A peculiar phenomenon we have encountered several times is the challenge to purchase something with a bill worth 500 pesos. Now 500 pesos may sound like a lot of money but it is equal to forty Canadian dollars. I have been trying to break one for quite a number of days, so when I wished to pay for something I'd tender it.
Curiously for many stores and restaurants this presents a challenge up to which they aren't. Either we must pay in smaller denominations or the merchant goes on a journey to find a fellow merchant who can change the bill, not always successfully.
I wonder if this is a measure of how slow the tourist season is for them this year. A taxi driver once told us that the Americans are staying home this year and all they're getting are Canadians. This seems to be substantiated by the number of tourists we've met who are from Canada.
In other news, I've read a little more of John Newton's story (see an earlier posting) which he wrote 250 years ago on the installment plan. The story is conveyed in a series of letters he wrote. Buy his own admission he lived the life of a very stupid person for many years which makes for an unpleasant narrative, but the fellow had more lives than a cat. I thought he had one dramatic incident from which he escaped in a practically miraculous way, but he had legion.
When his thinking turned serious about God the first question on his mind was, How can I know that the Bible is really the inspired word of God? It was my question too when I started to investigate these things and in my case led to a good deal of research and study.
For Mr. Newton the approach was different. He concluded that since Jesus taught that exercising obedience and faith would meet with specified results, now in this life, he would follow Jesus' instructions and look for the promised benefits. If things happened as Jesus taught then it had to be true. One can't find fault with that approach.
He freely admits his Bible reading gave him merely a start in 'experimental Christianity' but he knew he was now going in the direction of truth. Nevertheless his earlier years in Africa, working in the slave trade, did by his own admission expose him to a culture of superstition which he had to some degree absorbed. Although he repudiated superstition, the reader can see that not all traces were eradicated. He admits this too.
Still, he made a serious and humble effort to learn which is certainly commendable.
Four days left.
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