Part 2 of “What does your neighborhood look like?”

As promised…here is a more detailed glimpse of our life here. Before you read this entry, read my earlier one entitled “What does your neighborhood look like? In particular, I want you to see a few photos of the surrounding areas here in our new home country and hear a few random collected thoughts from my days. Life outside the Foundation walls is a little different than life inside. Life inside here is modest, but life outside is even more. There are always contrasts in countries like this between the rich and the poor. Honestly, I can take you in a taxi in 10 minutes’ time span from a place a few miles away that feels just like an American mall, to a place that feels like, well, not anything like American suburbia.

 One thing I have learned here. At least 50 % of any trip you take here is uphill. This means you should carefully plan your disciple-making efforts, because if you don’t, gravity and thin air will make you pay dearly! By the Lord’s grace we are getting well acclimated to it all, or maybe we are just learning to be smarter about what point on the hillsides we start our walking journeys. Yesterday, I bought an entire huge bunch of fresh bananas where the lady (fully dressed in traditional village Indian style) flipped over a five-gallon bucket, and climbed up to get them off the top shelf, pulled them down for me, all for 50 cents. This was right after I purchased about 2 pounds of strawberries for 1 $.

 Today, God gave the opportunity for me to preach a Gospel message on disciple-making to the Spanish speaking church here at the foundation. What else would I begin with? After the worship gathering, Vickie and I were humbled to be asked to join one of the brothers from the church in his home for lunch. We dined outside under part of the structure of his modest but clean and beautifully painted home. 15 feet away in the neighbor’s yard, two dairy cows grazed as we ate. The barbed wire fence was all that separated us. This man and his wife were so generous and we were served on their finest dishes and tablecloth.

We praise God for His generous ways toward us, and for the continual satisfaction we find in His word.

Blessings!