Beautiful Feet: April 3, 2015

Trapped! When Fernando and all his family and Wendy had come over for lunch on March 6 and found out it was my birthday he said we would have to come to his house on April 3 for what we thought was his birthday. Turned out it was their son’s birthday. His name is also Fernando and he was 17 yesterday. We spent the morning cleaning up after the teen girls’ night over and then rested for a little while. She woke up asking if I felt the earthquake, but I hadn’t. But we discovered the bed had rolled about a foot from the wall, a folding table leaning against the wall fell over and the washing machine came off its pedestal and tipped over! We had planned to leave about 4:30 to get to Fernando’s at 5. Charlotte said we should look for a card so I went to .99 to do that and saw that the town was packed and there were already decorations on most all the streets. I hurried back and told Charlotte we needed to leave fast if it was not already too late. We drove way around the back side of Ataco and decided our only hope was a back dirt road that led out of town down to the road. We did make it through but when we got to the end where it entered the highway there were police and cones but they let us out. We headed over to Auchapan and made it about on time. We really were about 1 hour before most of the guests but we did not know that until we got there. While we were waiting we walked behind his house to an open soccer field and the mountain of Ataco. We could even see the famous cross atop Ataco. There was a large group in the end, probably 60 and there were some teens but most of the people were older adult Christians and friends of the family. They fed everyone different kinds of pupusas. There was a small group from Puerto Rico who had been here visiting churches and evangelizing for the last few days and were leaving on Monday. After Paulo led a few songs one of the men from Puerto Rico spoke for about 45 minutes. How is that for a teen birthday party? Actually both Fernandos helped serve and wait on people. About 8:30 we headed back to Ataco. There were still tons of cars parked everywhere and barricades to the town entrance. We parked and headed toward town but at the entrance was a policeman who said we could enter past the cones and park closer. Charlotte talked with him while I ran back to get the car. He was really nice and helpful. As we walked home they had not had the procession yet and all the streets were filled with people and the beautiful flower decorations on the streets. They were beautiful and amazing but a few were a little strange. There was one of Hello Kitty, one of Charlie Brown, one of Pluto the dog but the strangest to us was one of the Simpsons. Anyway we made it home fine and the car was fine overnight and we even got home in time to wish Della happy birthday on Skype!