Dia 47: Church y Tigre otra vez! 2 de agosto

Well, I woke up bright and early this morning (9AM!) and headed off to church with Thomas. The church was pretty easy to find and I am glad Thomas had been there before to understand what was going on. We got there a little late (which is completely normal here…people were walking in up to twenty minutes after we were) and they were already singing songs. The room itself looked like any church could have looked. It wasn’t necessarily “church-y” looking, more like an old gymnasium turned into a church, and really nice too.

We stood and sang hymns. Luckily, they put the words on a screen, or I would have been lost the entire time! There was a band and a choir along with a few people having their own microphones and singing. At first we sang a few songs I couldn’t recognize by tune, but I understood quite a few of the words, and the songs were catchy so it was easy to sing a long to. It hit me pretty early in the service how great it is that there are people here, in South America, going to their church on Sunday, singing their hymns in their own language, and God still understands every word! God was there in their worship service, and was in my church back at home, listening to His people worship Him in multiple languages, understanding everything that was being sung and spoken. Also, there was also sign language going on in the church as well, but Spanish Sign Language which is different from American Sign Language, so it’s yet another language that God was still blessing.

Then…they started playing the song “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” by Chris Tomlin. Of course, it was in Spanish, but I recognized the tune and it was just one of those…way cool moments. I had another one of those when they played “The Happy Song”… I don’t really know if that’s the name, but it goes, “I could sing unending songs of how you saved my soul…” I haven’t heard that song in I don’t know how long, and it was so fun to try and sing in Spanish since the beat is really fast.

We got to take part in the Lord’s Supper as well. It wasn’t even that different from how we do it back home. They passed out the bread and said a prayer and we ate, and repeated with the “wine” (which was apple juice). After the Lord’s Supper, a speaker came up and I thought he was preaching the sermon, but then soon realized that he was just giving an update on how their new building was coming along! That’s right, this church is in the process of building a new worship center and I thought that pretty cool since my church back at home just finished our new Sunday school building. So I was used to hearing about the reports and thought, “wow, home.” After he spoke, they passed out bricks to everyone with a sticker on it…in Spanish, and I don’t know the words (I don’t have the brick with me right now, or else I would go ahead and put them in Spanish for you) but I am pretty sure it had to do with remembering to pray for their church building project and thanking God for how faithful He is.

After that they had the offering and then the leader of the Baptist Convention of Argentina came to speak. He spoke about the story of Jesus healing the blind man in Juan 9:1-7. He spoke really really fast and was quite a character. I could barely understand anything and sadly, the service had lasted so long that we had to leave a little early. Thomas had told me that the service was over around noon-ish, which is what I had been planning on. You see, today we planned another trip to Tigre and had to meet Bridget, Derek, Greggory and Victoria at two at the Retiro Station. I also had to make a trip to the San Telmo Feria (market) in search of an alpaca sweater…so we had to leave by 12:45 in hopes of making it.

The San Telmo market is only open on Sundays and as far as I know it is the largest market in Buenos Aires. It might as well be because it goes on forever it seems like. Now, I guess I haven’t mentioned it already but ever since Serri and Ivana got ugly alpaca sweaters (and told me that I had to have one) I’ve wanted one! They found really cheap ones at the San Telmo market, and even though I found some at other markets, they were more expensive, so I was determined to find one at San Telmo. And sure enough…after walking around in the wonderfully warm sun (with my red jacket on…hot) I finally found the table in front of the yellow gate/wall that was selling all kinds of alpaca sweaters! The cheapest ones we’ve found too! After trying a few on, I finally settled for this orange one, with black and purple. It’s…well, ugly, but that’s the point right? Everyone should get an ugly alpaca sweater while in Buenos Aires…that’s my advice to all! And they aren’t scratchy, and they are warm! So it’s a good investment for being ugly cool! =)

After buying my sweater, we headed to the train station and met up with the others and headed to Tigre. Bridget had wanted to go back and I really wanted to just go out and do something. I didn’t feel like just sitting around…there’s not enough time left in this trip to do nothing! Derek and them hadn’t been yet, so we invited them to come with us. The trip was fun enough. We got to walk through more of the Puerto de Frutas (the HUGE market…where I saw maybe two fruit vendors, lol) this time. We didn’t end up walking to the other side of the city, so that made the walking not as bad! I didn’t buy anything while I was there, so I am pretty proud about that! =)

After a few hours we decided to head back, although the majority of us were tired Derek, Victoria, Gregg and I decided to go back to their apartment and play some games. Gerald met us there and we began playing some card games. After awhile, it was discovered that Gerald had never made a fort when he was a kid, no blankets over chairs or anything like that! The rest of us were so thrown off that we decided to make a fort right there in the living room! So we finished our game and then commenced the creation of our majestic fort. It was quite the fort…let me tell you. Two sheets, a blanket, some string (which, now that I think of it…where did the string come from?), my brick I had gotten earlier in the day, and a lot of safety pins. It was beautiful. Photos will be up shortly. We laid down some pillows and the mattress from the trundle bed and began another game. It was a fun night, getting to learn new things about new and old friends and just hanging out. As usual, I have no idea what time we all crashed, but we eventually did some time in the middle of the night…early morning. =)

And that was my very long and tiring, yet wonderful and fun, Sunday. =)

More to come oh you faithful readers!

Un beso! =)