22

I don’t think I ever would have guessed before entering college that I would be spending my next three birthdays away from home. So, how exactly does one celebrate a Chilean birthday? At the very least, here’s a snapshot of my day:

I started off they day normal. Woke up. Bible time. Journal Time. (Coffee time). Walked to the nearby church to wait for my ride to the church we’re working at. There, one of the awesome high schoolers I’m working with from California gave me a birthday present- a kit kat! Definitely excited about the chocolate. From there it was off to La Farfana for breakfast. I can’t say for certain if this is normal for Chile or not, but they literally got my cake for breakfast. But hey, I’m not complaining! They sang, I blew out the candles, and they informed me of a Chilean tradition, where the birthday boy or girl takes a bite out of the corner of the cake before cutting it. Classic. 

I think my brother Robert enjoyed shoving all of my face into the cake. Can’t say I minded this tradition, because then I knew right away that it was good cake! 

Later, we went back to doing our construction work, which I will surely write about later, and they taught me another tradition, where they toss the birthfay boy or girl in the air as many times as they are old. So all of a sudden, they dropped all their tools and started tossing me into the air (I’m just glad I didn’t lie about my age… some people guessed 26 and I was tempted to roll with it). After lunch, most of the high schoolers went to do a puppet show, while I stayed back to work and, well, play ping pong. The high school youth leader got us playing sting pong (where you play ping pong, and when you lose, the winner gets a free shot at your exposed stomach). Apparently I need to work on my skills/am a large target because I ended up with several welts. Nothing to do with birthdays, but still hilarious and slightly painful. The last half of the day was quality too. I was given a bracelet by one of the tias (one of our Chilean helpers in the church) and someone bought me some Chilean chocolate. For the rest of my time at Farfana, I was able to just spend some time talking with the youth on some deeper level conversations. Its amazing how close I’ve grown with these kids. At last, I came home to a Peruvian dinner with my family, plus the youth leader, his wife, one of the local missionaries and her daughter came too. We had a great time talking and playing with baby Sofia. Not to mention we had more cake. And I had more cake in the face. Twice in one day. Classic. Finally I ended with skyping my parents and aunt and grandma. Not bad for a birthday thousands of miles from home!

But seriously, I feel so blessed to have been given this day. We I arrived a week ago, people would ask about me and how old I was, and I would respond 22 because I wasn’t sure how close I would be with anyone here after a week and didn’t want an awkward celebration. But not only was it not awkward, it was with people I am truly blessed to have gotten to know and am excited to continue to get to know. My host family, the missionaries in the church, the youth group from California, all are now my friends. And while I missed being able to celebrate with loved ones back home, I know I am still loved here. How lucky am I to feel this way after only a week being here? I sure will miss these high schoolers when they leave Monday.

Thanks for all your love and support!

Oh! And I almost forgot…. There is another benefit to celebrating my birthday in another time zone. Technically I was born at 10:30pm in California on the 29^th, but because of the time change, that’s 1:30am on the 30^th here in Chile. So I suppose I can keep celebrating myself for another day here :-D

Intro summary

4 days in, 3 days of work, 40 hours of work, and it’s not exactly like my day off was any walk in the park. It’s been a crazy start here. I walked off the plane Friday morning and went straight to a construction site with a youth mission team from California. I’ve been working with them, and will continue to work with them through the rest of this week as I try and get my feet on the ground here. Their activities are a lot like two-week mission trips that I’ve been on. High energy, every second planned... it’s a sprint. Don’t get me wrong, I think its great and it’s a blast. But I’m definitely not here for a sprint. But on top of the sprint, I’ve been lucky to even do some extra curriculars. For instance, yesterday I did construction from 9:30-6, youth stuff from 6-8, which was when the team was able to finally stop, and then I got pulled to go help serve at ‘la plaza de armas’, which is a plaza in downtown Santiago where the church has a ministry to serve food to the homeless. This was interesting in every sense of the word, but I was exhausted because we didn’t get done until close to midnight. I finally forced myself to get up early this morning so I could actually take my quiet time to read the Bible as well as do my required journaling for my internship credit. But anyways, in a nutshell, here’s what I’m doing thus far: Construction on a church called Farfana in a rough neighborhood, ministry in said neighborhood, which includes puppet shows and walking around the neighborhood inviting people to come, and constantly being driven around to different places to see different parts of the church organization. My home church is technically a church called Oriente, but I’ve only been there for a few brief moments, including church on Sunday, soccer for several hours, and a few random meetings. My Spanish is surviving and I’m sure its improving, but its definitely difficult. I love my host family, I have two brothers and a sister: Robert (24), who comes with my to most of the things that I do which is great, Daniel (12) who is a super nice kid and loves talking with me, and Sofia (10 months), who is adorable. Those are the basics, but if I get into more detail, I’ll be late for work. Hopefully I can write about specifics soon. Time to go live the dream!

Prep and Prayer

Doubt. Right where any venture into ministry should begin... right? Question everything. What's my plan? What's God's plan? Why am I doing this? Why should I be doing this? Can I do this? The last of these is what smacked me in the face this morning as a woke up and realized this trip is right around the corner. For a while, my doubt has been in my Spanish speaking abilities. I've been afraid as to whether or not my choppy, mediocre Spanish will be more of a crutch than a help. Today, I got over that and moved on to something probably much more troublesome. I'm going to work. As an intern. Will I be able to do the tasks that they require of me? Will I be able to help lead a ministry and a youth group? How much will they ask of me? I feel like I must have been deceptive to them and that I'm going to disappoint. I've never led a ministry by myself. I don't have materials or a curriculum to teach from (as it was recently recommended I bring). I don't know if I have the confidence in myself to be a leader in this kind of scenario. I don't want to be a waste of anyone's time and resources. I just wonder how God is planning on using me for this ministry. I'm sick to my stomach and more emotional and frightened right now than I can ever remember being. Because, in most things, there's at least something to fall back on, a way out. Not sure there's a way of 'getting out' of this one if I fail. But as I worry about this, my heart turns back to where it should have been all along. "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"- Philippians 4:13. This has been my verse to fall on for my travel and service since my first mission trip in 2006 to Louisiana. It was given to me from a member of my church and hasn't left my wallet since. Now is a good a time as ever to remember it's presence and it's significance. Lastly, as a left work today, with this doubt in my mind about being able to meet these requirements, I was reminded of one of my favorite verses by a song on the radio that had a line from Micah 6:8 in it. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Amen to that. In fear that I've bitten off more than I can chew, this verse is my prayer. That through whatever it is that lies ahead of me, all that God requires of me to walk humbly with Him. Please pray for me, that my heart might find some rest and comfort in this time of self-doubt and uncertainty. Thank you.


3 days. Chile, ya es la hora. Hasta pronto