The Field Ministry

It just occured to me that I haven´t told you much about the preaching here, which is the reason that I came...so let me describe to you a typical day. We get up around 7, and usually start our time in the park, and from there we walk to the service meeting, which is at 8:45. From there, we walk to the territory, and by 9:00 in the morning the sun is already well on its way into the sky and blazing; almost on cue everyone points their umbrellas to the sky and POP, they open...if we are ever lost and need to find the group all we need to look for are a cluster of colorful umbrellas moving from house to house...
The culture here demands hospitality. Depending on the area, almost every householder invites us in to sit, and sometimes the entire family will stop what they are doing and gather around me to listen to our message. Even the businesses take a few moments of their tight schedule and allow us to talk.
When we go to the smaller towns in the surrounding area, the hospitality is even more evident. Lastweek we went to Vallejuelo again, and spent the entire day there. After we had eaten lunch we continued, and almost every house offered us lunch. They insisted that we go in and sit, and that the food was almost ready, if we would wait, they would feed us. Of course, we had already eaten, and eating would probably mean eating someone in the family´s portion...so politely as we could we refused, and after talking with them for a little while we continued on our way.
Preaching never stops; a lot of our time is put in on public transportation. We get around town by taking little buses, which isn´t a bus at all, its a minivan...jam-packed with people. Once we counted 15 of us in 1 minivan! Sometimes we will hand a tract to someone and then another person will see, and ask for one, or tell us to give one to so-and-so sitting next to them, because they like to read them. It´s not uncommon for someone to walk up to us and ask us for a magazine; a few days ago I was just standing there when a little kid tapped me on the shoulder and asked for something to read, his dad had sent him over to get a magazine from me, which I gladly gave to him!
Neither is it uncommon for us to be preaching in a certain territory, and, walking past a part that had been preached to already, we find people sitting outside reading our literature, sometimes out loud so that the entire family can hear.
Sometimes we don´t see the results of our preaching activity, or worse, sometimes we find our literature in the trash...so it´s nice to see when people really appreciate what we give them, and when they recognize us for what we do, and when they themselves ask for something, I know that it´s because they want it. Also, people are constantly confusing Aubrey and I with either evengelicals, or mormons...so when they recognize us as Jehovah´s Witnesses I figure that´s a testimony in itself!