A word from heaven.

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My Day 3

Today started late. Eelee cooked for the 1st time in her life today. The food tasted alright but you'll not want to drink the soup after you see how she prepared the food. Let's jst say food was flying all over the kitchen. I shall keep the rest for her to confess herself. Hopefully my stomach will still be intact by tmr.

Eelee the house-maker

Shopping with Cindy

In the afternoon, went out for lunch together with cindy, another church planter. She shared a little about her life and how she ended up in Chile.

A little about this young girl. She is like the housekeeper of the household. Always concerned about whether dinner is done and buying of groceries and where to get the cheapest stuff. On the other side, she is really a woman of God. She is one you can really say have went out of her way and convenience to serve God. Her decision to come Chile for the 3rd yr running has not went down well with her parents. But as she say, we have to trust God and by his grace the family is alright now after a period of persecution.

The Interview over lunch:

~ Jie Hui ~
What made you come to Chile in the first place?

~ Cindy ~

Actually at first, i wasn't interested in church planting at all. It was an idea of send my brothers and my sisters. But eventully, as you see your close friends go church planting one by one, you start to think whether you have a role in it as well.

Actually initially i was in the team that was researching on Argentina, but eventually ended up in Chile because there was a need to strengthen our existing churches before pioneering new ones. So basically i came here because there was a need to.

I have never lived out of my house before i cam here. So it was a good chance for me to learn to live on my own. And also i'm a super phlegmatic. Coming here really bought me out of my comfort zone.

Also i began to realise that God has blessed me so much. We are blessed to be blessing. So i made a decision to go.

~ Jie Hui ~
How long did you take to settle down into the culture?

~ Cindy ~
I would say the language part took the longest. To just be able to communicate in Spanish with the locals took me one year. Initially i committed for two years but it is actually really too short because by the time you start to settle down, two years is up.

~ Jie Hui ~
When and what was the most down time?

~ Cindy ~

I guess it was last year. When a few of our members left the church and my two years was up. At the time my parents insisted that i go back to Singapore. You start to ask yourself questions like whether it is even possible to plant a church in Chile.

Chileans are people who fear commitment alot and they are a busy bunch of people. We can't really do things like confirmation because they are very "see how" people. A lot of them come for a period and when their emotional scars are healed, they leave. They are a predominantly catholic country who are in the post chiristianity era where people are sick about the word - bible. It has been really tough building up the church here.

~ Jie Hui ~
What has been your greatest lesson learnt here?

~ Cindy ~
Firstly, I think we really need to learn to trust God. There are times when everything seems impossible, we just need to learn to trust Him.

Secondly, we need to un-learn alot of singaporean things. For example, in Singapore, everything is very planned and structured. But in South America, everything is very last minute and flexible.

After the lunch with Cindy, we went to meet Walter, a contact at the University of Santiago. Its a university for the middle lower class people so its not a very rich surrounding. Will go to the rich one on friday.

He's a nice guy, bought us around and we had a chat about him about God. Eelee is super excited about him. haa.. yeah.. think he is quite open but because we don't know the culture of chileans and how they react to such things yet.. so have to wait and sow slowly.

@ the university with Walter

Ended the day with a Chinese class. :)

Quite late and cold. Can't imagine how cold it will be during winter.

Regards,

Jie Hui

Labels: My Chile Experience 1

The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

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Thursday, June 07, 2007