and marriage and stuff.
Great worship. Great bonding.
Please pray for our team! Tomorrow (Thursday) is our last full day and we're scheduled to meet with a lady who works with sex workers and do some intense planning and brainstorming with Carlos Gomez.
Pray for strength and gentleness and peace for us. Pray for love and conflict skills and patience and good communication.
I am so proud of this team. I just can't even express how awesome they are.
We took another extended morning, which felt good. I mostly just napped. We got to UNA (that's the school) and the team jumped into the classroom to talk to students. Lagos pulled me aside and we talked a bit about strategy and how he feels doing ministry and how he views our church. It was really good, though I feel for the leaders here. They all feel pretty lonely, since there are not many of them and they work in different sections of the church.
The students and gringos came out of the classroom and I was able to reconnect with a guy I had met previously. He also is connected to a bunch of people from the Ohio team, which is exciting. They've made a lot of good connections and have spent some fantastic quality time pouring into the students here. I'm very proud of their work; it's laying a great foundation for H@ngout (which just started this year, btw). I got to meet a lot of other students and talk about accents and language and religion and sports and dancing...it was fun. We may go dancing tomorrow (Thursday) night before we leave on Friday morning.
We took an Uber with Jovany into the city and met up briefly with Carlos Gomez. He introduced us to Carol, who is amazing. She introduced us to a couple of women she knows who live on the streets and we went to get coffee and talk. All the talking happened in Spanish, with a girl named Melany translating for our girls. Melany, it turns out is Carol's daughter. She had her when she was very young and said the coolest thing to her while we were all talking. She said, "you were never a mistake; you are God's gift to me. But the circumstances into which I brought you were a mistake." They seem incredibly close, it was beautiful to see them ministering together.
Carol did a fantastic job of facilitating our conversation with the women, Carolina and Gloria. She didn't have us interview them, she told her life story and then asked for theirs. Then as they shared she encouraged questions from us to dig in deeper with them. It was so organic and natural and beautiful. They had really hard stories. My brain was struggling to keep up with the Spanish, but I followed well enough to understand the basics. Afterwards, Carol asked us to share our stories, which was unexpected on our part (especially after the intensity of their stories), but was brilliant. Baller move, Carol, baller move. Hector and I shared the basics of our stories, but included the gospel. Rachel and Katie killed it with powerful vulnerability and fantastic affirmation.
The whole exchange was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. I don't often get to see the inside of women's ministry, so. It did feel weird for Hector and I; we felt like eavesdroppers on a women's lifegroup. It was what it needed to be though. God is good.
Afterwards we took an art museum tour with Marta and Melany. I think the plan was to give us an evening off, but also to give Carlos Gomez and evening off as well. We had a lot of fun. A lot. The first floor of the first museum was something else. The building was really old and built by fashioning vast amounts of cedar wood (which is all but gone now here) with just axes. All the smooth columns and stuff were shaped and smoothed by hitting them with axes. The entire first floor was just dedicated to the building, it was the art. So, what that means is it was a giant empty building. I really enjoyed it, but it was funny. We walked to another museum, which was huge. We learned about the Diquis Spheres, which are giant stone spheres that were found all around the country. There are like 300 of them and no one is 100% sure where they came from or how they got made. There's lots of weird sculptures around town though of women holding the spheres or being birthed from the spheres.
After museum time, we got dinner at an a m a z i n g place that felt like it should have been in downtown Austin. I was so sad that I didn't have room to finish other people's food, but a man who lives on the street came by and we were able to share with him. Talking with Melany and Marta was really encouraging and pulled on my heart. They're working really hard here and are solid in their faith, but they don't have the discipleship and leadership community they need to really truly thrive. I hope more leaders get raised up soon. We hung out in a plaza and joked and talked and played and were obnoxious and hilarious (see photo below).
We pulled up to the hostel and came in the gate and the whole Ohio team was on the porch where we've been worshiping each night. We had invited them to join us, but through miscommunication they had thought we wanted to worship by ourselves. Tonight they worshiped with us and prayed with us and it was beautiful. Then we did some debrief afterwards as a Texas team and talked some with the girls from Ohio and Honduras about relationships and marriage and stuff.
Great worship. Great bonding.
Please pray for our team! Tomorrow (Thursday) is our last full day and we're scheduled to meet with a lady who works with sex workers and do some intense planning and brainstorming with Carlos Gomez.
Pray for strength and gentleness and peace for us. Pray for love and conflict skills and patience and good communication.
I am so proud of this team. I just can't even express how awesome they are.
We decided we were art too
Relaxing and bonding with our hostesses
Orandooooooo!!!
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