I (Mary Beth) heaved a sigh of relief when I saw my friend Cinthya come to meet me at the door of the Christian school where I was supposed to give my missions talk Saturday afternoon. Running a bit late, I hoped I was early enough to get the needed materials onto the tables before the event started in 10 minutes. She led me past a few parked cars into a gym buzzing with life as people put a last-minute coat of paint on the railings and walls. There was a pick-up truck in the middle of the space where I expected to see tables and chairs, and people were swarming everywhere trying to scramble the event together. Hmm, not quite what I had anticipated, but I rolled up my sleeves and got ready to help. In half-an-hour the place was transformed. Desks had been taken out of classrooms and grouped together. Fancy flag center-pieces had been strategically placed. The scaffolding had been put back onto the truck, which was successfully (after a few tries) started and manoeuvred out of the gym area. Flag banners appeared from nowhere and a world map was stuck on the wall behind the stage. The last thing to get working was, of course, the technology. The projector didn’t have a cable to hook it up with the sound system. In spite of this slight delay, they started the event only 1 hour late and it went very well.
Afterwards, one of the church leaders said “I never gave much thought to missions before. In all truth, I didn’t think it was very important, but you have opened my eyes.” Another person asked, “Do you really think it’s possible for us Latinos to be involved in missions?”, “For sure!” I answered. “We have several Peruvian missionaries with SIM as we speak!” What a great opportunity. Thank you, God.
The venue at 2:37 pm. It was scheduled to start at 2:30 pm!
Ready to go at 3:14 pm!
