Spanish Sunday

Day 13- Hillsong en espanol

Many of the staff at the hospital are christians. The other girls have had the job of politely accepting invitations to all the churches. It seems everyone wants to show off their gringa friends to their congregation. Today we went to one of the doctor's churches. This church was really close by. It was in Vinto, the rural suburb on the outskirts of the city that hospital was in.

The doctor had arranged for the ambulance guys to pick us up and drop us at church. At 930am we were prematurely ready and eagerly awaiting our 'emergency' lift. At 1030am we were still waiting. We decided to opt for the reliable transport via Trufi and started the 20min journey to the church (it was lucky that we were so close).
Despite being an hour late when we arrived we were greeted by ushers at the door. Bolivian time is an unusual concept. Basically you arrive to things at your earliest convenience, even if that isn't so early and even if people are waiting to meet you. So today we fit right in!

The church was huge. It was much like calvary in style. The church was pastored by an American couple who had been in Bolivia 28 years! The praise and worship was just wrapping up when we arrived. For the next hour the congregation prayed for different parts of the city and individuals who were leaving the city or leaving for missions. It was nice to be a part of this prayer...but made for a very long service. Bolivians apparently only do church long lol. More praise and worship followed which was almost all HILLSONG! Then finally the sermon. This is a great chance to practice spanish. The girls translate the sermon for us but we also can work on piecing bits together ourselves. Christianese is a whole new language in itself when you translate the terms to spanish!

Hillsong is huge over here! We are always proudly declaring "these guys are Australian!". I think its amazing that one of Australia's most successful exports is almost totally unheard of by the general population. Tiff and I were completely puzzled as to why the songs were in Spanish but sounded just like the guys from Hillsong. We discovered they they have all learnt how to sing the songs in espanol! This is a massive feat because so much of spanish is how you pronounce vowels. You have to learn pronunciation of every word, you cant just read it off the paper with a mexican accent lol. Additionally they have to change words of the songs slightly so that it translates correctly. 
Check out dios puede salvar which literally translates as god can save (mighty to save) dubbed in spanish by reuben morgan... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbCoWYAMbkY&feature=related

You can even buy these at their website. Tiff has already bought and downloaded one.

That night we had one of the staff members from the hospital stay with us. She was doing a surprise visit to the hospital and ambulance service to ensure everyone on shift was awake and active. It was really nice to have some Bolivian company in our home. She spoke very slowly to us which made her easier to understand. She filled us in on some Bolivian geography and culture. We laughed over the difference in culture between, north america, sth america and australia. Helen was also amused by our accents.