Last bus out of El Tambo.... and the only blonde!

My three novios (boyfriends)

My little Tambinos

Finally painting the church

Our amazing group - ew yes I had to wear face paint. I don't want to talk about it.

El Tambooooo

VBS kids! In reality they all had fun and loved me,

the people here just don't smile for pictures. So I know it looks like I am forcing them to pose with me with face paint on, but really they liked it. I promise.

Me in the back of the pastor's car for the two-hour drive to another church..

yes I am sitting on a box.

Instead of garages, why don't we just grow grapes above our cars?

Good idea honey! Let's do it!

So I was talking to our pastor and he was like "hold on I have to go outside real quick"... five minutes later we heard all this squawking and came outside only to find our happy little pastor is killing all the chickens in the front yard of the church so we could have chicken lunch... just an average day in the life in El Tambo. And they were good, too.

My house!

Well I survived El Tambo. Let me give you some background about this town. Its a tiny town (and by tiny I mean I could see the population sign change as we passed the town limits, right Dad?) of fruit farmers (100 houses maximum), with no stores, one tiny park, completely surrounded by fruit fields. Our group of nine brought the only black guy and blonde some of the kids had EVER seen in their life. Yes, I am that blonde - claim to fame! We were there for nine days and let me tell you, some days it felt like 29. It was about 700 degrees and during the day absolutely everyone in the town leaves to work in the fields so its a ghost town all day. Which is frustrating when you have a team and a plan to evangelize and work with the church for 9 days. One example: the first day we tried to go out during the day to find people to talk to just to get a feel for the town, and my group encountered about 7 people in one hour, 4 of which were Catholics and shut the door very quickly, and one of which was an old grandma who had no teeth and couldnt hear a word we said. When we finally heard some voices and got excited to find life in El Tambo, we turned the corner to meet some Tambinos, only to find it was another group from our team. Go figure.

We tried to ask the pastor what we could do to help the church, and discovered the interior needed to be painted. So we asked. He said yes. But since life moves at the speed of molasses in El Tambo, it took five days for them to come show us where the material had been sitting in the church storage all week so we could begin painting. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Every new idea we had was met with many problems and obstacles. So we finally had only one thing left to do: pray. We had an intense time of praying over everything and submitting it all to the Lord, confessing pride or man-made motives, and asked for God to do what He wanted with us there. An hour later we created a VBS program to put on with the kids in the park, since they were left alone all day while their parents worked, and of course since it was God's idea it actually worked.

We played games with them, played soccer, taught them songs, had some mini-teachings on prayer and Sunday School stories, I taught an English class to some of the older kids, and we painted their faces. Which is something kids all over the world love to an unnecessarily high degree that I dont understand because I personally think face paint is annoying and it creeps me out because it reminds me of clowns but that's just me.

The church we stayed with was also very loving and welcoming, and we stayed in pairs in their homes all week. I now have a family in El Tambo who I invited to CA but I doubt they will ever come because I'm not sure they have ever gone farther than the bus stop at the end of El Tambo. It was really interesting to see how the churches in South America differ from our churches, because we got to visit some other towns nearby and go to their churches, and we go to a local church here in Pichilemu every Sunday as well. And let me tell you, they are all pretty much the exact same church. It's crazy how similiar they are! Our churches in the states are all so different compared to how alike they all are here. For one, they all have the same songbook they all sing from, and all the songs are numbered, but by the time I figure out what song we are singing and find the right number the song is always over. Also they just keep all the kids in there running around the whole service, laughing and talking (Little Tambino kids are nuts!)

One interesting tradition they have is "Gloria a Dios!", which is a phrase the whole church stands and repeats three more times whenever the pastor or someone in the church yells it out. During worship, during the sermon, during the annoucements, seriously eighteen times per service. I think they do it just to keep us awake, because I will be sitting there getting something out of my bag or finding a pen and all of a sudden everyone is standing up and I pretty much always miss the first one by by the third "Gloria a Dios!" I am right on track. Or sometimes when I stand up late and hit my head on the elbow of the person next to me (did I mention you raise your hands while you say it?) then say "Ow" too loud then get the giggles (thanks for that Chase and Mom). I am the worst member of the congregation but I smile a lot so they like me.

Another tradition I found... umm... interesting is called a "point". The whole church lines up in pairs to march around the entire town singing songs and stopping at different "points" to stop a preach. Like we're in Jericho or something and if we do it six more times the city just might fall down. So I found myself walking around the tiny town, paired up with a little grandma who kept yanking me back to stand next to her if I walked one step too fast, singing songs I don't know in Spanish, and everytime we would stop I would get so nervous... because you don't know who is going to preach till you get there! Literally you stand there and wait a minute and the pastor (who is like the Godfather, he controls the whole town and his word is law) says "Hermana Lorena, Dios te bendiga" which means "Sister Lorena, God blesses you", which means "it's all you baby!" Then sister Lorena would step out and preach in this really monotone voice to absolutely no one because everyone in the town already knows who goes to church and who doesnt, and they do it every Wednesday down the same streets (two out of four of the streets of the town). So I'm thinking "Please don't say my name, please don't say my name!" every time we stop, and everytime we keep going to a new point and the pastor didn't call on me I would think "There IS a God and He DOES love me!" because I am so not ready to preach in Spanish. I guess it would have only been for the dogs so maybe they would have forgiven my incorrect verb conjugations. But I was ready: I decided if I heard the pastor say "Hermana Brooke, Dios te bendiga", I would say "Y usted tambien, mi pastor!" which means "you too pastor!" and just keep walking and smiling!

Overall it was a really really hard week because I got migraines, it was so hot, our group was very discouraged the first few days, I started getting homesick for the first time so far... but all of this is to say God is faithful. We had to rely on Him for everything, and He always provides. In El Tambo, we realized it wasn't about the work we could do, or the things we wanted to get done (even if they were good things in His name), God wanted us to know Him better first and foremost; He wanted our attention so He could speak to us. He didn't want the actual sacrifice, He wanted our hearts. Friday we also had a street evangelism in the park, where we did our dramas and prayed over the town, and pretty much the whole town was there. Street evangelism isn't really my "thing", but we built good relationships in El Tambo throughout the week so it was powerful to be a light there and encourage the church. We got to share Christ's love with the precious kids there, experience life with the families of El Tambo, finally paint the interior of the church the very last day, and we also got to eat a ton of their homegrown amazing fruit!! God is good.

Back at the base in Pichilemu, we have a lot going on here, a lot of construction, the previous DTS coming back from their outreach in a couple of weeks, an English school going on, new speakers coming in every week, a national swim meet in a couple weeks... keep the base in your prayers. I would also appreciate prayer for ongoing headaches I've been having, spiritual warfare, and God to be preparing my heart to recieve more of Him, especially as we prepare for the big outreach in one month. I need so much more of Him to do anything useful!

I love you all, your prayers mean so much to me.