Peace and Blessings, Ya'll

I’d like to tell you about the precious church we found.

Quick recap: We spent a few weeks looking for this Church of Christ church we’d heard about, but I’m still not convinced it exists. Suffice it to say, that was not a successful adventure. We ended up at an Assembly of God church one week, which was nice, but still not the right fit. Then Colin’s host mom recommended that we go check out a church one of her previous host students attended. Even though we were still on the hunt for the Church of Christ, we decided to go check it out. Unfortunately, Mama Patty gave us the wrong directions, so we couldn’t find it either the first time.  We decided to give it one more shot the following week, and that day when we walked into Seis Oriente 24, we discovered a precious piece of the Kingdom.

Cemipre (whose official name I think is Grace and Peace Church) is a church plant of the Presbyterian Church in America. Pastor John and his wife Cathy are missionaries sent by Mission to the World, and their express goal is to reduce the effects of disabilities in the name of Christ. 

 But you wouldn’t know all that from walking in the door on Sunday. When we walked in at 11:00am (when the service “starts”) the only people there were Pastor John, Cathy, Tito (the guy who operates the sound equipment) and Juani, the girl who works the powerpoint for the songs. Cathy immediately greeted us and asked us about ourselves, where we’re from, etc. Then she introduced us to John, Tito, and Juani, and invited us to make ourselves comfortable while they finished setting up. Over the next half hour or so about fifteen more people filtered in, and nearly everyone came over to us and welcomed us to their church with a besito and a hug. Someone passed us a program and the service began. Since Pastor John is American, his Spanish is rather slower than typical Chilean Spanish, and much easier to understand. This was a relief to both Colin and I as it is rather exhausting to listen to Chilean Spanish for extended periods of time.

Oh and did I mention that over half of the people there are blind or severely nearsighted? So they print the program in size 28 font and also in Braille, which is super awesome. They even have copies of their songbooks in Braille. Even more notable than that is the fact that this small group of people is a family.

This is Sebastián, who goes by
Nachito

This weekend, I got to participate in Cemipre’s Good Friday service, after which they had a potluck once and shared sandwiches, tea and desserts together for a few hours. That day I finally got five-year-old Rebeca, three-year-old Sofia, and five-year-old Sebastián to talk to me. And man, when five-year-olds start talking, they don’t stop! We played around outside for over an hour and they taught me all of their favorite games. We played escondidas (hide-and-seek), lobos, (which is when the wolf [me] chases the little children around and tries to eat them), and just about every variation of every running around/chasing game there is. The imagination of children astounds me.

This is Rebeca after she was eaten by a lobo

Nachito is blowing magic (crushed up
leaves) on me so that I turn from a
monster back into a human. :)

On Easter morning, the place was packed because over thirty people showed up, including a family of Americans who spoke English! They looked a little lost, so I talked to them after the service. We chatted about life in Chile, since they’ve been here four and a half years off and on with a research job the father has. They were all very nice, but they don’t speak a lot of Spanish. On my way out the door, one of the Chilean men thanked me for speaking to the family and making them feel welcome. I already feel like a part of the church family.