Sunday and Magdalena

July 20^th – Sunday

                The day started with Arielle waking up not feeling well, this wasn’t a surprise since she hadn’t been feeling well when she went to bed. We decided that she would just stay in the room all day and rest. Arturo and Lilia were so sweet and got her fruit and medicine. She is feeling a lot better today (Monday) although still not 100%.

                Arielle and I had decided a couple days ago to do kites with the children at Sunday school. I used the new found information from Wednesday night, give each child their own supplies so there is no sharing, to set up for children’s church. After worship we all headed back and the children made their kites. I think it went over fairly well. They don’t fly well, I knew they wouldn’t, but they kept the children busy for about a half hour. We then had banana for snack and went outside and played at the park. One of the girls from the orphanage was a huge help! I would communicate what I wanted to her, via my broken Spanish and sign language, she would then tell all the children and get them to do it. She is also a natural with children, she was a huge blessing.

                After church let out everyone stuck around and we had soup tortillas. It was a yummy soup, I added salsa to mine without first trying it and it was almost too spicy but that’s how I like it so all was well. After clean up I went and checked on Arielle and took a nap.

                I went and sat under the tree with some of the youth for a while, it was really hot today. Then I went and watched some of the ladies working on quince center pieces. The ladies are really talented! The bouquet they made is gorgeous, I might have to have them make mine whenever I get around to getting married.

                At this time I was told that they weren’t able to find a birthday cake for Christopher, today was his birthday! So they were going to go to Magdalena to look. I was invited to go along so I ran and told Arielle where I was going, although I wasn’t really sure what Magdalena was myself, and grabbed some pesos. Well I discovered that Magdalena is a town about 17 K further south than we are. We went to their town plaza area and there was a bazaar of sorts. But first we went across a suspension bridge, the bridge was over a dry river that a bunch of trucks were driving up and down. The children all decided to show their acrobatic prowess in climbing under and across the bridge. I did not attempt as a fall most likely would have killed you and it wasn’t worth it to me.

                We then went and looked around the bazaar area. I quickly noticed that almost all of the shops had mostly catholic relics. This led to the discovery that the plaza was actually the sight of an old cathedral and a new one that they built to replace the old one when destroyed in the rebellion. I was rather proud of myself to have interpreted the signs. There was one little building we entered that had a domed structure inside with windows in it. Everyone was looking into the window so I also looked and was surprised to see a skeleton.

                We also walked through a museum/cathedral  of types. When we first entered there was a body thing laying on an altar or sorts in the middle of the room. Having just seen the skeletpn I was a little leery at first, but then I could tell it was just a statue. But a lot of people were lining up to touch and pray at the statue. There was also another statue of the same guy that people had covered in prayer ribbons. It made me rather sad to think of all those people who don’t know they can have apersonal relationship with God. They don’t need to go through saints.

                We then went to a corner store and the gentleman we were with bought the children some Taki’s. I also bought some Taki’s and some of the nut things from the day before only not covered in Chili, I was curious what they tasted like without the Chili. We then stopped at a little ice cream shop and the children who hadn’t gotten Takis got a scoop of ice cream. I purchased a ice cream bar and the suggestion of one of the girls and then shared it with everyone, it was good. We then hung out for a little bit and drove to a larger grocery store and found the cake and ice cream! Arielle has complained that we got a lot of ice cream the day she was sick.

                This was a fun outing. I thought it was amusing when people would come up to me to try and sell me stuff and I would tell them I didn’t speak Spanish. They would then turn to the children and try and get them to interpret but the children would then tell them they didn’t speak English. Their faces were rather incredulous.

                We came home and celebrated Christophers birthday then I went to bed J