A Day in the Life

Un día en la vida.  A dizzle in the lifizzle.

As many know, and many who don’t, I’ve started full time missionary work here in the city of Puno.  My life is a bit different now, and my schedule goes filled day to day sans schooling. 

To put some perspective on what it is actually like, I would like to share a day in the life now.  It’s how we do, it’s what we do.

So, first things first: wake up at 5:21AM.  Everyday.

At 5:30 we have prayer all together in the church, which is like 2 blocks away.  Sometimes it’s raining, sometimes it’s not, but almost always it’s really cold.

Prayer usually lasts 30-40 minutes.  From there, I go back to the house and do my own personal Bible study and devotionals for an hour, along with two cups of instant coffee (blahhhh.)

By that time, it’s about 7:00 to 7:10 and then I sit down with my Peruvian partner and have our own prayer time.  Depends on the day, but that can last anywhere from 10-30 minutes.

After that, ¡A COMER! as my partner always says, or LET’S EAT!  We then make our breakfast.  For me, breakfast usually consists of 2 pieces of bread, 2 eggs, and a fruit.  Sometimes I eat a sad replacement for what they call “oatmeal” more or less here.  My partner on the other hand, will eat whatever for breakfast.  It doesn’t matter.

After the normal time it takes to make and break breakfast, we have til 8:30 to be ready for team announcements and prayer.  In that time, I do what anyone would expect: grab a shower, make my bed, get some real clothes on, do my ol’ internet rounds, etc.

8:30 rolls around and we have team announcements (i.e. what we’re doing that day, any prayer requests, any announcements.)  We break the huddle after some prayer at about 9:00.

From there, we have an hour to get out of the house.  For my partner the “hour of leaving” is at 10:00AM.  If he isn’t ready by 10:00, he buys my lunch.  If I’m not ready by 10:00, I buy his lunch (If any of you know the Latin American culture, you know this works much more in my favor.  It’s not that I want him to buy me lunch, it’s that I want him to be ready by 10:00.)

So we’re off to one of our three districts.  And we get there, and we usually have no idea what to do.  But things always happen when we ask for them to happen.  From 10:00AM to 1:00PM we try to meet people, and we have two different approaches: Make friends, or use the power of the Gospel.  Some people we feel we should just gain their friendship, and some people need to hear the Word.  It’s not our decision, we’re just following God’s guidance.

Here’s where I’d like to sidetrack from the schedule and explain a bit.  Every meeting with anyone we ever have is for a reason.  They have crossed our paths and we have done nothing yet to help them.  But God has, and He has them ready.  We need not persuade them into salvation, or coax them, or sugar coat it.  It is what it is, and God with prevenient grace has been working in them.  He has been working and readying them.  We just show up at the right time and the right place with the right words (not our words.)  Boom it’s done.  It’s that easy.  It’s actually not easy at all, don’t get ahead.  We have a rule: if after 2 or 3 times, and they’re not interested, we’ve done our work.  The seed: planted.  They have our phone number if they need anything.  We continue to pray for them.

So after 3 hours of doing whatever in our districts (serving in some way) we take an hour for lunch.  Now lunch, also, is in our districts and we don’t stop showing the love of Christ.  We use that time to make friends and share the Good News if we’re led.  We have 3 contacts from just lunch so far.  It’s a good way to be effective while taking a break.

From 2 to dinner, which is at 6:00, we are usually out, but some things bring us home.  That won’t happen for very much longer, as soon as we get 100% on track and on schedule.

4 days of the week, we have dinner in the house.  Amanda makes some rad meals 3 times a week and one of us 4 pairs cooks once in the week.  So I’ll cook once every month, no biggie.  On Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday nights we have church services.  This is for right now, but once I get my own discipleship classes going, our role in the mother church decreases.

After church, I usually have an hour until about 9:30, then I’m in bed.  Goodbye world; until the next morning.

This day occurs 6 days of the week, Mondays are my off days.  After team announcements I do whatever I want.

Cool, so there’s a day.  My day actually.  But let’s look at our future plans, our goals to keep me on track until July 2012.  Keep in mind please that these are the minimum goals, we would love to exceed them.  We would love to change them if things are going ahead of pace.

This month, February, our goal is to make 15 contacts in each districts.

In March, we’re looking to disciple 3 of those individually in each district.

In April, after weeks of discipleship, we plan on having a cell group of 3 or more in each district.

May of this year, we would like to focus on getting more in the cell groups and really know who our potential leaders are.  We’ll start focusing on them with much prayer.

In June, a group of short termers are coming for impact and we’re planning on doubling our size of the people saved in the cell groups.

In July, we’re going to plan our first baptism for those who desire, or have been discipled.

In October, the fall of this year, we want to add 6 members through the process of membership in each district.

By February of next year, 2012, we want to have 6 more baptisms in each district.

In May of 2012, we would like those 6 in each district to go through the membership process.

By June, we’d like to have 3 churches of 12 members in full communion fully functioning.

We’re done in July, so during the rest of the time of that month, we get all the deets worked out and have the 3 churches fully handed over to the care of the locals.

Opinions??

Listen up!