Peru: Day 5

Aahh, the joined pleasures of getting to sleep in and go to church! 11:00 AM services are so very nice! I told myself that I was going to pay the utmost attention in church today and not zone out. My Spanish is pretty much limited to "hola", "gracias", "muchas gracias", and "mui bien"...and that's all I can get out verbally so I'm sorry if I spelled any of those incorrectly! Since I've been here I've picked up on a few other words, but comprehension definitely isn't happening too often these days. I do love it when words sound similar in English and Spanish. That's helpful. It took me a while to figure out that a lot of words are incredibly alike, they're just pronounced a bit differently. Today's sermon, for instance, was from the book of Esther. It took me a good 15 minutes to figure out that I really was hearing the names Esther, Haman, and Mordichai, just with a unique emphatic twist! It was so much fun to follow along during Scripture readings just because a word here or there sounded the same or because it was a word from my limited vocabulary that I recognized. Now, the singing. I've never found overheads to be more beneficial! I had no idea what I was saying but I figured that if I was participating with a church group I could count on the words being ok sing. There were a couple of tunes that I couldn't pick up on so I just looked around at the people on all sides of me. I guess you could say I got a glimpse of eternity. The speaking pastor this morning is from England, many of the missionaries are from all over the states, and then the Peruvian families, all joining together in song to "Senior Jesus". It was a pretty amazing sight.

It's awesome to see the gospel at work outside of what we often make to be the confines of our own experiences, our own families, our own churches. While it's true that God interacts on a personal level with us, we often forget the larger picture. God's plan across time has always been to bring the nations to Mt. Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. Merging worlds and reforming confined notions is a part of the gospel's transforming work. That I'm beginning to understand even with a limited Spanish vocabulary.