Differences

Things are a bit different here in several ways - one of them is not having a bathtub. When we packed to come down I specifically bought some larger sized totes to have to use instead - here we are on Saturday night, giving Jesse a bath in the kitchen since it's much warmer than in our rooms, or in the bathroom.

Cooking is also very different - Matthew and I cooked some meals this past weekend since Dan and Liz went back to their house and the cooks also go home for Saturday and Sunday. Saturday lunch was just 'once' or basically sandwiches; for supper all we did was heat up leftovers from last weekends tacos. But, I had an urge for dessert, so I made chocolate chip cookie bars. It was quite an adventure. I had to figure out how much 2 sticks of margarine translated to in kilograms, I had to find a chocolate bar to buy and cut it into little tiny pieces since they don't have regular chocolate chips, I had to guess at the amount of anything that called for teaspooons or tablespoons as there are no measuring spoons, and Matthew had to go online to figure out what to set the celsius oven at to be 375 F! They turned out OK, at least there were no leftovers=)

Sunday morning Matthew made brunch - pancakes and hashbrowns that were delicious. In the meantime I scrambled to find some recipe for pancake syrup. One cup each of brown sugar, white sugar, and water plus a teaspoon of vanilla - boil for 2 minutes and we were set. It actually turned out pretty good. By supper that night Liz was back and she made rice with a tuna gravy - also very yummy!

Sunday afternoon we went to a 2 o'clock service out in the country. It is a remote church where many people walk quite a distance just to make it to the service. Since that is the case they tend to take advantage of the opportunity to have a service and it is quite long - we didn't leave until 5 pm. The kids did amazingly well for that amount of time, it helped that Jesse slept for an hour of it. The pastor is only able to come once a month as he circuit preaches in some other country churches as well.

They ushered our group in to sit in the three front rows - since all the adults in our group were basically taller than any other people in the room I'm not sure that those behind us saw anything!It was funny to see this little country church have more sound equipment than many churches back in the US. It wasn't that the music was all that crazy but it did have plenty of volume!Another difference was the outhouses we used outside - most of the kids had to go since we were there quite a while....anyone bring any toilet paper...?One of the other differences that I'd forgotten about was how the Chilean people will talk about others and mention prayer requests very specifically, while the person in discussion may be sitting right there. In our Sunday school class two visiting ladies were pointed out as being unsaved and in need of prayer - they didn't mind a bit=) One thing that was evident during our time there is the need for a full-time, well trained and taught pastor. The people are so often left on their own, they often end up like sheep without a shepherd - the need is very great!