SOUTH!

Hello from Bariloche, Argentina Everyone! Finally I have a second to write you a quick update. We are beginning our fourth week of outreach tomorrow as we just arrived to the YWAM base here today after a 20 hour bus ride.

Man I don’t even know what to write!

The first week and a half we were working with a new church in a really rough neighborhood outside of Buenos Aires. We stayed at the Pastor’s house who is Brazilian. It was really nice to stay with them and get to know them and learn their ‘outsider perspective’ on the culture and different issues in Argentina. We worked a lot with handing out pamphlets with encouraging messages on them and the church contact information..to people in the streets. And we visited various other churches to preach and what-not. But the majority of our work ended up being within the church as most of the members are new Christians and need some guidance. We cleaned the church one day, we preached and led worship and did skits many days. We spent some time walking around and getting to know the culture while handing out pamphlets and stuff. It’s soooo different from Colombia! Almost everyone has piercings/tattoos. They all dress similar and even look similar physically…as general as that is. The culture here is a mix of latin american/european, so it’s a lot more like the  culture in the states than Colombia’s culture. For this reason, it hasn’t been a huge shock to adjust for me, but my team has had a few culture shocks. The culture here is very direct. When they think something or want something, they say it! They also operate on a VERY different time schedule. Stores open at around 10am..they have a small breakfast, eat lunch at 1pm, then all the stores shut down until 4 or 5 so everyone can sleep some more, then they open back up, people eat dinner around 9 or 10pm and go to bed at around 12am or 1am…So that was a little different to get used to too! Eating dinner at 11pm every night didn’t settle so well with us! But anyway, we are getting used to things now.

After our work there we traveled by train to Mar del Plata. And after this journey…I’m convinced hell will have not only fire, but ice.cold.broken-down.dark.scary. trains! What an awful experience! Sleeping was nearly impossible because I was cold and my chair was broke and my neck hurt and I had to pee and oh goodness. My neighbors on the train were odd too…one homeless man, and many who would just not stop staring! Well, anyway, we eventually arrived but then had to take a bus without heat. Then the bus dropped us off in the middle of no where with all of our massive suitcases and said he wasn’t going any further. So we waited outside freezing for another hour before another bus without heat came and dropped us off a little closer to the house and then we dragged everything the rest of the way all at around 5am. Ahh..glad that’s over. Now I can laugh, but then I was just so cold I ran around in circles like a crazy woman just to stay warm!

Anyway, we arrived to the base and settled in and warmed up quickly. What a divine place! You’ll really have to check out the pictures on facebook because I don’t feel like typing anymore about what we did at this moment. J However, in a nutshell: God is amazing. We laughed like crazy, worked hard, saw some beautiful sunrises and sunsets, a rainbow, the beach, a penguin… We spoke about Colombia, we visited a school and actually talked about God. The students were soo receptive and hungry for something real. We taught skits to the students at the base. We painted 15 blocks worth of curbsides…that was a day. We evangelized downtown Mar del Plata. We worked with kids. We led a church service.  And had some incREDible times of worship!

God is Awesome!! Okay, over and out my friends. Blessings!

Pray for a great week!