A Home Church Meeting

Dear Family and Friends,

I am sitting here in my bed in our "cabin". I am on the bottom bunk across from Dossie. Aubrey is above me and Esther is above Dossie. Our door is open and the sun shining in which is a blessing because it is sometimes very misty, foggy , cold and rainy.

The girls have gone to the kitchen to help Nicole prepare "preserves" for canning. They are cutting up apples for apple preserves and crushing grapes for grape preserves that we got at the market today. The girls, Aubrey, Esther, and Elena, are real "go getters" and love working along side of Nicole in the kitchen. Aubrey is loving it here and is not wanting to come home yet. She watched Carlos and Pablos yesterday for Carla. Carlos is 3 and Pablos is 1 yr and a few months. She was quite the mama watching them. She bathed both boys in totes in the shower stall and then laid sleepy little Carlos down for a nap. He awoke 2 hours later full of poop and pee. Dossie and I ran around getting water, totes, rags and Asher's towel as Aubrey scrubbed away at Carlos's little body. He came out looking and smelling like a champ.

Last night Dossie started to feel sick so she went to bed. I went with Jason, and Asher to one of Jason's home churches. The brothers had asked him to come preach. They started the service with singing as I sat trying to clap my hands as fast and as long as they all did. Your hands and arms are aching pretty badly by the end of singing 6 songs in a row. I tried to "sing along" as best I could but all those spanish words kept running together pretty fast . Then brother Juan asked me to play a song on my "guitara" . As I started to take my guitar out to play, a woman sitting in the back of the room began to sing loudly and everyone joined in. I looked at Jason and hesitated about taking my guitar out the rest of the way wondering if I should just not play. Brother Juan answered my question by placing the only chair in the front of the room underneath the tiny little TV set and indicating with his hands that i should sit and play. I played one of their songs that was pretty easy to learn because it says the same word over and over again "Alabare" in the chorus. So while I belted out the chorus like Mr Bean singing "Alleluia, Alleluia" the rest of the folks sang all the verses while clapping their hands super fast.

Then Jason preached on everyone in the Body of Christ doing their part. I smiled thinking about all the "preaching" I have heard about that very thing. it is really true. After he preached, two women brought out two steaming pots with something hot inside. The first pot held coffee and the second held a hot steaming thick skinned vegetable of some kind. One of the girls put the hot vegetable in my hand and indicated for me to eat it. As I started to bring the funny looking vegetable to my mouth everyone around me began to laugh. I looked up surprised. Then Theresa, one of the young girls with a very mischievous personality told me that I needed to peel the veg first. Then she showed me how. I laughed along with them and slowly began to eat the "potato like fruit". It was starchy like a potato but very bland tasting. Whoever cooked it had boiled it in a lot of salt water so it did have a pleasant salty taste. I ate the whole thing and then started in on the sweet watery coffee. I only drank half of it with some "cookie type crackers".

After that we headed home. It was really foggy out so it was hard to see the road. A huge dump truck had dumped over on the highway ahead so we had to take a back dirt road filled with bumps and holes. All we needed was a four wheeler. We got home just fine and then headed to bed. So ended our Saturday. I am gonna do another blog about our Children's Church. God bless you all!

Love,

mala