Above Amazing (Part 3)

So much happened on our first day with Jaqueline that Terri and I returned to the hotel a little tired, but with a new appreciation for God's purpose for us there.

I watched as Terri boldly comforted and shared God's word with Jaqueline, Francisca, their helper (Pati), their neighbor (Eva), and so many other neighbors during church service! We were beginning to see how much BIGGER God's plans were than ours.

Their were many hills in this area of Chiapas and God gave Terri the following verses to sing to our new-found friends:

Psalm 121
¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills—
   where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the LORD,
   the Maker of heaven and earth.
 ³ He will not let your foot slip—
   he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep.
 ⁵ The LORD watches over you—
   the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
   nor the moon by night.
 ⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—
   he will watch over your life;
⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going
   both now and forevermore.

 Now, I want to share a little about the community so that you can have a better picture of where we were and who we were blessed to meet. Homes there varied in style, but most were without running water- no kitchen sink as we are used to here, no flushing toilets, no showers.



 Buckets of water are used to clean hands, food, etc. The food was incredibly fresh and healthy. Jaqueline's mother is an amazing cook and we were spoiled rotten with foods like this:

and this (ok, so maybe the cow intestines weren't my favorite, but everything else was AMAZING!):



 and fresh fruit like this (post-enjoyed by Terri!):



Everything was so fresh. The salsa above was made with shrimp caught and cooked just the day before by their family who live near Oaxaca, MX:

During our walk around the neighborhood, we saw papaya trees like this:

banana trees like this:



To have a car is a privilege and if you don't have it locked up, you need to disconnect the battery so that it isn't stolen. Most people take a taxi or the Colectivo (bus) to get around.

Back to the people. After seeing all of this for the first time and then joining Jaqueline's mom for a church service a few blocks away, I was struck by the amount of joy as well as the love and generosity of the people in this neighborhood. They certainly had a passion to actively share God's love with others. This was not what we had expected at all- what a surprising gift it was!

At church, we sang, listened to the message straight from the Bible. The little girl sitting next to me found it quite amusing that my Bible was in English. When the pastor shared about seeing God's light through each others eyes, the children were very curious about why mine were such a different color from their eyes. We were different, but the same- praising a God who loves, heals, and enables us to change through his grace.

Jaqueline's mom is on the right and her neighbors are on Terri's left. We are on our way to church.

 The pastor sharing.

At the end, Terri shared with the group and the people prayed for us and Jaqueline's mom. Tears came from all of us- including her mom. I don't know why this surprised me so much, but I think it was probably somewhat of a miracle we were watching as Francisca's heart was becoming softened. We embraced and walked back to her home to say goodnight to Jaqueline and the baby.

And our first day came to an end.