I guess about two weeks ago now, we were on our way to Santa Cruz via La Paz. Every Sunday and Thursday, there is a big market in El Alto, a large suburb if you will of La Paz. We were going to look for supplies in the market and I think Rachel asked Cristina, Mateo´s sister-in-law to accompany us. Anyway, Cristina lives next to Mateo´s mother, whose name I cannot pronounce or spell. Mateo´s parents own a small store that sells snacks and bread made fresh every morning. We came into the store and found his mother there. She burst into tears and started saying things I dont think Bolivians could understand. I immediately felt uncomfortable. She gave each of us a huge hug and thanked us for coming to visit. She said, ¨Come! Come!¨ She took us back to where the family makes bread each day. She told us to sit, and that we did. We listened to Mateo´s father talk for a while until his mother came back with a wide smile and told us to follow her. She told us took us into the kitchen, which is separate from everything else. She said, ¨Sit! Sit!. She thanked us again for coming to visit. The whole time I was wondering if she thought we were someone else. Although we had eaten breakfast just an hour before, she begged us to eat an egg sandwhich and have some coffee. I am not sure how old she is. Maybe mid 60s. But, she was literally skipping from the table to the stove to turn the eggs in her skillet. She brought the eggs over to the table, sliced open the bread, and said, ¨Eat! Eat!¨Yeah she said everything twice. Then she said, ¨Teach me! Teach me English so I can say Eat! Eat!¨. I still had the first bite of an egg sandwhich that I didnt really want in my mouth when Rachel said, ¨we are going to pray¨. I stopped chewing and bowed my head only to raise it back up almost immediately after she had begun to pray. Her prayer was muffled by a constant stream of tears flowing down her face. The only words I understood was ¨Holy Jesus, Thank You!¨. That was all I need to hear. I have thought about that prayer at least once everyday since then. I knew at the time there was more to the prayer than what appeared on the surface and that I needed time to think about it. Near the beginning of our time in Ixiamas, I asked the pastor what his favorite book of the Bible is. I found it interesting when he said Ephesians, not the normal reply of John, Romans, or 1st Corinthians. I read it and a verse in Ephesians 3 stuck out to me. Mateo´s mom lives this verse. The verse talks about a love beyond knowledge, and recognizing how deep, wide, long, and high the love of God is. I realized I had never literally cried out to God in thanksgiving, even moreso because strangers came to visit me. I asked Rachel about her and she said Mateo said she is like that all of the time. Then I thought, ¨oh. Well it probably wasnt that big of a deal.¨Then I though, ¨Wait, that makes it an even bigger deal! She lives her life with an open love for God and his children.¨ You can´t know love unless you experience it. As the verse says, it is beyond knowledge. Love is not a feeling, it is an action. A verb, not a noun. If service is love, than I have not loved at times when I had a clear opportunity to serve. And if I did, it was not in a manner as what I believe Jesus would have wanted it to be.- Jarred