Making Change

In the US we go to church on average once per week.  Now there are not many opportunities for extra curricular activities here in the barrio, so faith is the backbone of our community.  In our barrio we get invited to church every night.  We should actually accept since there are 14 different churches in our very small barrio, but our sane minds can only handle about 2 nights per week of the endless chanting of, “Gloria a Dios!” and “a su nombre…GLORIA!!! A su nombre…GLORIA!!!!”  Now I appreciate the Christian faith, which is why I want to talk about this one church in particular.  We decided to accept an offer to accompany this nice couple to church one night.  We did our normal walk through the unlit dirt roads of the barrio, trying to avoid the mud and pools of water with only the flashlight from my Dominican cell phone.  When we arrived, the church was one of the nicer buildings I have seen in our neck of the woods, with a grassy area outlined by a vegetable garden.

We were told that church started at 7:30pm and we arrived at that time, but when we entered the church, members were greeting one another for roughly another 30 minutes. There really is no actually notice when the service starts, or maybe I just didn’t pick up on it.  All of a sudden the bands slowly starts tuning their instruments and people make their way to the front to form a circle, where I was invited to join.  On the way up, I tried to grab Tina, but she declined. I was on my own.  For literally the next 30 minutes I mumbled Spanish words to a song I didn’t know and mostly swayed back and forth while holding hands in a circle to start the service. 

After that somewhat decent experience I got a good laugh from what I witnessed next.  While clapping and swaying side to side from my seat, the collection plate was being passed around.  One older woman decided that her peso bill was too large to give to the church so she decided to make change from the collection plate right there on the spot.  I was so in shock that I just stood there and watched.  I didn’t even get Tina’s attention to look.  I felt like I was the only person observing this.  Every day I am more in awe of how bold this country is, or maybe in the States we are overly sensitive.  So if you have heard comedians talk about making change from the collection plate like I have, it really does happen, right here in my barrio.

I know you will get a kick out of this Jason