# 2 The airport 11/24/09

He reviewed the tapes before he let the girls see them. Dora and Blues's Clues were declared acceptable but he could find nothing to redeem Sponge Bob Squarepants. Luke passion for doing the right thing and maintaining standards was what had first attracted her to him at college. He was so good-looking and stable in comparison to most of the other boys whom were focused on sports, drinking or chasing girls.
Doing the right thing, staying pure before God was the focus of his life. Sure he was stable, but his obsessiveness with pureness was the flip side of the dependable coin. The side that took the fun out of life sometimes. He did seem to delight in the package from his mom that Janai had brought him. His mom had sent his favorite packaged snack foods and some boxes of breakfast cereal. It was obvious that Janai just considered herself just the messenger. She figured Luke had everything he needed when he moved her best friend to this god forsaken place and kept those dear babies 4000 miles away.
The dear babies were now gamely marching along looking adorable, though disheveled, with their matching backpacks made from Indian weave. Lucy felt the sting of loss thinking of the love sewn into those backpacks by the senoras in the sewing co-operative. That was the one thing she truly loved and would miss about Bolivia. It was also the one time that it mattered enough to stand up to Luke. He had wanted her start a Bible Study with the ladies, but when she saw the beautiful things they made, and how poor they were, she knew in her heart that they needed more than words and faith. It had started at the first Bible study when she had asked the ladies to bring something they had made. It was the typical white church lady icebreaker to get to know each other. She was astounded by their brilliant woven cloths, knitted alpaca sweaters and intricate embroidery. Her own knitted dishcloth looked like it had been knitted by Lily. She was too embarrassed to get out the simple craft project the had planned.
Only three women showed up, so they talked about their lives and their children, their hopes and dreams while they knitted and wove. They showed Lucy how to set up weaving and few words in Quechua. Her lesson on Mary, Martha and service seemed beside the point, as apparently they already lived their lives in service to their family and their community. As they left, she thought that perhaps next week she would get a take on their religious views.
"I've gone native" she thought, remembering that was the first thing that they had counseled her against in missionary training. And at her very first Bible Study too! She told Luke that that it had gone well with building relationships with the woman and about their beautiful work. He had congratulated her, thanked her for doing this for the ministry, but suggested that perhaps the next time she get the Bibles out and gave her a few tips on group dynamics.
She knew he was right and the next week she had Mary and Martha dusted off and ready to go. When she arrived, she was surprised to find that each of last week's participants had brought 2 friends and there was a total of 10 women there, all anxious to show off their handiwork! She admired more beautiful weaving and knitting and announced in her sometimes halting Spanish that she had a story to tell them.*****