Today Is One Beautiful Day

The following was written about September 5, a few days after arriving in PG. SI

Today is one beautiful day. There is a clear view across the Sea to Guatemala and a slight breeze blowing. Last night, like every night since I arrived in Punta Gorda there was a major downpour accompanied by thunder and lightening. But by morning it’s gone and we start a new day freshly washed.

The accommodations upstairs are quite adequate for two and spacious for one, and I’m getting used to the way things work, or don’t! At the moment we are waiting for phone and gas service to be restored and the fridge serviced, but the electricity and water are doing fine.

I spent a few minutes this morning with the twelve or so pre-schoolers who meet downstairs each weekday morning with Miss Elizabeth. They are an amazingly cute bunch, scrubbed clean and turned out in their striped school shirts. We sang “Jesus loves me”, and it is certainly hard to imagine that he doesn’t. We’ll meet once a week in the church for worship, and maybe some of the parents will join us occasionally.

The four days that I have been here so far have been mostly spent getting oriented, tracking down the bank, post office, police station, grocery stores, best restaurants, and particularly the internet café. And then meeting people, many of whom I felt I had already met, thanks to the detailed reports of my predecessors here. Then there was the Sunday Service with about thirty in attendance. There are certainly enough small children for a Sunday School and, I suspect, a few parishioners who could look after one if they can only be convinced to do so. Lyle, the very competent lay reader, and I chose hymns I know so I could join in the lusty singing. But every service starts with one I’m not familiar with, Come in and sit down. One verse goes:
Children and elders, middlers and teens,
Singles and couples and in-betweens,
Strong eighty-fivers and streetwise sixteens,
For we are a part of the family.
This probably fits most congregations, but the people of St. Joseph’s have consciously said, “That’s us”, and now they have a new member of the family.