Monday, March 31, 2008

A Day to remember

We were picked up at our hotel by Ruben and escorted by him on the subway to the meeting. First time on the subway and we would have been lost in an instant had he not been with us. The meeting was interesting although of course we didnot know what they were talking about for the most part. Then we went with the group of about 30 out witnessing and that was such an experience. The house doors are on the street and working house over house has new meaning. Mark went with Ruben and I was with a young girl called Gabriella who is studying english at the university. The witnesses just converge on the street and everyone is so happy. The people at the doors are much the same as in NZ either interested or not but not rude. We went to the house where Ruben lives with a family of 5 but lunch was prepared for 25 people and although they don´t have much they are so hospitable. The food that woman made in her tiny kitchen was incredible. We had Chocla(don´t know if that is how its spelt but is how it sounds)which is a type of hotpot with mashed corn on top then sugar sprinkled over it and grilled. Interesting.
After lunch the guitar came out and singing and dancing insued. Of course they wanted Mark and I to dance a typical NZ dance. (They forgot we had just had a long haul flight) we were useless of course.
Ruben escorted us home on the subway and left us to find our hotel - which was just out of the subway entrance but we still got lost and just before we started to panic - it was dark by this stage - we remembered we had to cross the road!
We are off to the Chilean Bethel today.
Adios Amigos

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Overwhelmed by love

Well we made it to Santiago ok. When leaving Tauranga and Auckland we were absolutely overwhelmed by the love that was shown us. So many people giving us their love it was incredible. We were met at Santiago airport by Ruben - who we had met for just a couple of days in NZ. Oh thank goodness for him - we would not have known what to do being tired and emotional and not to mention not hearing any english! He got us to our hotel by taxi then we went for a walk and he brought us our first south american lunch. I had tortillas de papas (a big potato fritata thing) and MARK a corn concoction. We came back to the hotel and Ruben went off promising to be back in the morning for our next firsts-ride in the metro (subway) meeting at the Kingdom Hall (not an english group as we first thought-all spanish>)then out witnessing for an hour (whoa! that´s going to be interesting) and then to luch with his friends. Let you know how that goes! Adios