Day Four -- Sunday

The day started out with a wonderful church service. The feeling you get is amazing when you are worshiping with people in multiple languages with different backgrounds. Even if you cannot understand every word, you can see God working through people, and you can understand how they feel. We stayed at the church until about 2:30, we sang songs in english and spanish, and Randy gave the lesson in both languages. After the sevice we all ate together as a group, it was an amazing spread of food prepared by the ladies of the church. (They have been feeding us all very well!!) We eventually left the church building and went shopping out on the town for a few hours, we took a lot of pictures, but they are no longer with us.

We had dinner at a taco bar called "MkTaco"! It was Delicious! We enjoyed being together and of course, the Mexican Coke, (it really tastes better down here). After dinner we went back to the church where most of our group were going to sleep that night along with Jess and some others from different groups. The girls moved all of their things from Javier's where they slept on Saturday night, and we got ready for another devotional.

Our devotional focused on the idea of putting others before yourself and the verse that states "May the first be last and the last first." We discussed in depth how we should react when we are treated unfairly, and how we should always be aware of where other people are coming from, and what they've been through. Having this devotional, I feel was God preparing us for what was to happen next. While we were in the church building, singing and praying and talking, we were robbed. Someone came through the gate and into the back room where the girls had put their things, the van was also rummaged through. They stole Tim's laptop, three digital cameras, a suitcase full of clothes, backpacks with ipod/mp3 players, and a whole pile of camera cards that we had been uploading to the laptop. I really do feel that this was something God wanted us to be prepared for, because after our devotional, I feel like our reactions were all fairly calm and rational. I know that having all my clothes stolen, and my camera that was VERY important to me, I would have felt a lot worse if I wasn't already in such an understanding and Godly mindstate from studying the word with others.

Needless to say, this situation is why we haven't updated in a few days. We have very few pictures from sunday, or any days before that, except for the few that are on the blog.

Now I am updating from Javier's computer, and the updates may become less frequent but we will try to recap each day.

I hope all is well in Oregon!

Rochelle