CANA DE CASTILLA

Last Thursday I checked out another potential "need" congregation called Cana de Castilla. A Canadian sister who's serving here with her husband, Brandi Venables, met me at the bus depot and took me out there. It's about a 15 minute ride from Granada. It was a refreshing change because it's nice and cool out there and very green. I saw my share of wildlife...pigs, ducks, chickens, cows...and plenty of fruit trees. Ooh, I saw a locust for the 1st time....PS--it's huge in real life! It's a very poor area, and they still do a lot of things by hand. For instance, I saw a man plowing his field with two oxen like in olden days. The territory was a good mix. There's a faction that's very Catholic or very Evangelical and are polite but don't really want to talk. The other faction is very humble and listen well.

I didn't get to see a meeting but judging from the service group it appears a lot of the brothers are family members. They are very humble and simple (in a material sense) and according to Brandi VERY eager to learn...great qualities huh?!

After service, Sis.Flores told to me to sit and rest before the bus comes. She brought me a fresh coconut and broke it open for me to drink while I waited (on a side note, I learned the hard way that coconut water is an anti-parasitic and tends to "clean" you out....on a side side note I've never talked more in my life about bathroom habits than here; it's an everyday conversation especially with us foreigners :)) Then before I knew it lunch came out. I felt bad because I knew the family didn't have much, and I truly had plans to go back to the house for lunch. But they insisted and I had a very nice lunch of rice/beans/fried fish. This sweet family had cooked for the entire service group, and as I looked around I realized only the Venables and I had fried fish...everyone else had a boiled egg :( Talk about generosity! Then we sat and talked about an hour before I left on the bus. Well, most of us talked....they had to bring the hammock out for Ken Venables so he could have a proper siesta! Overall, a very nice experience.

I see some pros and cons about serving there. Pro is that transportation is no problem as the buses to that area are very regular. It would also be nice to get a break from the city and its heat. Con is that the Venables were telling me the territory gets covered about once/month. However, apparently they've never had territory cards and there's a suspicion that this frequency is more a lack of organization than a lack of territory. It's also one of the larger congregations on the outskirts of Granada--they already have about 60 publishers. However, they're a young congregation and apparently could use some help with a "mature influence." Are we sure that describes me?!

That leaves 2 more to investigate...Diamante and Granada Oeste. More to come!