#40 - On on

14/03/2011 (posted 17/03/2011)

(I am posting these all at once on the 17th as we have the day off. This will be the last one I do as I'm bored of the sight of a computer screen but I will update again as soon as I can. Could be next week, could be two or three weeks. Until then, farewell and wish me luck.)

Final morning here in Bonyic.
Finished packing and headed for breakfast. We had patacones - mmm - and tuna - eergh. I've never heard of having tuna for breakfast, plus I don't like it or its stench so I slipped it into Jarett's bowl.
We said our final goodbyes, took our final photos and then walked to the road and waited for a truck to pick us up and take us back to La Silencia. We waited around half an hour, and then we were gone.

Upon arrival at La Silencia, we were told that the person due to transport us to our next destination didn't have his bus. Of all the things for him not to have, I feel this was the most key.
But we managed to get a bus fairly soon after which was a relief - La Silencia is an appropriate name. There's almost nothing there.

So we then arrived in our next destination which turns out to be very close to the second week's location, Changuinola. This week's church is a two-month old church plant from Iglesia Nazarene, where we stayed in the second week.

Christina and I, as leaders, chatted to the Pastor for around an hour to try and find out about the week's schedule. I struggle to recall an hour in which I've asked so many questions and received so little information. One major difference this week is that we have to buy and cook all our own food. This requires a lot of thinking and work but luckily, the schedule he so poorly decribed seems to allow time to shop and cook.
It makes things harder to plan though, and it's never nice to have more to think about.

We had the day off so we went to Changuinola for lunch where I had the most ridiculous amount of rice and beef. It was at least six times the size of a normal portion, no exaggeration.
I'm being totally serious. It was massive.
And it was washed down with a nice cold beer. Mmm.

In the afternoon I went to an internet cafe for an hour where I answered a few emails and replied to some Facebook messages and only had time to upload one blog post which was annoying.
I then went shopping with Christina, Bonnie and Liset where we tried to buy food for three days in advance and did our best - we'll find out what items we've forgotten as and when the need arises for each thing.

Dinner was interesting.
I cooked us hot dogs but when they had finished cooking, they looked peculiar. It transpired that each one had its own individual plastic skin which should have been removed prior to cooking.
Oops.
We peeled them off retrospectively and then served up. The flavour was fairly normal but they weren't too visually appealing to say the least. Whoever came up with the ridiculous notion of individually wrapping hot dog sausages deserves some sort of tribute for being a waste of space.

After dinner Christina and I explained to the team what we know (very little) about the week ahead.
It seems that a lot of the time will be spent walking door to door around the community of his church, as it is only two months old and he wants to get his face around and build up his congregation. Apart from that, he seems to have left it to us so we're hoping to organise some kids programmes and services later in the week as soon as we know more about the community and its needs.

Of all the weeks to be leader, this seems to be a difficult one. Rather than being cooked for and told exactly what to plan like in previous weeks, we really have to do most things ourselves this week. This will make it tougher but also gives us all a chance to be creative and really try to spread the word of God in raw and interesting ways.

One quick note - the number of flies/mosquitoes/biting things here is unbelievable.
Every light is absolutely swarmed by them and we all got ruthlessly attacked this evening. Let's hope it doesn't continue, though of course it will.

JG