Sunday, October 10, 2010

Another quiet moment...

Yes, After another week of trying, lol, I finally seem to have a moment of peace and quiet to sit down and write a little. Jorge just left to go rabbit hunting and I have both the boys sleeping..for now. I don't know how long it will last, but we will find out pretty soon!

This week has been pretty eventful for me and I feel so exhausted right now, but I also feel oddly refreshed, spiritually. So where to start??

Yesterday there was a ladies convention in Concepcion for the ladies in our denomination, it was held in a school near my In-laws church, Santa Rosa. There were almost five hundred women there and I went with a group of 16 ladies from our church, and we had a great time. Originally there were about 20 of us that were going to go, but for one reason or another, there were some ladies that were not able to make it, so 16 of us went. We had to arrive in Santa Rosa by 10:30am and the event was going to go until 6pm...so we had rented a bus that had 17 seats and that would take us for the whole day, stay there and then drive us back. Well you can imagine our surprise when the bus driver calls us Thursday night to say he can no longer take us and hopes we can find something else...gggrrrrr. Seriously?? If there is one thing that drives me absolutely nuts here is that things like that just "happen" all the time, and as there was nothing in writing saying that he would drive us, he could just back out of it. But no big deal, we ended up going in just a regular bus, and then when we arrived at the bus station we had three cars waiting to take us to the church, sent by my Mother-in-law. Once we arrived there the ladies were all given pins with different room numbers on them and then they headed out to the assigned classrooms for the morning, where they would have times of worship and then teachings. The Pastor's wives were able to choose whatever classroom that they wanted to sit in on, so I chose to go to a class with Mariela....of course, I had Levi with me and he was not as willing to sit in a classroom full of ladies and listen to someone talk, haha, so needless to say, I didn't get to listen to much of the teaching. I was in and out for a little while, then my Mother-in-law took him for a little while so I could sit in and listen. But then I ended up just sitting out in the hall with him or walking around pushing him in the stroller. He was much happier when moving, so move we did..lol. After the teaching everyone ate lunch in the classrooms, some brought their lunches and others purchased sandwiches or completos that they (the people hosting the event, from Santa Rosa) had made to sell. Anyways, I had a great time with Mariela and over lunch Carolina came and sat and chatted with us for a while..mostly to be closer to Levi as she tries to get in as much time with him as she can when we are together:)
After lunch all the ladies met out in the street (yes, almost 500 of them!!) and started walking to a gymnasium which was about 3 blocks away, where we would have a service for the afternoon, all together. It was a really great time, I really enjoyed the time I spent with the ladies from my church...I am truly starting to feel more "in family" with them and I think the feeling is mutual, which is very encouraging to me. The afternoon service was awesome...our the Deaconess of our denomination gave the sermon and it was very powerful, I know God used it to speak to my life and the life of many ladies there. We also had great times of prayer and worship! It was hard for me to concentrate at times because Baby guy is quite a demanding little dude, lol, he is teething lately and seems to be extra cranky. That and he ONLY falls asleep if he is nursing...literally, it is very difficult to get him to sleep any other way, like in the ring sling or the stroller etc. so that is at times difficult, but what can I do? I prayed for a baby that would nurse and that's what I got, LOL! No complaints here.

We ended up getting home around 8:15ish, as our bus left Concepcion at 7...by feet were killing me and I was definitely tired...as was Levi. But all in all it was a good day and I was thankful to God for the opportunity to have the day out with the ladies.

This morning we had Nelson and Marcela over at 11am for a time to talk and share with the two of them..it went really well and we had some good conversation and prayer with them. For the last few weeks Jorge and I have been talking about how to go about helping out the married couple and families in our church. We know that many of them are having "family issues" in the home, and we constantly talk about the importance of family and God has given us our family as our first ministry, that the faith needs to start in our homes. So as of last week we begun having 'counseling' times with the married couples of our congregation. We have only met with a few but we are trying to meet with at least 2 couples a week, and will try to continue to have regular meetings with them, to support them and try to be of some help to them and their families. For them this is very different, they have told us that they never had such times like this before with any past pastors or leaders (which blows my mind seeing as how some of them have been attending the church for YEARS and have SO MANY deep open wounds in their marriages and families, and they have never been offered any type of counseling or help). Jorge and I feel that God really wants us to be a help to these families so that they can grow and mature, not only in the church, but in their homes, that they can learn to love and respect one another in their marriages and be the example that Christ calls us to be as parents also. Jorge has even asked the Married couples, from the pulpit, to please, sit together during the church service....lol I know, sounds weird for us, doesn't it?? But this church has gone through a lot of traditional teachings in the past and one of those teachings was that the men and women could not sit together during the church service. In the olden days it was men on one side of the church and women on the other. Nowadays it is not so extreme, but in our congregation the couples often sit in different pews, or at least with two or three spaces between them. Now Jorge has asked the elders to make the effort to sit next to their wives, so as to be an example for others, so we are hoping that this trend will, let's say, catch on, haha. But anyways, our goal is to hopefully plan a weekend retreat for married couples within the next few months...it is something that is muchly needed for our congregation.

Anyways...today the church service was absolutely beautiful! There were quite a lot of people today, a few new people attended too, which is always exciting to see. Jorge gave such a great sermon called "Everything or nothing" He spoke about how our walk with Christ and how Jesus demands everything or nothing of our lives. That if we say we are going to serve Christ and if we want him to truly change our lives, then when we are humbled before Him and say "Here I am LORD, take me", He says, "Ok, but I want it ALL...I want ALL of you, it's either everything or nothing". This was a strong word for our church congregation, and I would say there wasn't a dry eye in the house. The past few weeks we have seen how God has used Jorge to truly speak to our congregation, He has been speaking about our foundations in Him. A few weeks ago Jorge spoke about "Growing down". He used the analogy of a bamboo tree and how it takes a few years for it's roots to grow underground, until it is solid and firm, and once it has done that, then it begins to grow up, physically. This is what we, as Christians must do also...we must work on our foundation, what do we believe? Why do we believe it? How is my relationship with God? Etc. After the sermon we had a time of worship, people were embracing each other and crying...God is really at work here, and for that, we are thankful.

Well, this was supposed to be a quick post but it turned out to be a novel..haha. Sorry if I bored you all, but as the kids haven't woken up I took advantage of the time that I had. I will write again soon, bye for now.