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