For many people in Santa Cruz, Carnaval is the biggest party of the year. With four days off to mark the tradition of “removing meat” before Lent, it is now celebrated as a big street party with floats, dancing and drinking. We have heard that people think that during this time, God isn’t watching so you can do whatever you want. As you can imagine, it can get pretty crazy.
During Carnaval, many churches have their annual family camp to get away for the intense partying in the city. El Buen Pastor is no exception and we went to a camp site about 40 minutes away from Santa Cruz. It was very different to what we are used to, everyone had to bring their own tent and for each meal a different group cooked. There was a soccer field, pool, playground equipment, a large open pavilion for meals, kitchen and bathrooms. We were amazed that 120 people could share 3 indoor showers, 2 pool showers and 6 toilets.
Each day there was a short church service in the morning and the evening. During the rest of the day it was free time or organised group games. The theme for the camp was “Life with Purpose”. Luke was asked to speak at one of the services and he shared from Psalm 139.
It was great to see everyone enjoying their time together away from the church. We had many opportunities to talk to people we didn’t know and get to know those we did better. Each month that goes past, we feel more connected at El Buen Pastor. God has answered your prayers from last year when we were finding it difficult to settle into the church.
We were also able to get together during the camp with all the young couples to figure out when we could meet together. With conflicting schedules, we finally agreed to start meeting on Sunday mornings between the two morning services. There were five couples who were at camp and a few more in the church. We’re excited to get started with this ministry.
We took Murray with us and it turns out he loves camps and sleeping in a tent. He went around and made friends with everyone, chased chickens, played with the kids, and got in the way on the soccer field. Everyone loved him and he was spoilt with the attention and camp food! He was good at staying with us and would go back to the tent on his own to rest when he was tired. We also found out that he is a great conversations starter, we talked to many people who may not otherwise have spoken to us.
On Monday afternoon, Luke had an accident while playing soccer and hurt his wrist. Luckily one of the guys at church Luis is a doctor and he took a look at it and we got ice on it. By the evening, Luke was in a lot of pain so Luis decided to take him into the hospital where he works the next morning. He was able to call a friend who is a traumatologist and Luke was able to get in to get an x-ray and consultation pretty quickly. Turns out that Luke has two fractures in his wrist and now has a cast that goes all the way up his arm. He isn’t in a lot of pain but has to have the cast on for the next six weeks.
Please pray that Luke’s wrist will heal quickly. He can’t type with two hands so things will be a bit more complicated for his administrative role with El Alfarero and for the assignments for his masters degree.
After 8 weeks, Luke is finally cast free! He spent the first 6 weeks with a cast almost up to his armpits; 2 weeks ago it was replaced with a shorter one. Today’s visit to the traumatologist went smoothly and within 15 minutes, Luke was set free from his cast.
