Jerry and I got to go to Emaus this morning for church. Roberto us up and took us pretty close on his own way to Reconciliation. We cabbed it the rest of the way, and I don’t even feel like we got ripped out of our minds. And even if we had, I got to see my Godson for the third time in a week and a half so I wouldn’t have cared.
It’s amazing what changes in a year.
I remember looking out the back window at the lumber yard last year and being told that they hoped to have a new chapel built by the time we came back. I thought to myself “Yeah, right.” I fully expected to be lugging around the first cinder blocks for the beginnings of the walls the next time I was there. I thought I’d be back as a team member, not a host. I thought I’d spend more than a day at Emaus. I thought Coleman, Holly, Katie, Carrie and Hunter would be here. I thought I’d know more Spanish. I thought I’d be done with COA and my first semester at another school.
This morning was full of unexpected events. I’m really just impressed we got to South Quito and back in the first place. And I was blown away when I got there how beautiful the new sanctuary is. Jerry was saying things like “When I got here that window wasn’t there and that wall wasn’t finished…” and I was saying “When I got here it was a pile of sticks.” Something else sweet about it was to be in a “normal” service there. There was a little bit of a farewell for Emily, but otherwise it was normal life at Mision Emaus: music, Eucharist, and Gema running around dancing with Lourdes and Christion.
There is a lot different in me since I was last there as well. I have a piercing again and more facial hair and a tatoo (just kidding Mom!). I don’t say “weak” as much but I’ve picked phrases like “wazz, “droppin’ trou” and “whatev.” But aside from the obvious, I realized how much a year can affect you. I was blown away thinking about who I was when I stepped off the plane for the first time in South America.
People I wouldn’t have missed last year have been on my mind constantly, and there are people I wished I could call last time around that I (somewhat sadly) haven’t gotten or taken the chance to even facebook since May. I play the guitar a lot better, and for a different reason. I appreciate my friendships with the guys, and with only two notable exceptions, tend to hang out with (and want to hang out with) them (when I’m around) more than the girls (which is totally different for me, even having had the B.R.O.s, and which I think goes back to Chet’s monologue on parejas).
Insert semi-sincere apology for all the parenthetical phrases in the above paragraph.
A full list would take up way too much space here, but suffice it to say, in a very Weslyan way (all the Methodist pastors/Duke graduates reading this can be proud of me), that I hope that that Perfection continues in such an obvious way.
In other news, I think I’m coming down with a cold. I’m going to go take a nap now.
