Well, hello from Bariloche...still! We would be on our way to our third city in Chile if plans had not DRASTICALLY changed, but alas, here we are in the fine city of San Carlos de Bariloche starting our fourth week here.
The above picture captures our moment of deportation from Chile...photo with the police man. :) I tell ya, when God has different plans, He makes them happen! Here's the breakdown of our story:
So, we spent a very sweet, cute week in Bariloche--working at the base and a lot with a nearby church. This particular church has a lot of issues and pain within the body of believers, so we spent a majority of the time teaching, sharing our testimonies, and just encouraging them to keep moving forward. It's a hard situation because the pastor has diabetes and is in a terrible condition, unable to leave the house. So we went to his house...just beautiful by the way--log cabin style tucked into the mountains...and were truly blessed to spend some time sharing our testimonies with him and spending a time in worship. We intended to be there for a few hours but it turned into the entire day! I shared my life story for the first time in Spanish and it was a really special time for us all to connect and hear feedback from the pastor too.
Then, after that week, we packed up, said our goodbyes and road a bus for three hours to the Chilean border. There they did the whole bag search, passport check, paper fill-out and Mayra and I crossed into Chile. The rest of the group, however, got held up and were not allowed to enter because of some new law that requires they show parental permission when entering. Well, they had parental permission to leave Colombia, but when we left Colombia the border patrol took their permission slips because they shouldn't need them after leaving the country. So, you have to understand that at this point we had exhausted our Argentinian pesos and were left with only Chilean pesos and US dollars because we were crossing the border we thought! We spent a while stuck in the terminal there. Brando whipped out his guitar and we sang worship songs to the Lord, thanking Him in advance for his faithfulness. We attracted lots of attention along the way and were able to talk about Jesus to all of curious onlookers. :)
So, eventually they granted us a free bus trip back to Bariloche (miracle #1) where we found ourselves stuck again in the bus terminal without a way to call the YWAM base there, without money for taxis and without an address to the base. Oh and by this time we had gone most of the day without food and had no money to buy food and no money to travel to a money exchange station to get money to buy food! Yikes! They then granted us free bus tickets to travel back to Chile the following Saturday when we would supposedly have the parental permissions (miracle #2). Then we scrounged around and gathered all the money we could find and bought one taxi (miracle #3). Two of the group went with the all of the heavy luggage in the taxi to the YWAM base, and the rest of us carried the other luggage and walked the 30-40 minute walk to the base. By this time I looked and felt like I was on the survivor show. When we got there they made us tea (I've drank so much tea in the last month that I think I could do without it for the rest of my life!) and bread. Ugh it felt like the end of the world!! :D Anyhoo, we then began the process of contacting the Chilean console and the parents and all of that to get the passports sent. They told us we could have them sent by email so we waited 4 days and then they told us that now they can't accept them that way and we have to have new original copies sent by snail mail. Well, that really put a damper on things as Andres' dad lives in Spain and would have to send his permission slip from there all the way to Argentina which meant we would be here until it arrived. With no money, we couldn't pay to stay at the base, so they decided to adopt us and allow us to stay here for free until we could leave--paying for food housing and all of that (miracle #4). Otherwise, we'd be huddling up outside on the street!
For the first few days we didn't have anything to do and we're rather disappointed to have been rejected from entering Chile. Then we discovered the first reason that God wanted us to stay here longer. We played a key role in allowing the YWAM base workers here to enter into a public school to give a presentation--of course without talking about God or anything. The teachers and students of the class were rowdy and skeptical of what we had to offer, but by the end, they decided to invite us back the next day to do two more presentations for other classes. The following day we did four more and were at the school from 8am until 6:30pm! God really moved in an incredible way and the staff of the school said they were already seeing big class-wide changes in their behavior. What was impactful about our presentation is that we talked to them about finding their identity--but we did it through sharing our own personal stories of hurts and hardships. And with us being of similar age to them, we were able to relate easily, even though the students in this school live REALLY rough lives.
This past Saturday, we gave the same presentation to the church we have been working with, as they still have many issues--lots of bitterness and apathy as a result of hardships. So while we were presenting this, I went outside to take my turn playing with the kids when it started raining powder! I was asking them in Spanish, what is this stuff? And nobody knew! Then we got news of the volcano in Chile and learned that it was raining and thunderstorming volcanic ash! This is where we discovered the other reason God did not allow us to enter Chile--as the place we were going to visit was very close to the volcano. Here in Bariloche we are 2 hours from the volcano which is on the other side of the mountains. We are stuck here in a declared state of emergency until things clear up a bit. We aren't supposed to leave the house much and so we feel like Rapunzel.
It's been a really hard couple of weeks as God has been shaping our characters and we have been spending a lot of time cooped up in close quarters with the same people for three weeks now. But, we know our work is effective as we have also been very attacked by the devil with different sicknesses for the past week. Currently Daniela and I are ill, but resting and on the road to recovery AMEN! Anyway, our whole team is greatful to God for His perfect plan, but also very ansy to move on from this place. So, we appreciate your prayers as we continue waiting for the post office to open so we can get the permission slips and then the border entrance to Chile to reopen so we can continue on our journey!! Hope to talk of Chile next time I write! :)
Love you all,
Chelsie
