I guess it's because I feel like all my life I've been looking for something like this. I mean.. obviously my church isn't better than yours, since we're all one and the same and all.. And we mess up a lot. A LOT.
But it was just so neat today to come together, even if more than half of the congregation showed up super late, and share a meal afterward. One family donated leftover chicken from a party they threw the other night. Almost everyone brought some sort of salad (though side note: Argentine salads are usually potato or rice based. Kind of a funny topic). Drinks, cake..
..And everyone pitched in for cleaning up afterward.
We laughed. We cried.. We cried because Nieves was so happy to be alive. She had heart surgery just this past January. Everything could have gone wrong, but it didn't.
We cried because Claudio, one who has been truly on the rollercoaster of Christianity - between faith and doubt, between alcoholism and sobriety, being a good father, husband and not - asked his wife of 15 years this Tuesday, to renew their vows.
Sol and I are planning to make a skit for it. I might play a song on the ukulele.
As everyone sings "Que los cumpla..." I raise my glass and thank God for bringing me here even though I had no idea what it would mean.
I want to end using a quote from the book I am reading (courtesy of a recommendation of Bill Randolf, who I hear also lately had his birthday!), Safer than a Known Way, by Pamela Moore. She writes (about moving to another country to serve):
"The surrender of my will had resulted in something I had thought I did not want--leaving England. I thought that to leave England meant losing the joy and security of home. But instead of losing anything, I had gained a great deal. Within me was a deep satisfaction over the work I had done in Africa and even more was doing today in the Netherlands."
I can relate.
love and chau!
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