Friday, February 01, 2008

The week of inadequacy

First, an update on my water situation: You see what happened was that a huge pipe broke during our recent flooding and about 40% of the city was without water. Right now the situation is that certain areas of the city get water for a set amount of time each day. I don’t know how long this will be going on. My situation seems to be every other day right now. I had water on Sunday. No water on Monday. Water on Tuesday. No water Wednesday. You get the picture.

I am getting used to just putting on deodorant, brushing my teeth and dumping some bottled water on my hair so that’s cool…nobody really cares.

Anyway, now on to the title of this post…

I have felt really inadequate this week. Thank goodness that God is adequate though. It started Sunday night when I got a call from Pablo, the coordinator for Red Viva, who asked me if I could help him out on Monday. Sure I said, what can I do? He told me that Compassion International was having a three day conference here in La Paz for pastors and leaders of various ministries around Bolivia. Monday afternoon they broke out into small groups and Pablo asked me to lead twenty-five pastors in a discussion about the youth of the church in Bolivia and how the pastors/leaders can better develop the spiritual gifts of the youth. What??? I just got here. I mean…I could lead a really good discussion about how to take a taxi or how to find the supermarket but I think this is a little over my head. But they needed my help so I did it. I was the only facilitator of about twenty-five groups that was not a native Spanish speaker so God really put my Spanish skills to the test with this one. I am sure the people in my group were like, “Great, we get the gringo” but we got through it.

Then on Monday night after the conference I took my first Salsa class. I wanted to find some things to do for fun and my friend was going to take a Salsa class and so I went also. I love to dance and I am always up to learn some new moves. It was so much fun and I think I might be hooked. I felt a little inadequate but I think I am getting the hang of it. They have classes every Monday and Wednesday night and get this…it costs about $1.50 for a two hour class. Jealous?

Then on Wednesday I get another call from Pablo who said that one of the speakers from the Compassion conference wanted to go visit the Valley of the Moon (which is a cool touristy valley right outside of La Paz) and he really needed a translator. I also wanted to check this valley off of my La Paz to do list so I decided to go. But there I was walking around this valley translating the guide’s Spanish explanations about the valley into English and vice versa. I really need to brush up on my geology vocabulary. I am still learning Spanish and I am really improving but I was thrown into a little bit of a fire with this one. But I am learning that plans change last minute here and that you just have to go with the flow. All went well and I think I pretty much communicated what I needed to. It was my first true translation experience of many I am sure…

But I did have a few moments of adequacy this week also. Before visiting the Valley of the Moon on Wednesday I visited a ministry in El Alto (Very poor suburb of La Paz) called Word Made Flesh. They minister to street prostitutes and their kids and every Wednesday and Friday they invite the girls and their kids to the drop-in center for lunch and to just spend time with them. They also visit the girls on the streets but they wanted to have a neutral location where the girls could come as well.

I helped serve lunch to them and then I was called in to help with the kids. There were several boys that were older than the other kids so we played soccer (Something I AM adequate at) and I got to really spend some time with some of the boys.

I realized afterwards that this is exactly something that I want to do – spend time with kids who are at-risk. And trust me these kids are at-risk. I got to meet some of the boys and have fun with them and I look forward to seeing them again and I look forward to hopefully just being a positive male role model in their life. I bonded with one young boy in particular and I hope to see him again.

All this in only three days.

A few other notes:

I am having the internet installed in my house next week so I will be able to hook up my Vonage phone and call Georgia for free so get ready folks…you might just hear my voice on the phone next week. I will also be able to respond to emails faster.

And a few people have asked about my address. Although I do have a house I do not have a mailbox so if you want to send me a letter you can mail it to the church address to my attention and I should get it.

Here is the address:

Miguel Little
Casilla 3-35022
San Miguel
La Paz - Bolivia

3 comments:

Joanie said...

Doesn't seem as though you were inadequate in ANY of those situations. You were challenged, doubted yourself perhaps, & did what you had to do with all that God gave you. I know you loved playing with the kids too. I'm so happy for what you're doing.

Bill L said...

Greetings, Curt, from Bill & Betsy at H.C.!
Because we skip out on the sermon each week to go hang with the children in Children's Church, we always have to catch up on the sermons from CD. I'm a little behind, and I was just listening to the week Foley "interviewed" you. I was blessed by your witness!
Thanks for your faithfulness to the call, and may the Holy Spirit clobber you with joy today!

samace said...

I thought "gringo" was a mexican term, do they use it in Bolivia too?