Oi amigos e família,
Today we woke up a bit earlier to leave at 7:45 AM. Breakfast at this hotel is not always bussin. There aren’t many varieties of food to eat here, but we’ve gotten creative and combined what’s available into what I like to call a sandwich—which actually tastes pretty good. All in all, I’m sure we all know and feel blessed to be able to go about the beginning of the day with a full stomach.
Today is also the next big game!
Americanos vs. South Americans.
Yesterday we lost the exhibition scrimmage, but today we’re back and ready to make our families back home proud.
8:30 AM – We picked up the kids from their house and headed toward their campus. On the way, I lost in a game where they have to guess my number at the same time I say it. So, I had to tie my shoes and hop out of the bus—which was pretty light work compared to the other girl who lost and had to hop on one foot for a quarter mile.
8:58 AM – We played some volleyball, then started a small 5-on-5 scrimmage before the big game. We won 2–0. The kids are really good—but we have an Albert. Albert is our all-star straight from the Jessup soccer team.
9:30 AM – The big game then began. The goals were electric. The passes were legendary. And the sportsmanship was God-glorifying. After a hard-fought battle full of fake injuries, fouls, and glory… we won 7–6. Albert was great at pushing the front lines and even scored, Kenzie was an amazing goalie, and everyone else held it down on defense and team plays.
11:30 AM – On the way to the market to drop off the kids, some of the South American girls started doing fun, catchy clapping songs on the bus. Derek also got everyone to start singing songs from Moana. The vibes were very good, and everyone was sharing their snacks.
12:40 PM – We arrived at an outdoor city square market and started looking around. We saw a weird cross with skulls on it, some pretty neat local trinkets, and some street performers playing music and doing an interesting slow-motion dance fight.
Cole and Albert got some paintings from a very nice older lady who looked like she came straight out of the Disney movie Coco. I got a wooden cross necklace and a pearl-looking bracelet for my beautiful future wife Mi—hopefully she’ll like it.
Unfortunately, a lot of the vendors were selling secular items, but we can pray for them.
We then took a 15-minute walk back to the hotel.
2:45 PM – When we got back, the group packed up for tomorrow and rested. After I packed, Cole and I found secret roof access and went to the very top.
4:06 PM – We went down a bit lower to the pool and started playing cards.
5:00 PM – After meeting up in the lobby, the minority vetoed the majority vote from last night and decided we’d go to all-you-can-eat sushi instead of steak. I was very disappointed that we’ve forgotten our republic ways since coming to South America.
5:30 PM – We walked to a coffee shop called Millie Cuca and had some kind of sweet crumble cookies and coffee. Everyone was falling in love with a raspberry cookie Taylor got. Kenzie also had everyone share a “buffalo”—just a random interesting thing that’s happened to us.
The most interesting ones were:
• Cole wanted to be president when he was a child and used to dress up every Halloween in a suit.
• Grace was asked in 1st grade by a classmate if she would marry him.
6:00 PM – When we got back to the hotel, we played a high-stakes card game called Poop Head where there’s only one loser. The final two were Cole and Erica, and sadly Erica lost—so she had to wear the poop head hat. We played again and Kenzie lost.
7:00 PM – We arrived at the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, and Kenzie wore the poop head bucket hat like a champ. The restaurant didn’t allow outside drinks, which we didn’t like since they make you pay for water refills—pretty strange compared to the U.S.
7:32 PM – Cole spilled his miso soup. 🙁
Side note: It’s crazy how cheap all-you-can-eat restaurants are here.
9:15 PM – After getting back from sushi, we stayed in the lobby and played Code Names.
After Code Names the group met up on the roof. It was pretty high up so we had to be careful. Derek liked getting close to the edge to take pictures which got everyone nervous. But overall it was a fun time of doing photo shoots together.
Side note: I was standing a couple feet from the edge of the roof, and I could just feel a lot of fear because of how high it was and how easy it is to slip and fall. And it made me think about the fear of persecuted Christian’s feel with how close death or something horrible is. And being on the roof felt like I could get a taste of the fear that I want to overcome in the world for the glory of God and just how much I need to trust him.
Love this recap….. felt like I was there 🙂