Join the Sweet Expectation

   I've been sick. But Christa's been a champ. This past weekend we took it easy, but everything has started to pick back up again. 

This is La Rambla at sunset. The city of Montevideo overlooks the mouth of the Rio de la Plata which spills into the Atlantic Ocean. The beach front (which is miles and miles long) is only a few hundred feet from busy streets and city skyscrapers. In the evening people are out walking their dogs, drinking mate, riding bicycles, etc. 

   Yesterday we had our first Spanish lesson. (We are trying to pick up a little language in our time here so we can communicate better.) On the way back to the house we waited for our bus at the bus stop for half an hour...

...but our bus never came! 

   So we had to take a taxi. It was a slightly nerve-wracking endeavor considering the fact that we didn't speak the same language as the driver! However, we made it just fine. 

 

  The past two days we have gone to schools as they are dismissing in the afternoons, and  have passed out fliers to advertise for English Camp which starts in a few weeks. You can join us in praying that these filers would get to the right people, and that those parents (or grandparents) would sign their kids up.   

•••••

   Anticipation for the World Cup which starts in a few days is high. Uruguay has its first game, against Costa Rica, on Saturday. In the local grocery store circulatory, there was this funny ad referencing the World Cup fever: 

    "Sumate a la dulce espera," basically means, "Join the sweet expectation." It is a play on words because "espera" is the same word used when someone is expecting a baby. 
   It struck me as I was writing, that the "sweet expectation" for the World Cup is a very fleeting hope. It is true that the World Cup is the biggest soccer tournament in the world, and winning it is the apex of most players' careers, but in the end the World Cup lasts only one month.
  There is, however, a much sweeter expectation than the World Cup (or any other elite sports competition). For the person who has chosen to follow Christ, there is the sweet expectation of daily fellowship with Him and the future hope of eternal life. It is a hope we are to experience and call others from every place--near and far--to join in. It is a hope I need to daily embrace, a hope the church needs to fully own, a hope the world needs to hear from our mouths and see in our lives--in the United States of America and in Montevideo, Uruguay.