A Glimpse

Saturday July 7, 2012
Time is flying! I have already been here for a week and a half...Yesterday I went to the English Institute and they would hire me, but I would have to do 40 hours of training, but only be able to do 1-2 hours a day.  Then a woman pastor and 2 other people came over to the house to meet me and see if they could find anywhere I could serve...I'm supposed to go to a Wajiro [or Wayuu] indian church with them tomorrow, so maybe that will kick start my mission work here...


Sunday July 8, 2012
Yesterday sucked. [Hey I'm going to be real here.] But in all my complaining, I realized I cannot complain.  I'm in South America for a month, I'm seeing more than most high schoolers. To top it off, I'm a child of the Most High God. So why should I ever complain?
And yesterday I went to this restaurant and ate tons of meat! :)


Monday July 9, 2012
...We ate lunch at an Arabian restaurant, it was AWESOME! I was so full!
After lunch, we drove to the other side of town to drop me off so I could go to the Wajiro people...There I met the pastor I was going to go with. They gave me an arepa with chicken, cheese and lettuce. I had to eat it, so I did! [By the grace of God I ate all the lettuce!!] 
After we ate we drove even more to the Wajiro village.  We finally got there and it felt a lot like a church in Panama.  I got in front and introduced myself...We prayed later and this girl layer hands on this fat lady.  Then the fat lady "fell out in the Spirit" whatever that means, but me and the pastor's wife had to catch her! haha! She was at least 300 lbs or more! After that they wanted me to meet everyone, so I shook hands and then they took pictures with me for 30 minutes. After that we laughed, sand and danced.  It was really fun. Then I had an hour ride home in taxi.
I CAN TASTE IT! 


Now during this time, I studied a lot and this is some of what I have learned.

1 Timothy

• Pray for everyone, your leaders especially 
• God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth
• Christ is our mediator, He died so we could be with the Father

Proverbs 22

• God made the rich and the poor
• God rewards humility and fear of Himself
• Provide your children with a solid foundation

Romans 1

• We as Christians, are bond-servants to Jesus
• We are saints in Christ Jesus
• Have faith like the church in Romans 1:8
• Encourage others and be encouraged by them

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and then to the Greek.

-Romans 1:16

This is biggest bridge in Maracaibo, it's called Puente Rafael Urdaneta.

Primera Semana

My first week was filled with lots of time to get to know Maracaibo a little bit better.  It also was good to relax and get used to the Spanish here.  It was difficult because I have learned Mexican Spanish and some Spanish from Argentina.  If you don't know, each country that speaks Spanish has it's own accent and own slang, on top of that regions within each country have their own slang and phrases, so it's impossible to know all of Spanish for every country. 

Saturday June 30, 2012

We washed the car! haha. It's different here, you take it to the car wash and wait around 30 minutes while they hand wash it and clean the inside too.  Later I got to go to the mall! Oh my gosh! It's AWESOME! It's so big, and the stores were really expensive.  The majority of people buy their clothes in the US because they're so much cheaper.  Oh my gosh.  We filled up the tank in their car for 50 cents. 50 CENTS for a full tank!! [Because Venezuela is a worldwide provider of oil, their gas is almost free and their natural gas is free.]

Tuesday July 3, 2012

No hospital.

So on Monday we went to two hospitals.  The first was really small and told us to go to the Universtiy one because it's bigger.  So we go to that one.  It's big, but crappy.  And to top it off, they all love Chavez. [Chavez hates the US by the way.] So we finally found the people to talk to and they said we had to write a letter and bring it back the next day. 

So today [Tuesday] ...we ran errands and came back for lunch.  Oh, and here you have to eat everything on the plate, even if you don't like it. So lots of rice for me!  Praise the Lord I didn't have to eat beans today.  And I had to try plantain that isn't cooked, I almost threw up. Oh, I downloaded an app that lets me call to the US for free. [So I went to the University hospital, and they told me the hospital was too big for me to work there. That was their excuse anyways.] 

Wednesday July 4, 2012

Happy Fourth of July! I didn't do much all day and listened to the national anthem. Being here really helps me really how grateful I am because I was born with so much freedom and opportunity.  I'm proud to be from such a great country , but I am [upset] at what the people have become.  Ph yeah, we tried to go to an American English Institute so it was closed, just my luck. 

Here's what God had been showing me through that week.

• 2 Samuel 1:12 -- David mourned Saul.  He mourned over the man who tried to kill him.
• 2 Samuel 1:26 -- Bros before hoes!
• 1 Corinthians 3:11 -- Jesus Christ is our foundation.

Do you know that you are a temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?

-1 Corinthians 3:16

"Your body is a WONDERLAND"

• 1 Corinthians 4:1 -- We are servants of Christ.  Stewards to others to point others towards Christ.

For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but POWER.

-1 Corinthians 4:20

Madness in Maracaibo

Well, I´m finally in wonderful Venezuela! I´m in the second largest city in the country, Maracaibo, which is located only two hours from the Columbian border. I arrived around midnight on the 27 of June, so I´ve been here for almost two weeks! It´s crazy how the time has flown since I´ve been here! My city has around 3 million people, but it´s very spread out and it doesn´t appear to be that big. I´ll try to post some more often here because I just found out I can use this computer! So I'm going to try to fill you guys in on what all is going on in this wonderful city, with some of my journal excerpts! This next part is straight from my journal [all words captioned like this is what I'm adding now.]


Wednesday [June 27]
I flew out, I flew from Nashville--Houston--Panama-- to finally Maracaibo.  I traveled ALL day long and arrived in Venezuela around 11PM. [It was a long day, but I was extremely excited to see the month long adventure that awaited me in Venezuela. But I definitely did not know what to expect in coming to Maracaibo!]


First full day. Thursday June 28, 2012
Wow! Now I know what exchange students feel like.  The first day is hard! Well, everyone here speaks Spanish, so I'm pretty much immersed in the language.  It's difficult because I didn't understand much because they talk so fast and have their own slang.  We went all over town yesterday and that night. His friends came over and we watched a movie and then went out on the town to go out to eat. And yes, the drivers are CRAZY here. People drive all over the place and when you drive through an intersection that doesn't have a stop sign or light you honk so the other cars will know you're passing.  So anyways we went to the restaurant but it was closed, so we found a small but fancy French restaurant.  It was awesome! I'm getting used to their accents and understanding more of what they say.  I am so excited to see all the crazy, and awesome adventures I'm going to have on this trip!


Friday June 29, 2012
This morning I had AREPAS! They were so good! I'm chilling in Said's house right now, it's nice!  He lives in a gated community and on top of the wall around the houses there's an electric fence to make sure no one can get through. Oh yeah, ...I get almost 100 Bolivares [Venezuelan money] for 10 US dollars. So I can spend more money, and not be actually that much. 


Now just a little bit of the Word and what I've been learning here. 

• Christ is our testimony ----1 Corinthians 1:6
• God is FAITHFUL         ----1 Corinthians 1:9
• As the body of Christ, we are called to act as one. We are not to be broken by small doctoral [I think that's the right word] disputes and big egos. ----1 Corinthians 1:10

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the

GOSPEL.

-1 Corinthians 1:17