Sri Lanka!

Hi everyone! It's been so long since I last had a chance to post. There's so much to talk about that has happened over the past month. Since we arrived in Colombo (the capital city) we've traveled across the country to Thirukovil, Maha Oya, and Mahiyangana staying a week at each one. I'll give a brief recap of each one.

Colombo
So the first week in Sri Lanka we stayed at the People's church which holds roughly 7,000 people. It has an interesting design, the ground floor is supposed to be a parking garage but its used for meetings because they need the space. Then there is the sanctuary which is big but not too comfortable. There is no a/c so they have a lot of fans everywhere but it still gets really hot in there. We stayed in one of the classrooms and slept on the concrete floor. I wasn't as thankful back then as I am now for the a/c. Being back in Colombo the a/c in our room is pure luxery! Anyways, we arrived on a Saturday and the next day we had to attend 4 services! They had services in tamil, english, singhali, and a youth service at night. That was a pretty exhausting day but being at the youth service was exciting for me. All of the youth speak english fairly well and I got the chance to share a testimony during the service. That went well and opened the chance for me to connect with some of them after the service. Oh and I should probably mention that the youth include ages up to 25. Just talking to them was very encouraging for my own faith in how they live for God.

The first week we spent our time at a nursing home ministering to them and doing practical work. It was tough work! We dug a hole in the back, chopped down huge weeds with a scythe (which was really a dull piece of metal 4 inches long attached to a pole that gave me blisters within 5 minutes), scrubbed and painted walls (their paint sure isn't like paint at home), did some landscaping in the front, cleaned their bathroom, and a few other miscellaneous things. What they really needed was just people to talk to them and something to do. So we did our best to exchange stories and spent time praying for them. We were definitely a blessing to them, but it was a difficult task for me. It was a struggle to be obedient and to give it my best when my heart wasn't there at all. I was shown that missions usually isn't so glamorous and exciting and that it's just hard work. That's a lesson that I continued to learn in the upcoming weeks.

Thirukovil
more to come, I need to sleep!