Sorry.. I have wanted to write a blog for quite a few days now, but I haven’t been able to due to the power outage. We have had power mostly during the day, but every single night the power has been going off. The other day it was off for almost 24 hours. It just so happens that the power goes off every single night while Gayle and I have been cooking dinner or when I start writing my blog. It has been an interesting week to say the least.
But the “interesting-ness” of my week doesn’t even compare to my weekend. It is almost unbelievable that I can still have an adventurous weekend even though I am here in little La Union. This past weekend was definitely no exception.
The story begins with last Wednesday (the 30th). A student from Gayle’s 5th grade comes up to me and hands me a ticket. I asked her what it was for. She told me it was for a retreat called “3 Dias de Gloria”. She began to explain that Miss Gayle had told her the day before that both her and I would be attending this retreat. The purpose of the retreat is to honor God, and to give him glory for everything that he does for us. As Kirian (the student) hands me the ticket she tells me, “Don’t forget to bring a blanket and pillow!” I looked at her completely bug-eyed, wanting a further explanation. She said “Yes it is three days long. We stay overnight there and give glory to God for 3 whole days.” You can bet that I marched right into Gayle’s room and asked her what she signed us up for!! Apparently, Kirian forgot to mention the sleep-over part when Gayle agreed to go.
Friday came quicker than I wanted it to. Gayle and I sat down and came up with a game plan for the retreat. We decided that we would go to the retreat but only for the dinner; we would leave later on Friday night. Gayle wasn’t feeling well all day Friday, so if anything we could use that as an excuse to go home.
On the walk home that day from school we mentioned our evening plans to all the teachers. Jake (who has lived her for 4 years) told us that he had been to “3 Dias de Gloria” before. He said Gayle and I were in for a real treat. The church that puts on this retreat was a Pentecostal church. Jake said when he went a few years ago people were shaking/convulsing on the floor with the Holy Spirit inside of them, others were speaking in tongues, and there was oil miraculously falling from the ceiling onto the people.
I don’t know about your church retreats or services..but that is not how mine usually go. Hearing this made Gayle and I even more nervous to go! Gayle and I rehearsed our getaway plans on the hike up to the retreat. As we walked up to the building, I could feel every pair of eyes on us. It is not like we blend in very well…2 white girls in the midst of 150 Hondurans. We found Gayle’s student Kirian and stood in line with her. At the front of the line we were told to hand over our purses and our cell phones. They were collecting everyone’s belongings. Well I was not about to let them take my purse, thankfully they were ok with me keeping it. To our dismay Gayle was forced to hand over her cell phone. They wrapped it up and put it in a big black bag with everyone else’s phones. We quickly started scheming ways we could get the cell phone back without making a huge scene…. but bright ideas weren’t coming to mind.
Next we were herded into a bigger room with a stage and chairs set up. Gayle and I sat down, desperately trying to blend in. Everyone was staring at us, most likely thinking “those crazy gringas are here.” [sidenote: everyone already thinks we are crazy because we are always running for excersize..NO ONE does that here..we also sit in the park to soak up the sun while everyone else sits in the shade, the sun is BAD..we always see Hondurans laughing at us]
We continued to sit in the white plastic chairs being stared at for 2 hours. While sitting there music blasted, people chatted, and dinner was served. Dinner was watery scrambled eggs, rock hard red beans, queso (cheese that tastes like dirty socks), and 3 tortillas. Buen Provecho!
Finally after waiting for 2 hours, the retreat was started. There was a lot of standing and praying, a lot of sitting and listening to screaming sermons, and a lot of music being played. I think this is the one time I was thankful I don’t understand much Spanish; it gave me a good excuse not to be super “involved”. Gayle, on the other hand, was translating a pretty intense sermon. During the middle of the sermon, a girl came up to us and started speaking to us in English (she goes to the bilingual school in Gracias). She asked us to please come outside with her. So Gayle and I had to stand up in front of ALL of the people and were escorted outside. No matter how hard we try not to, we always always ALWAYS make a scene. When we get outside the girl explains that all of the pastors want to pray over us since we don’t understand Spanish. Gayle and I stepped towards the pastors and they said “No, no, no only one at a time.” Gayle and I quickly held hands and explained we were staying together!! I was not about to be separated from her!! They said that was ok and that they would pray for us later. The girl lead us back into the building.
