Day 4 is in the books! Almost. 20 more minutes and it will be tomorrow! Today was another great day with many memories. We left the house today at 8 and drove out to pick up Ben & Acey. Unfortunately, Acey got a bad tooth ache was not doing real well when we got him. Thankfully, he wasn’t to the point of knocking back pints of whiskey to ward off the pain, but it was clear the tooth was bothering him. As we drove into town, we discussed the situation. We arrived at the Blackstocks and talked with them and decided it would be good for Acey to go to the dentist. So, he has an appointment tomorrow morning at 8:30. The dental care down here is very good.
We went to the Blackstocks for a meeting with a few pastors that get together there with Ryan on Tuesdays. We had a great time discussing discipleship in the church and how to help people grow in the Lord. Once again, I was struck with how, despite our different cultures, many of our core issues are the same. After an enriching and encouraging 3 hour meeting (how often can you say that about a meeting!), we went to a very good hamburger place for lunch. So far, we have had burgers at two different places and in both places the burgers were better than most we can get in the US. (I thought we invented the burger??????) These burgers were so large that only one of us in our group ate the whole thing (I’ll leave you to guess which gringo that was!) The only difference between one of these burgers and a meatloaf was the bun!
After lunch, we spread out to various areas. Blaine talked Champ, Ben, and I into going for lattes, so we went over to one of the best espresso places in the world (not an exaggeration!) Ben and I stayed there for the rest of the afternoon and prepared for our times of teaching.
We left for church and the 2nd night of the discipleship conference at 5:30. It was another great night. Such a blessing to spend time with brothers and sisters in Christ here. There were about 40 people at the conference tonight. Blaine and Ben taught and did an outstanding job. I was proud of both of them. Champ shared some of his testimony as well in regards to his growth in the Lord and did a good job also. Tomorrow night Champ will be teaching.
Once the conference was over, we left the church and went to go get dinner at 9:30 (A nightly dinner time for us here). Ben and I were blessed to go to Dominos with Pastor Mario, his wife, and some people from their church. It was a good time with many underlying sub-stories that are not appropriate to share in this context. You can ask Ben later on! Here, Dominos is a sit down restaurant, very similar to Pizza Hut. Well, the hour is nearly midnight and this boy needs to go to sleep! There are some pictures below. Hope they help capture the day. If you want to see them enlarged, all you should have to do is click on one! Until tomorrow night…..
