I should have mentioned in my first post how HOT it is, I´m not sure how I forgot to mention it. Today is even hotter than the past few days. I´m pretty sure that it´s over 100 degrees. We don´t have air conditioning, but there are fans which helps some. At night it has been cooling off nicely (i.e. it goes below 80), so I have been able to sleep well. The heat just wears me out though. I am continually sweaty and I smelly. I very much look forward to my cold shower at night (it´s cold because I have no other option!)
So here´s what I´ve been up to despite the heat...
Matias and Martina are pastors in five communities in the area surrounding the town where they live. Each week they visit each community at least once. On Friday, Martina, Matias, and I were supposed to go to one of the communities they serve, Brisas del Valle, but we got word that it was raining really hard there so people wouldn´t be able to get to the church because the rain would make it too difficult to travel on the road. And so we didn´t go.
Yesterday, Saturday, we went to the communities of Buena Vista and Colón. We (me, Matias, Martina, Martina´s son(Jorge), his wife (Erica) and their 1.5 year old son (Emanuel)) left the house around 10 and we traveled about 45 minutes to get to Buena Vista. The first part of the trip was on the ¨highway¨ and then we got to the road leading up to Buena Vista. One wouldn´t usually think that a 4 wheel drive pickup truck is required to be a pastor, but for Pastors Matias and Martina there is no way they could get to the communities they serve without their truck. The road to Buena Vista was unpaved and went up and down, there were large rocks and large holes in the road. There was water running across the road in some places. At one point we had to wait for about 6 cows to get out of the road before we could continue on. We went bumping down the road at about 5 miles per hour for about 15 minutes, and then we finally arrived in Buena Vista.
They are in the process of building a church in Buena Vista. Pastor Matias gave me a muddy tour of the construction. There will be a sanctuary, a sacristy, and a multi purpose room. The walls are pretty high, so I´m thinking they should be done with the walls soon. Then they need to level out the floor in places and then put on the roof. The church service was held in the shade of a tree in front of where the church is being built. We carried plastic lawn chairs from a church member´s house and the altar was also carried into the shade of the tree. The men who were working on the church continued to build while we worshiped. It was very cool to think that very soon this congregation will have a building where they can meet. Then it was back down the bumpy road and on to the next community, Colón.
We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on the way to the community of Colón. It took about 30 minutes to get from Buena Vista to Colón. There is a much nicer road going to Colón, but Colón doesn´t yet have a church. The congregation meets in the yard of a church member. They are lucky to have a metal roof over most of the yard that protects them from the sun and the rain. Once we got there people started to come and set up chairs and the altar just like in Buena Vista. I´m not really sure if there is a set time that they are supposed to start church services. To me it seems that the pastors show up and then church members start to trickle in and then when it seems like no one else is coming they start. Time is very flexible, and doesn´t really matter much. Stuff happens when it happens, and no one really worries about being late or if something takes too long.
I have to admit that I tried so hard to pay attention during Pastor Matias´ sermon at Colón, but there were SO many distractions. There were the little boys playing with stones and pieces of bricks left over from some construction project. There were the dogs walking around looking for food. Pickup trucks, people walking, and bikes passed on the road. There were the flies and other bugs. There were chickens walking around looking for food, and I´m pretty sure that the chicken in one of the corners was dying. Kids came and went to get water. A couple of times during the sermon, fruits fell from the trees above, loudly hit the metal roof, rolled off, and luckily missed the people that were sitting near where the fruits fell to the ground. I was also distracted by my dirty muddy shoes, the dirt on my feet and lower legs, and my sweatyness.
As I tried again and again to pay attention to the sermon, I started to rationalize my not paying attention by thinking that perhaps the things I was paying attention to was a different sort of sermon. It was very obvious to me that God was present in this place and in these people. God was there in the bugs, the dirt, the mud, the dogs, the dying chicken, the boys getting dirty playing with the stones and bricks, the kids coming to get water, and the lovely elderly woman who almost got hit by the fruit falling off the roof. I´m very used to worshiping in my nice clean air conditioned church, but God doesn´t need a nice building to be present. God was there in the distractions just as he is everywhere. The dirt, mud, bugs, chickens, dogs, etc. are the reality for Salvadorans. While I may never be able to feel completely comfortable worshiping with the ¨distractions and inconviences¨ hopefully I will be able to learn from the Salvadorans to accept these distractions as part of life and part of God´s beautiful creation (even though the dirt, sweat, and bugs don´t seem so beautiful).
Today, Martina and I went to the community of Guycume, while Matias went to Brisa del Valle. Then we came home and had lunch. Martina´s daughter and granddaughter have been here most of the day and we are all just trying to stay cool, watching TV, and watching the kids play.
