Day 4: getting robbed and stuff

or: the tacos may have been worth it...

Irony is just one of those lovely things.
This morning, I talked to the team a little about spiritual warfare and we had an extended prayer time before we went to the Tec. Once we got there, Chrissy and I teamed up and promptly found someone I had already met (a good thing). So we hung out for a while and talked, then we walked around together, then she invited us to her marketing class (um... yes, please). So we had a really good contact with her and she should be coming to the party tomorrow.

"wait, did you say you got robbed?"
whoa, stay on target.

We all met up for lunch and hung out and talked about theology and stuff (nbd) with a girl I had met (Priscila) that we kept running into and that got along really well with Javier. After lunch we were slow to start back up, but we finally headed out. I started up in a team of four (Ana, Javier, Carolina and I). We all kinda knew that the most you can easily evangelize with is a triumvirate, but we thought we'd give it a try. We split into 2x2 after our first try and Javier and I struck up a conversation with a Brazilian atheist. He insisted that we speak in Spanish so that I could practice and our conversation touched everything from dating to jobs to grace and faith. Good stuff.

"that's cool, but...did you really get robbed?"
is this going to be like the witchcraft thing from this summer? we'll get there.

After leaving the Tec our team split into guys and girls for the evening. The guys went to hang out with the worship band at their practice and the girls went...somewhere else and did...something else. We loaded the instruments, went to the practice place, unloaded the instruments and then decided to go get some dinner while the singers were learning their stuff.

"did someone steal the instruments??"
ok, seriously, just be patient. this is making me feel unoriginal.

So, the running joke for my trips to Mexico (thanks to the pastors here) has been that i would fall in love. Well, it happened tonight. I just didn't expect it to be with a gringa... Gringo, by the way, is a Mexican word for "American," it started out slightly offensive, but nowadays is generally used lovingly. Apart from meaning (in so many words) "white girl," a gringa is also a type of taco. We tried gringas tonight at a place that made them with avocado and all kind of painfully delicious sauces. I have not enjoyed a meal that much in a long time... We ate tacos and hung out at the shop as the evening wore on (that is a nice phrase, "the evening wore on." With your permission, I'll say it again: "The evening wore on."), then rounded up our stuff and headed back to the car.

that's when we saw that the car's window was broken.
("whoa, you did get robbed.." yea, i told you we'd get here)

See, what had happened was...various times Andres has warned us not to leave stuff in the car if it has valuables in it. Apparently there is a contraption that allows one to know if there is a lithium-powered anything nearby (i.e. camera, laptop, mp3), so, by leaving my backpack in the car and by leaving my camera and mp3 player in my backpack... you see where this is going, but we can go together anyway: someone sensed my stuff and broke into the Handal family's car to steal my backpack. (net loss: 1 window, 1 backpack, 1 bible, 1 camera, 1 mp3 player, lots of time tomorrow). Insurance will replace the window for free, but it will still leave the Handal family down one car for tomorrow (busy day, bee tee dubs).

Irony: we talked about spiritual warfare today, i thought about taking my camera out today, Rodger offered to take my bag into the hotel today, someone joked about us getting robbed today.

So, you probably know that I'm a sucker for guilt. If I mess up or do something wrong or (heaven forbid) hurt someone, I can shut myself down for days and weeks just feeling like an idiot. So, I'd like to say that because of my pep talk and foresight I overcame this spiritual attack and everything went smoothly. But... I didn't. The good news is, Jesus saw me about to derail and intervened. So, the Handals are ok; they're joking about it, Dustin spoke some timely truth to me...crisis averted. I still feel bad, but I'm not harping on it.

It raised a question though: What if it hadn't been ok? What if I made a mistake that really and truly turned out bad? Why do I let these things have such hold over me? I've been told it's my pride, and there's certainly some truth to that, but it feels different than just pride.