Thursday, June 24, 2010

Our God of the Nations

8:04 AM | Posted by Alissa | Edit Post
I think it was about a month ago now that I got the chance to go back down to Purranque to visit my friend Carolina. Carolina just started her fourth studying law at the university and I met her through the Bible study I attend on Wednesday nights. I had spent a weekend at her house a while back, and they invited to come again to celebrate the baptism of her boyfriend Felipe. Purranque is only about 2.5 hours from Valdivia by bus so I left Saturday afternoon and got down to Purranque in time to watch part of a movie with Carolina and Felipe and then we went to their youth group survice they have on Saturday nights. It was really neat to be back here and see some familiar faces, and to just feel the warmth of a church family. Their church is a lot different than what I'm used in a number of ways but it still never ceases to amaze me how it still feels so similar and comfortable. It's a smaller church (about 50 people) and it's evangelical, which has a slightly different style than the CRC I grew up with :) . Even still, I reallyed enjoyed the service - we sang songs (with words on a projector, and some I recognized from their english versions!) and a lady from their church talked about staying involved in the church and contributing to its growth as young adults. Afterwards we dropped Felipe off at his grandparents house for the night and Carolina and I went back to her house. I really enjoy talking with Carolina. We're obviously not as open/close as I am with my friends in Michigan, but it's still been very nice to find someone like her to share time with. 

Sunday they got up and went to Sunday school while I stayed behind to do my own devotions and then we met up again for lunch with Felipe's family. It still always amazes me how hospitable everyone seems to be here. Even though his family didn't know me at all (and to that, I was only the friend of his girlfriend! hah!), they invited me to eat with them and tried really hard to include me in the conversation - asking me about my studies in Chile and in the US and how I had met Carolina. I really enjoyed taking part in a "sunday family dinner" with them, although it made me miss being at home with my own family a bit. 

Shortly after lunch (it's a 2ish hour process once you have el postre and tea) we headed back to church for Felipe's baptism. I had been looking forward to this for a while since I've always enjoyed watching people get baptised. There's something really powerful in the symbolism of it all, and after learning a bit about Felipe - who he used to be and how he's been changing - I was really excited for him to have this event to "mark" in a way his change and his new life in Christ. The service of course was longgg, but I loved it. The passion that the church has is evident, and because it's a smaller church they really do act like a huge family. For example, they start off with a time of prayer and they just ask people in the congregation to shout out/share prayer requests and updates. It's encouraging to be in this time of community again and to be reminded of the power and expanse of our God. He's not just a God in english, but also in spanish, french, chinese, german, dutch, etc... I loved praising Him in spanish as well - it just added to this idea that our God is the God of every nation, tribe, and tongue. The baptisms were at the end, and this was as enjoyable as I expected. Five people got baptized and it was very cool to see how everyone shared in their joy and excitement. 

So, that was basically that weekend. I spent the night with Carolina again on Sunday and then we headed back to Valdivia on Monday. I see her every once in a while, but we've both been pretty busy so it's generally just at Bible study. We did get a chance to go out and get hot chocolate though on Tuesday which was nice to do to catch up and talk about family, school, etc... I'm hoping to go back once more to visit her and her family in Purranque and then possibly up to Temuco to visit her boyfriend (who lives and works there). Time is running out though, as I now have less than 3 weeks left in Chile. 

One last thing that was especially neat about this weekend (and my time here in general) was/is seeing so many of the similarities that exist between Chile and the US. Even though I'm thousands of miles away, so many things here are parallels of traditions or customs in the US, but with their own Chilean twist (spanish, food, table manners, time schedules.. hah!). Like for instance the church, it's the same God with the same beliefs, but it has a different feel because of the surrounding culture. In that way, it's been incredibly interesting to contrast the two cultures and to analize the pros and cons of each one. There are so many things I love about the Chilean culture, but I'm also starting to realize more of the things that I miss about culture and lifestyle in US. Hopefully I'll manage to get a list going to share. 

That's about it. I now officially have one week left of classes - which includes just two papers and a final project. I'm ready to be done! Thankfully I get to take a break a little bit this weekend since it's a long weekend (there's a holiday on Monday) and I'm going up to a city near Santiago with another friend to visit with her and her family. I'm excited to spend time with them, AND more importantly... I'm excited for the last Chile futbol game in the world cup - hopefully they'll win and then they will advance (along with the US who has already qualified - yay!) to the second round. 

Ojalá que les vaya bien! Un beso - Chau!

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