Tonight, during church, the pastor had just started his sermon when we heard a loud, incessant banging against a steel door. I looked backward half expecting to see that someone had somehow locked himself in the bathroom. Nope. Was someone banging on the church door? Nope. Did I mention it was loud and incessant? That's not quite true, the banging would stop for about 5 seconds at a time and then resume. It was really really annoyinging and I could tell it was distracting the pastor. Missionary roles: preaching, praying, counseling, being a bouncer. I went out onto the street and could tell the noise was coming from inside the house that our truck was parked in front of. "Hey!" I yelled. "Are you okay?" Nothing. The banging resumed. When it paused again, I repeated, "Hey! Everything okay?" "C-(insert Spanish expletive here) I'm locked in my house! Help me open my door!" I think in the past I would have normally been scared in this sort of situation, but I felt it was pretty unlikely that it was someone trying to do me harm. I assessed the situation. There was no outside knob on the door, just a keyhole. It looked like there might be some sort of window on a hinge that we could maybe open and we could try to work together to open the door through it. I pushed gently on it and instead of opening the window, the whole door opened revealing a man standing in a wide stance with his arms at his side. "I couldn't get out and you just opened it with your finger?!" It appears he was drunk and forgot that his door opened inward! "Yes." "You just opened it with your finger?" "Yes. What's your name?" "Juan Carlos. I just wanted to get some fresh air." "Nice to meet you. I'm Allen." "Are you Venezuelan?" My suspicions he was drunk were confirmed. "Nope. American. Well, nice to meet you. I'm going to go back to church down there. Let me know if you need anything else. Come visit us some time."
Are you Venezuelan?
The Georges in Peru
About Us
We are Allen and Mary Beth George from Nebraska and Manitoba respectively. Allen has been serving in Peru with SIM since 2000 when he arrived with his late wife, Amy. Mary Beth has been serving in Peru since 2005. Sarah & Zach are both in their medical residencies in Chicago (Sarah in emergency medicine and Zach in family medicine). Ben is working for Ahlstrom-Munksjö in Taylorville, Illinois. Mia is in her 2nd year studying physical therapy at Loma Linda U. in California. Paul works as a programmer at Epic in Madison, Wisconsin.
What are we doing?
The Georges are church planting in Punta de Bombón, a town about about 6000 people on the coast of Peru.