Oramos.

Well yesterday was Sunday. And for the first time since I've been in Peru, I went to a church building for church. We usually meet together in one of the two families' homes, but this week, with lots of visitors from the Harding research team, we went to the Iglesia de Cristo for worship.

The preacher there is named Sabino. He's really friendly, and he speaks the clearest Spanish of any native speaker I've ever met. Although this was my first time visiting his church, I had met him before because he comes by ICDU's office from time to time. Because it is usually necessary, the way Sabino usually gets things done is by telling people what to do. This week, he had asked Greg and Kyle to pick some guys from the group to help with church services since he knew we were coming.

On Saturday night, Greg appointed Michael (one of the Harding visitors) and me to head up communion for the following morning. Michael and I decided to go ahead and split up the bread and cup prayers. I chose the bread and was told that it would be a good idea to have something prepared as a communion thought, like a certain scripture to read, in addition to praying in Spanish.

I spent a good deal of time that night looking for a good passage to read from. It was harder than I thought to find a passage that talks more about the bread than it does the cup. Most of the time, it's a packaged deal. But I did find John 6, where Jesus compares himself to manna, the bread of life from heaven. Perfect. I read over it a few times in Spanish to familiarize myself with it. Then I translated and typed out what I wanted to say in the prayer, happy to have the opportunity to get it just right rather than have to pray in Spanish on the fly in front of the whole church. I printed out my prayer along with the John 6 text from an easy-to-read Spanish version. I stuck it in my Bible. I was ready to pray, dangit!

But--as is His typical nature--God had something else in mind.

When it was time for "La Santa Cena," the Lord's Supper, Sabino got up and asked Greg which two of us he had appointed from our group to help. Michael and I went up to the front. I had my Bible in hand, ready to read from the script I had so carefully prepared. Then Sabino started reading a scripture and giving a communion thought. Hm, ok. I thought, I'll just say, "I also have something to read before we pray..." That way, I can still read from the bread prayer script which is cleverly tucked away in my Bible.

Meanwhile, God laughed.

"Michael, if you'll pray for the bread...and Aaron, you pray for the cup," instructed Sabino. You've got to be kidding me. I'd never felt so prepared to speak Spanish in my life, and now this. All the time and preparation and translating, and I still have to wing a prayer in a different language because Sabino switched it up on us...

I put down my Bible. "Santo Padre..."

No one snickered during the prayer, so I think I got away without blaspheming. Man I was glad to get through that.

"Aaron, if you would now pray for the offering." Okay, seriously? I think at that point God was just messing with me, because, well, we just have that kind of relationship.

Again, no snickering; no lightning. Prayer success. Crisis averted.

Now, with all that being said, it really wasn't that bad. And if you know me, you know that I am much too go-with-the-flow to get truly flustered by something like that. After looking back on the whole situation, how well prepared I felt and how differently things went, you might think I'm trying to say that planning is futile because you just never know how things will turn out. And certainly, attaching yourself to a single plan with no room for variables will eventually go awry. But that's not really what I took away from it all.

Instead, I am reminded of (1) how much God is in control, (2) how much I am not in control, and (3) how much that is okay. Do I think God thwarted my plans specifically to put me in my place? Not at all, although He certainly has the right to do so. God has "God-knows-what" in store for me down the road, and one of the best ways He prepares me for that is by raising the stakes, by making me think on my feet. I can plan and prepare and plan and prepare all I want for certain tasks, but I get the best picture of where I am when I am caught off guard.

Maybe this applies to you too. Maybe not. This is just a story that offers great perception into my personal relationship with God, which is perception into me as a person, because after all what more are we than who we are with God?

Machu Picchu Family & Simple Tasks

Last weekend, Briana, Kristen, and I took a short trip to Cuzco and Machu Picchu. They--whoever "they" are--say that you just can't go to Peru with going to Machu Picchu. I'm sooo glad we did it. The train ride to the waypoint city of Aguas Calientes was absolutely breathtaking, not to mention the ruins at Machu Picchu itself. Everywhere I looked there was something picture-worthy, be it a green jungly mountain reaching from a river to the sky, or an Inca wall still standing after centuries of earthquakes.

One thing really took me by surprise, though. My favorite part of the whole trip was not the view, or the history, or even the food. It was getting to know a family from Lima on the way to Machu Picchu. On the train, the seats where situated in groups of four, two seats facing two other seats. I sat with a mother and her two sons, and across the isle, Briana and Kristen sat with the boys' two aunts. The train was long and we were all eager to practice our Spanish, so naturally we got to talk quite a bit with this family. When the train was over, I wasn't really expecting to see them anymore; I just didn't really think about it.

Then after while we were waiting for the train back, I was looking through a souvenir market when I felt a hand tap on my backpack. I turned around and it was Diego! Him and his brother Javier recognized me in the market and got really excited! They asked what time our train back towards Cuzco left, and sure enough, we were in the same car again! On the way back I sat with Firelei, one of the aunts. She taught me all about various Peruvian "jergas," or slang words, especially the ones that have English roots like "chequear" and "luquear" which both mean "Look/Check that out." In return, she wanted me to explain some of the differences between England English and American English. As an example I showed her the difference between the US saying "Harry Podder" and England saying "Arry Potta." Understandably, she laughed at me...

After the train stopped in the town of Ollantaytambo, we were expected there to be a bus waiting to take us the rest of the way to Cuzco. There was no such bus. No worries, though, because our "familia fiel" offered to let us ride with them in the 10-person van they had reserved. As if we hadn't bonded with them enough during the two train rides, we got to drive another hour with them.

By sheer coincidence, the boys spotted us again in Cuzco the next night. They saw us through a window from the street while we were sitting in a restaurant. We immediately paid and ran outside to see them and asked them if we could do breakfast together the following morning. After saying goodbye, we spent the next few hours that night finding a gift for the family to thanks for helping our trip go so smoothly. We found a photo album then went to an internet cafe to print out the picture of all of us that we'd just taken outside the restaurant. We put the picture in the album and spent a loooong time thinking up (in Spanish) a note we could write on the inside of it that would express just how much of a blessing they were to us.

Breakfast was fantastic! I really felt like family with them, and I had to try really hard to hold back the tears when they read our note in the photo album. Like I said, I was not expecting the people I sat with on the train to be my favorite part of the trip, but they were.

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Overall, it is absolutely incredible how beneficial this internship has been to me. I told Robert Oglesby last week that regular intern-ish tasks become a lot more complicated in a culture, language, and city that I'm not familiar with. For example, we had a inauguration party for the first community library on Friday. Before we headed over to the library site, Greg sent me to get styrofoam cups for hot drinks at the inauguration. I was supposed to go get cups and meet them at the library. In the US, especially with your own mode of transportation, this would be extremely easy. In Peru, however, this involved taking a taxi to the San Camilo market, finding the disposable cups & plates store, communicating what I wanted, what size I wanted, and how many I wanted, paying for them, and getting another taxi to a landmark church near the library so I could find my way to the party from there. I've found that the increased potential for problems in simple tasks makes for increased problem-solving and responsibility on my part...