Watch out - never sure who is watching you!

People have often been heard to say, you are known by your doings, there are people watching you all the time. You’ve heard similar comments, and maybe have even been heard saying them yourselves.

One Friday night recently, date night, we went to the local “Chifa” for dinner. Here it is that we can have a “Chinese” meal, complete with more rice than an American would normally eat in one meal, and our choice this particular evening was chicken and Chinese vegetables. It’s just a short walk from our apartment (about a block, how very convenient!) and it’s a little hole in the wall restaurant. Upon arriving, the waitress and sidewalk chef (he cooks all the rice out on a gas fire by the sidewalk to attract walkers by and hope they come in for dinner) said hello and we chose our usual table. Next to us there was a young couple, all smiles, who said hello. We acknowledged them as well.

This young couple – we were not sure who they were and why they were so friendly towards us. Maybe they go to our church. It’s rather large and has five services, so although we didn’t recognize them, many people at our church recognize us. After all we are the Americans, tall and grey haired, older than most at the services!
After we ordered, the young couple was soon served their meals. We noticed them bow their heads and give thanks for their meals. Now, I have to admit, I assumed they were from our church and wondered if we had been introduced to them at one time or another. A mystery, yes, but our meals were soon served to us and I didn’t give it much thought. It was a huge plate, steaming hot! It looked so very delicious. And, from my experience in the past, it was going to be. This is my favorite to order at the local chifa. We held hands, bowed our heads and thanked the Lord for a few things (hurry up Don, my meal is getting cold) as well as our dinner.

After we finished we were chatting and the young lady came over to our table and asked if she could talk English with us. She had a little command of the language and we learned that they are missionaries from Pulcalpa, a city in the jungle. She learned her English at the missionary school. They were only visiting our neighborhood for the evening and the next day. They invited us to a church concert Saturday night, just a few blocks from our house. She and her husband work with children in a very poor city. We talked about the AWANA program. They wanted to know how long we had been here and with what church. We found out that her husband is from Lima originally, but they are now living and working four hours away from the city. RossMary asked for our email address and shared hers and the website of their mission organization. We said we would like to go to the concert if we could and soon bid farewell to our new friends.

Just for a moment, let’s go back and look at the first sentence of this blog. “People have often been heard to say, you are known by your doings, there are people watching you all the time.” Just suppose RossMary and her husband had not given thanks for the meal, and we had not done the same. We would have all missed out on the blessing of meeting each other and sharing a little about what God is doing in our separate lives, in different locations in Peru.