I have the whole house to myself today. It is my house mom's birthday and they are going to the coast to celebrate. They invited me to go, but they are spending the night and I have work tomorrow. So its just me and the dogs tonight. Kind of strange, but kind of fun too.
This weekend has been eventful. Friday night I went with my house mom to a "Christian concert" at her church. She had invited me to go last week, and I haven't really experienced much of Guatemalan church yet so I decided to go. Now I should tell you something. There is a difference between normal time and Guatemalan time. Namely that Guatemalan time is one hour or so behind schedule. Originally she told me it started at 6 (that's what the invitation said). Later in the week she said 6:30. The night of, she said we would leave our house at 7. And when we got there it still hadn't started.
But things finally got underway. I should also mention that I was wearing a oversized, bright red puffy jacket that my house mom told me to wear because she thought it was too cold outside.
And that I was the only American person there. So I stood out like a sore thumb.
The majority of the people there were like middle schoolers/early highschoolers. And when the music started, they turned off the lights and had colored disco lights going. And all the kids went to the front and started jumping around. It definitely felt like a youth group event.
Also, I didn't know any of the songs. Which I had anticipated, since they were all in Spanish. Everybody was dancing and singing along, and there I was, standing awkwardly in my puffy jacket. But I tried to take it all in with a smile. I've been in situations before where "worship" was a little different than I am used to. And I'm okay with that. Who am I to say what is the right way and wrong way to worship?
I did feel slightly uncomfortable at points when they were telling everyone what to do. Telling us to raise our hands, telling us to sing louder, telling us to kneel. Probably the epitome of uncomfortability of the night was when they all started dancing in the front. They had flags and tambourines and were forming conga lines and it was getting really intense. And I was just thinking, please don't make me dance. But sure enough, I got grabbed and dragged to the front and was forced to dance in front of everyone to songs. Don't get me wrong, I've had great times of worship that included dancing before. I can remember a specific time in Brazil where we were all dancing so hard we were drenched in sweat. But this time just felt different. Not bad, just uncomfortable. But like I said, I tried to just see it as a time of appreciating how big our God is. He transcends cultures. And I can be with a group of people in another country, with another language, who worship differently, and still be their brothers and sisters. United with them in Christ.
Last night, I went to see a ballet performance. Several of the elementary school students, including a girl that I tutor and another from my class, were performing and a mom had given some of us tickets to go see it. It was their version, (scaled down of course...we are talking about little girls) of the Nutcracker.
Yes, Christmas comes early in Xela. All of the streets are already decked out for Christmas. Including a giant 50 foot Christmas tree with a local beer company tree topper. (I guess on the height).
But anyway, the ballet was very fun. It was in this really historic theater that I had always wanted to go in. And it didn't disappoint. So beautiful. And it was nice to get out and do something different and see our students perform.
Not sure what today has in store. Could be crazy since I'm in charge of the house! :) But probably not... I'll probably just be preparing for this next week. Which is pretty much guaranteed to be stressful. Prayers would be appreciated.
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