Here's the next part of my stories. As I write this, there is a giant cicada on the porch flying around into the walls making a lot of noise. It's kind of freaking me out. The bug is a good 3 inches long and probably half that wide and if it comes inside, I might freak out. I'm not really one to get freaked out by bugs and such, but when it's a giant bug coming towards me, I get scared. I took some video of it earlier that probably sucks because I jumped when it started flying around. Just thought you would be interested that I'm actually a little tense about the possibility of the giant cicada coming in here while I'm writing this, though it may have just made it over the wall and back out into the world. I'm too scared to check.
Leading Worship
A couple of weeks ago, Tito asked me to sing a song or something like that for the following Thursday. For some reason, I agreed. Then, I started getting sort of nervous, and I wasn't sure exactly what I had agreed to. Was I supposed to lead all of our worship time, or just share one song? I prepared and practiced 3 songs just to be safe. But, I did it all in English, knowing that they knew 2 of the songs in Spanish already, and that the third was also available in Spanish.
I foolishly waited until the day of to find the words in Spanish, and only had time to run through them once or twice. If you've never had to sing a song in another language before, it's tricky even if you know it well in English because with the different lengths and positions of the words, the whole pattern of the song ends up being slightly different. Even just in English, the pattern of the songs can differ from church to church. So, I was not all that prepared by the time Bible study rolled in.
I brought my guitar and song book down with me, growing more and more nervous and wondering why on earth I agreed to sing for everyone. After Tito shared a Psalm, he asked for the guitar, and relief washed over me. He must have forgotten that he had asked me to lead, so I was off the hook. When we finished one song, he then said that I would be sharing a special song with us, and then it was too late to panic.
As the song sheets I had printed out were passed around, I laid out my own sheet with the chords on it and placed the capo in the right place. I struggled through the first song, How He Loves (or "Cuanto Nos Ama"), which has a lot of words in the verses, though the chorus is easy enough. It was a song they'd never really heard before, but they did join in on the chorus the 3rd time through which put me a little more at ease.
When I was done, I was prepared to just be done, feeling as though I had embarrassed myself enough, but they asked for another one, so I opted for None But Jesus (or "Solo Cristo"), which I know they know. The second song went much better on account of it being slower which made it easier for me to sing, there being less words which also helped me, and them joining in, which meant my mistakes were not as obvious. I still didn't do super well with it, but was uber glad for Cesia who was next to me and could follow the music well enough to help me out.
If there is a next time, I will be better prepared. But, as much as I felt like I didn't do very well, they all thanked me for singing and told me my voice was beautiful, so that was really encouraging. Tito even mentioned it to me the next morning as we were leaving for school. I know I don't have the best voice in the world, so I'm always glad to hear when people do like my voice.
After Bible study, we all sat and talked for a while. Well, they talked, I mostly just listened. They were talking about families, and who lived where, and the interesting connections between them (Tito has several family members that he's related to on both sides because of intermarrying between his dad's and mom's relatives). Sometimes I think about breaking in, but there's never a pause in the conversation and they've usually moved on to another subject by the time I form sentences in my head of what I could say.
When I did get drawn into the conversation, it was to ask me if I want to get married here. What is it about married people that are always trying to get single people married? At any rate, I did say I did, and related the story of my mishap at the grocery store (which you can read here if you missed it). Surprisingly, they did understand my whole story as far as I could tell, even though I know I made several many errors as I stumbled through it. My past tense verbs need some help.
Well, I think that's all I'm going to write for tonight. It's past 10pm, which is about when I usually head for bed, and I'm trying to stick to that so I'm not totally out of whack when school starts up next week. Hopefully I can get myself up early enough to finish all my stories and get everyone caught up before it gets so hot that I start to shut down. If not, well... I'll get to it eventually. Maybe. Hopefully...
Thanks for reading! Tell your friends!
P.S. I didn't hear the cicada flying around anymore, so I think it really did escape the porch, so that's good. I did get distracted by a gecko at one point that was by the door, and then came closer after I made kissy noises at it. When I started taking video of it, though, it ran under the chairs and then under the couch. Ah, well.
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