march 4

The past two Sundays, including today, I have attended church at la Iglesia Cristiana Evangelica. Both Sundays I have ridden the bus, because it is more than a 30 minute walk. Last Sunday Ximena went with me, but this Sunday I went alone, arriving a little late because I missed the bus by one minute and had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. (oops) I enjoyed it a lot. Unlike in the masses I have attended here, the people sing and there is teaching directly from the scriptures and it feels like a community. Last week, when Ximena and I entered the church, we were greeted by many people to ask us our names and where we are from (after hearing our accents), and to welcome us to the church.

I was surprised to recognize one person in the church from the university. It was a man that I had seen in a Spanish class that I attended for one day to make up for missing one of my own section. His name is Luke and his wife’s name is Jodi. They are here, with their six kids, to be missionaries. The family is from near Grand Rapids (small world), has lived for 10 years in Romania, and has been here for a year and a half. Next year they will open a church in their town, near Pamplona, called Multilva Baja. I also met, between the two weeks at the church, two au pairs, two from the United States and one from Canada, and a high school foreign exchange student from Nevada.

Today, after church, Jodi invited me to eat lunch with the family. So much food! And so good. I ate more today than I have than I have at any one time this month. I’m not quite sure why the family is still thin. It was my first time in a house (not apartment) and with a family in a month. I spent all the day there and there was a Bible Study with one of the guys from the church and the older kids from the family in the evening at the house. We played games, talked, and it was so nice to just relax in a house with people and understand everything that was being said. It was a genuine day of rest. A half day in English I think isn’t bad when I haven’t spoken even close to a total of twenty-four hours worth of English here yet. Jodi is going to teach me how to make tortillas here (flour, like in Mexico) and pancakes so I can have them in the apartment if I want. I found out that there is a Bible Study on Friday evenings as well in the house, so I’m going to ask for a ride out to the house to attend it this Friday.