Venezuela

Crossing the border into Venezuela from Brazil on foot was a piece of cake, way easier than when we've done the others with our cars. A 20 minute taxi ride from the border and we were in Santa Elena, destination Venezuela successfully found. The first night we stayed in a really nice (and cheap!) hostel to rest which was the smartest decision I think we made all week (other than leaving Manaus, it was so definitely time for us to move on from there) as since then we've been staying with the pastor's family and the pastora is a bit of a drill sergeant. 

Wednesday afternoon we chilled at the house while the pastor and pastora (pastors' wife) were at work. It's been a challenging few days figuring out what's going on and who's who as people keep coming and going in and out of the house and it's hard to know who actually lives here, who's part of the family, who works here and who's just here. I think I've figured it out that there're two biological daughters who belong to the pastora, the 13 year old has a different father and the 7 year old Deborah's dad is the pastora's husband. There's another 14 year old who lives there but her dad lives round the corner, I'm not sure why she doesn't live with him but I'm sure there's a good reason. 

In the evening we shared with the pastora and a couple of friends our hearts and what ministry we want to do, which was a really great time. It turns out we're an answer to prayer as their little church is crying out for revival and more of the Holy Spirit. 

During dinner we were called away, a family had just arrived and we needed to pray for them. Alrighty. It was a good time of ministry where we were able to pray and prophesy over them and they left encouraged and touched by the Spirit.

Thursday was an early morning start with prayer meeting at 5am in the house. 6 o'clock and off we went to the church to pray until 7:30am. 8 o'clock and we were in some other area having a local Venezuelan breakfast of beans, meet, cheese and artequipe (a bready type pancakey type food). Delicious. And coffee with a copious amount of sugar in it. Latin American food can be delicious but we are all struggling with ridiculous amounts of sugar in coffee and fruit juice, salt and margarine/oil in everything. Very hard to keep the extra pounds off with all the white carbs and sugar we eat. Oh well, just one of those things. When I am able to I  indulge in as much fruit and veg as I can get my hands on.

By 9 o'clock we were home, and ready for a nap until lunch. Our time here in the pastor's house is hard to know what's going on, like this morning (Friday) when we were whisked out of bed at 7am with 10min to get dressed before being dragged to the market, just us 3 girls and 2 girls who live here, without the pastor, not knowing why we were there. It was painful. We tried praying for people along the way but without much success. They looked kinda scared of us - not surprising in my opinion, how would I feel if 3 foreigners who look and speak very differently to me tried stopping me on the street in Cape Town to pray for me? By the time we met up with the pastora and told her about how the evangelising had gone she wasn't surprised, she told us we couldn't do street evangelism in that area, especially as we were foreigners, only house to house visits. Err, why were dragged to the market at 7am then?? We still don't know!! Eventually we got dropped off near the town centre and walked home. 

The craziness continued with us spending the day waiting for things to happen, which never did, and then in the evening we were whisked off to watch a movie without any notice in a local community house. It was fun watching a movie about rugby in America in Spanish sitting outside under the moonlight of the Venezuelan sky. The girls had even made us all popcorn and cooldrink!!

By the time we got home at 10pm we were exhausted, only to find that actually we were on our way to an all night prayer meeting at the church, with our prayer slot being until midnight. The pastora is a workaholic of note!! Thankfully for some reason the meeting was cancelled and instead we hung out with the family and chatted while they made us a traditional Venezuelan dinner of a hot oatmeal drink, deep friend corn bread with ham and cheese of a fish salad. 

Saturday and our 3 guys arrived safely from Manaus, having got their passports. Boy were we happy to see them!! They were lucky enough to stay with Norma, an amazing lady in the church. It was great hanging out at her house with the boys, a lot less stressful than being in the pastora's house. Our time was still controlled with plans we'd made or which had been made for us (for example that afternoon we were going to climb a nearby mountain to take communion and pray over the city) were cancelled at the last minute and we were instead taken to the church to lead a kids program which we had no notice of and thus had not prepared for at all. But it turned out well and the kids had a good time being played with and ministered to. 

Sunday we were given the opportunity to preach at the church service and then ministered to the small congregation afterwards. It was great to be able to pray and prophesy life over people as in many ways this was lacking a lot. Afterwards we landed up at community celebration lunch with food from different areas being served. Monday we finally had a day off where we could go sight see a bit. Norma drove us to some surrounding waterfalls (Venezuela is a beautiful country with many natural beauties like waterfalls) and we had a super fun day out. And Tuesday 7am we were off again, next stop Guyuna, via Brazil of course!