We made sure to pick seats close to the back AND close to the door this time; that way hopefully not so many people would notice when we left for the night! We waited for 45 more minutes before we decided it was time to leave..only one problem: Gayle needed her cell phone, which was deep inside the big black cell phone bag. We flagged down the English-speaking girl and asked her where we could get it. She went searching for it and came back 10 minutes later, cell phone in hand. Good, now we could make our get-away!! We were about to walk out, when the English-speaking girl shoved a survey into our face and told us to fill it out. The survey asked about your 7 worst sins you commit constantly, about your relationship with Christ, what you want to change about your faith, etc. We quickly filled it out and then decided we HAD to leave, or we would be stuck staying overnight there!
I decided to go for it and I leaped out the door. I made it out safely…Gayle didn’t. A man had stopped Gayle and said, “You cannot leave now!! You need to stay! You need to see the miracle that is going to happen. The Holy Spirit will come and it will burn and tear up your paper (survey)!!” The man saw me walking down the hill and literally yelled (in Spanish of course) “You need to STOP HER!” I looked back up the hill to see Gayle surrounded by 5 people telling her that she cannot leave yet. Gayle calmly smiles at all of them and tells them thank-you, and she runs to meet me. We need to get out of here FAST.
On our way down the hill we met two boys. They looked at us curiously, wondering why we weren’t in the auditorium listening to the sermons. One of them said to us “Are you looking for the bathrooms?” Gayle quickly said, “Yes we are!” She was hoping that would make them leave us alone…alone and able to make a getaway. They pointed us to the direction of the bathroom. We watched them walk up the hill towards the auditorium, making sure they couldn’t see us anymore.
We decided we were safe, so we literally started sprinting down the mountain towards the big silver gates. As we reached the gates we noticed big, heavy chains linked around them held together with one massive padlock. We were LOCKED in. We were so close to escaping..if only there was a way OVER the gates! There was no way we could stay overnight, we didn’t even bring a pillow or blanket. I looked over to the right and noticed another gate. This gate looked a little bit easier to climb. “Gayle I’m going to climb the gate.” I headed towards the gate more than ready to attempt the climb.
She stopped me, “Wait! There are a bunch of people at the top of the hill watching us!” I looked up, and sure enough at least 15 people were gathered at the top of the hill watching our escape. I decided it might look bad if I climbed over the gate. A few people started running down the hill. Gayle and I were worried they would make us go back to the retreat. As they came closer we noticed it was the two boys who we had told we were going to the bathroom…oops! They looked at us and said, “So you weren’t going to the bathroom, you were actually going home.” Even in the black of night, I swear I could see Gayle’s face burning red. “Umm…yes I need to go home, I am sick,” Gayle responds. Thankfully they were laughing and not upset. They started to help us look for the keys to the padlock. I was tired of waiting, so I started climbing the gate. The boys seriously thought I was a crazy person, but I didn’t care—I was desperate to leave! Climbing over a gate never felt so good. As my feet hit the ground on the other side I felt free! I helped Gayle climb over and we RAN back to our house, laughing at ourselves the entire way.
We were almost to our house when we heard screaming, yelling, and chanting coming from the place we had just escaped from. We were so thankful we had climbed the gate. We were safe and sound back in our casa.
Once again, I had an adventure. And once again, Gayle and I gave the people in the town reason to think we are absolutely crazy Americans. As long as I’m not the only crazy one, I guess I’m ok with that. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment