We Made It!

Hey all my readers! I’m here in the states in case you felt like I left you hanging! The blog right below this one was just posted as well, and it explains what happened in the last weeks of outreach. I recommend you scoot down and read that one first. J

I wrote that other blog while we were still stuck in Argentina if you didn’t gather that. So, to put together all of the pieces, I will write one last blog and close this thing out.

So after missing our flight that took off out of Chile on the 20^th of June, we spent a couple more days waiting for the passage to open up so we could enter Chile. Remember, we couldn’t cross to Chile in southern Argentina because of the volcano and couldn’t cross in northern Argentina because of a massive snow storm.  The time we spent with the lady who took us in while we waited to cross the border was really blessed. God used us to minister to her heart through leading devotionals in her home for the first time ever and also just by talking with her and listening to her story. With no way to thank her with money, we opted to use our time cleaning her house, serving during meals, praying for her and leading worship in her house. God has a purpose for everything!

A couple days later, the passage to Chile opened up and we were able to cross the border (after waiting 5 ½ weeks!). We spent one night in Chile at another YWAM base. And I froze my buns off!! In Chile, they typically don’t have heaters in the houses. So, there we were bundled up, two girls to a bed..chilled to the bone. Let’s just say I didn’t get much sleep that night. Then, we headed off to the airport early the next morning. Santiago, Chile is a beautiful city surrounded with mountains. I enjoyed watching the sun rise over the Andes Mountains as we sped to the airport. Once we arrived and began the check-in process, Brando realized he had lost his passport. For a while, we were calm, thinking nothing of it. He would of course find it after a little looking around. Well, this didn’t happen.  So then we all began searching frantically while Brando ran to try and find a phone or internet to find the passport. Well, all of this stress plus the fact our flight was leaving shortly began to build. After I cried and everyone was all upset we began to pray. Miraculously, the airline allowed Brando to pass with only his equivalent of a license! He then was interrogated by the police for a while, and then barely made it for the flight! Wow. We were thanking God and thanking God some more, as we clearly were BEYOND ready to go home!!

With just enough money for each person to get a milkshake at the Panama airport, we sat slurping and playing UNO while waiting for our flight to Colombia. Since we had missed the entire week’s debriefing that the rest of the students back in Colombia were having during the week, our leaders gave us a quick 30 minute run down of what was discussed. That would have to do! As is typical of our group, we drew a lot of attention on the plane back to Colombia…hooting and hollering when we finally touched ground. If only our fellow passengers knew our crazy story…they’d be celebrating too!!

Once there we immediately felt the heat. By the evening of the first night we were all sopping in sweat, but content, as we had made it back in time for graduation. After graduation, Jesse and Laura (from Colombia) and I were picked up by Laura’s parents and began the journey to the beautiful town of Santa Marta. We enjoyed a fun weekend at a resort and on the beach before Jesse and I headed back and caught our flight to the States. And let me tell you…what a wild feeling seeing your home country after 6 months!! Talk about patriotism!!  

To continue on this theme of patriotism..we are truly blessed to live in a free country. I thought I was thankful before, but after six months of seeing thousands and thousands without proper homes, clothing, sanitation or hope of change,  I get the picture much better. Jesse and I had mixed feelings coming back to the States..of course we would miss Colombia and Argentina, but we were also just itching to see all of those special people we left six months ago.

I’ve been back at home for about two weeks now. For the most part, things are coming along really nicely. Thanks to God, I’ve been granted the grace to transition well. I’m still in the process of catching up with family and friends, but I’m sure that will be an ongoing process. I’m also excited to get involved at church, to hang out with our German foreign exchange student coming this fall, and to attend Western (except the first day of school is my birthday:P). Getting back into school and studying Spanish and Psychology will be challenging but fun, because these are two things God has put on my heart! Anyway, there’s much to look back on and to look forward to, but one thing remains: Jesus Christ is the center of my world, and my one desire is to walk with Him closer and closer every day!

Thanks readers and supporters and those who pray for me. God bless you!!

Chelsie

The Story

Well, it’s not hello from Chile as I hoped this blog would be, but neither is it hello from Bariloche. Rather..hello from Mendoza, Argentina. Our flight back to Colombia left at 4am out of Chile this morning. So, we aren’t exactly going as planned, but we haven’t been for 5 or 6 weeks now! If I could describe our experiences in the last weeks in one word it would be WAIT. We have done this more than anything else, but our time has not been wasted. Every day the Lord has something new in store for us, something more to teach us. Here’s the continuation of our story:

By the time I can actually put this blog on the internet, we will certainly be in Colombia, but I figure you may find the story interesting anyway. J

So after I wrote the last blog, we continued working in Bariloche waiting for the parental permissions to arrive in the mail, the post office to open after the repeated aftereffects of the volcano, waiting for the passage to Chile to open back up. The weather would improve and we would have power and hot water for a day or so, then the conditions would worsen with another storm. We called over and over tracking where the permissions were in the mail and why they had not arrived to Bariloche. The first problem they told us was that the address we gave them in Bariloche was not a house, so they would have to send the papers back. Then the problem was supposedly that the papers were in Buenos Aires but could not get to Bariloche because of the airport closure due to the volcano. Then we called them again and they tracked the papers and found they were mistakenly taken to Brazil! But we had to leave for the north of Argentina (Mendoza) because we needed to make our flight and the passage to Chile was open in Mendoza but not in the south where we were in Bariloche.

 So, the Chilean console said to have the papers sent to Mendoza and if they didn’t arrive in time we could probably use the emailed copies that the parents had originally sent to Chile 5 weeks ago. So we bought bus tickets with nearly all the money we had and road 10 hours, but because of a delay we missed our connection bus. So they left us in a bus terminal at 1:30am and said to wait for the first bus to leave at 8:30am. Miraculously a bus showed up and accepted us at 3am. So, we continued by bus for another 12 hrs or so until we finally reached Mendoza. There we found the friend of a friend who would take care of us for the night before we had our bus ride on Saturday to Chile. She met us with the permissions in her hand—praise the Lord! The pieces of paper that had held us up for going on 6 weeks! We got up the next morning and road to the terminal where we waited 3 or 4 hours before they told us that the entrance to Chile from Mendoza was closed due to a snow storm and no one could pass. We returned to the house, and waited until the next day and they said the same thing. That was our last chance to cross before missing our flight that left early this morning. The passage is still closed and the parental permissions expire today. Everything is closed today due to a holiday here so we cannot leave to do anything because all is closed and it’s Andres’ birthday. NEVERTHELESS, we are doing well! We have enjoyed our time here, celebrating father’s day gathered around a table full of people we didn’t know. It has been wild. But God has provided us with a place to stay, food, beds, warm showers all for free. We are still waiting on God and His perfect timing.