July 2009
Here’s a little love story for you.
About three years ago, I wandered into the church that is now my church home in Bolivia. I took one look at the cute keyboard player and thought, “Clearly God is doing great things in this church. I better stick around.”
But of course, there was more to the church than a cute musician. I got involved in different ministries than him, and went two years without so much as talking to him. That changed about a year and a half ago at a church retreat. We hung around the bonfire and bonded over music. I wrangled him into giving me guitar lessons if I would teach him to rock-climb. Of course, when we started dating, the guitar lessons faded into the sunset.
His name is Marcelo Contreras, but everyone calls him Mache. When I met him, he was a computer engineer. A few weeks after we started dating, the church confirmed a call in his life to full-time ministry, and he accepted a position as a Pastoral Assistant, started taking seminary classes, and took on the Youth Group, website, and Worship Ministries. He has all the patience of a teacher, all the romance of a Latino, is lovely and articulate in Spanish and English, and so much smarter than me that it’s ridiculous. And he loves a good adventure, which may be why he crashed into me.
The year flew by. We hiked and watched movies. We ate curry and cooked quesadillas. We took each other on fabulous adventures, wrote songs together, and played Laser Tag. He did learn to climb, though the guitar has been collecting dust. We got involved in each other’s ministries and talked about God’s calls in our lives. We fell in love.
In May, we went back to the States to meet my family. Between picking strawberries and competitive family games, we somehow managed to find time to talk to my parents. “I want to marry your daughter and serve God with her,” Mache told them. They gave us their blessing, advice, and we shared few tears, acknowledging that marrying Mache will mean much of our life may be overseas.
A week after we got back to Bolivia, I was with Mache’s family. While I was chatting with his sister, he suddenly disappeared. I was confused, until his sister grinned at me conspiratorily and said, “Mache left you this!”
It was a DVD of The Amazing Race Cara! The “race” required me to run all over La Paz, following clues and completing challenges, including climbing rocks, winning video games, and retracing our first walk together. The clues eventually led me to the very spot where we started dating more than a year ago. When I finally found Mache, he was standing in front of 5 boxes, opened with 5 keys that I had “won” after each challenge. Each box had a rose in it, and a word… “Will…You…Marry…Me?” In the last box was the ring!
So my wonderful fiancee and I will get married in January in Charlotte. We’ll then move to a different section of El Alto, where he can commute down to his job at the church while I continue to work with Word Made Flesh in El Alto.
We know the journey may be hard. Cross-cultural marriages face some particularly interesting challenges. But we know God is guiding us in this, and we hope the rewards outweigh the difficulties.
In Christ,
Cara Strauss (soon to be Cara Contreras!)