Bedridden Woman Comes to La Pintana and Dances!

Just when we've thought we'd had our best day in Chile ever, another incredible day came along.  We thought today would be our last day at Casa Esperanza, but it won't be after all.  Here's what we did today.

We made an American meal for our friends at Casa Esperanza.  In Chile their big meal is in the afternoon, anytime between 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.  They eat a very light breakfast and have tea before dinner, so lunch is an especially big meal even by American standards.  We made sloppy joes (four pounds of beef and all the ingredients) and mac and cheese (four huge bags of pasta and I'm not even sure how much cheese).

One of the funniest parts of the day for us was trying to get all this food into La Pintana.  We packed two soccer backpacks (which are very large!) FULL of food.  We also had each of the boys carry a bag full of rolls/buns.  And the cake was in yet a separate bag.  Greg's pack was so heavy I could hardly lift it.  Mine felt heavy to me but wasn't nearly as much so as his.  By the time we got to La Pintana I had to eat a snack because of hauling all the stuff there.  But what fun it was to make the food and watch our friends eat it.

We hope this made them feel special - it seemed like it did.  Patti told us so many times how nice it was for someone else to cook for her (she cooks everyday for about 20 people).  Patti still cooked today though - she made us some homemade bread!  It was as good as it looks!

Three of the other girls said they liked the sloppy joes.  The mac n cheese was ok, and they ate a lot of it, but the sloppy joes were a bigger hit.  One girl ate her sloppy joe, but she said it was too spicy for her.  We made the sloppy joes with a aji (which is a spicy yellow chili) sauce instead of the chili sauce that we usually use at home (they don't have it here).  It wasn't too spicy for me, so that tells you something.  Noah is reading as I am writing and he says, "It was a little spicy for me."  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  We brought a cake too, and most of us felt like we ate too much by the time we were done with that.

Funny story about the cake.  Patti asked Greg if she could set the cake out at lunch, and Greg said no we should leave it in the fridge.  Patti is such a kind person that she shrugged her shoulders and put it back in the fridge.  Apparently in Chile you should set the dessert out at the meal time so that they know how much to eat.  When we got the cake out of the fridge after lunch, they all said, "Oh no, we didn't save enough room!"  So now we know...set the dessert out at mealtime so people know how much to eat.

Our biggest news of the day is that another person from the church in La Pintana was healed!  Two weeks ago we had the opportunity to pray for people at the church that's right next door to Casa Esperanza.  We prayed for many sick people, and about half of them came up to us after the service and told us they were healed.  We heard another incredible story today.  We prayed for a woman that was not at the service.  She wasn't there because she has been so ill for so long that she could not get out of her bed.  This woman is healed!  She came to church last Sunday not only walking, but dancing and thanking God for being healed!!  Praise the Lord!  We were so excited to hear about this.

Tomorrow we go to Hogar and have a party there from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.  We'll bring balloons and start playing loud music and dancing to it - hopefully that will get the girls to crawl out of bed (they sleep very late on the weekends!) to come and hang out with us.  Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, we also have lots of candy we can bring to share with them - like the Halloween candy type.  They love sweets here, so the girls will be thrilled.  Then we get to go to Casa Esperanza again.  They are having a special Saturday afternoon together, and invited us to come have lunch with them as part of it.  We'll also get to meet the girl we have sponsored, Damaris.  We met her one of the first days we were in Santiago, but we had not yet sponsored a girl at that time.  She was on winter break, and since winter break we have been at Casa while she has been at class.  Anyway, we are very excited to get to talk to her more and take pictures with her.  We'll also get to love on all the girls, who are so very special, one more time!

Some of you have told us that you've been touched by how God has moved so powerfully here and Chile and how so many people have been healed.  It is God's will that His people be well - that's one of the reasons Jesus came.  Let us know if we can pray for you.  We love to pray for people!

Thanks for reading our blog today!  Hope you have a great weekend.