Making an IMPACT

Forgive the absense of an update last week, we werent able to have a free day due to the "Impact" program we recently finished (I'll get back to that later). We had two busy weeks here at "Familia del Rey" - the church we have been staying at since i last wrote. The first week was very much like the week at Oscar's church. We had three days of kids club and the rest of the week we spent teaching dramas and dances to the teens and performing our own presentations on the streets. My highlight of the week was a presentation we did right outside of the church on the street (literally) for a whole bunch of kids. I had a blast! I don't know if performing for kids is just more fun or if it was because God just gave me energy that i absolutely did not have earlier...probably both. The downer on the week was that all three of our leaders got sick. Hugo caught a chest cold somehow that he is still getting over and has passed on to Aaron (please keep them in your prayers). Aaron and Axis both had some type of stomach bug. This forced us all to take a "downtime" day, but thankfully they recovered quickly.
The cockroaches are better here....and I don't mean they gone, i mean they're better at hiding and running away from my shoe. One night during Impact I hardly slept at all because of the heat and the mosquitos (btw bugspray does not work, i now have 80 bites) and when I finally did sleep I was awaken by one of these lovely creatures walking up my arm. Awesome. Other than that, I have enjoyed our time at Familia del Rey, this church is a decent size and has an upstairs so we have more privacy. The people as always are extremely welcoming and feed us way too much. It has been a lot of fun, several people from the last church have followed us here so we have been deepening friendships and making new ones. We are about to move on to the next church tonight.
So back to Impact, which is what we spent all of last week on. Impact is a recently started program in YWAM for teens that is meant to be like a mini DTS. Usually it runs for two weeks, but we decided to cram everything into one, which made some craziness, but it all worked out. I am starting to get used to craziness anyway. Because Hugo was sick, Aaron and Axis took over leading most of the time and did a fabulous job. A typical day started with breakfast of tea and bread (Peru anyone?), the devotional time, followed by worship, teaching, work duties, then drama practice for the rest of the day until evenings which is when we did outreach. Usually we'd pack up outside around 10 and come back for dinner. Each day we had amazing times of worship, I was always just blown away by how they had such worshipful hearts. Most of the time worship time went way longer than planned, but that was quite alright with me. I have found many new ways to worship God that go beyond singing (since most of the time I dont know the Spanish songs). Of course, teachings were great too. Hugo taught one day on God's father heart and about how we need inner healing if we are to help heal others. This brought on many tears as everyone shared about past hurts or experiences that they wanted to deal with (some for the first time). It reminded me of my lecture phase : ). My team was rather shocked about how so many stories were similiar though. It was staggering to hear about how many suicide attempts, broken families, or abuse problems there were. But learning to trust God through those things has made these teens so strong in their faith. It is really amazing. All of them had stories to tell about times when they heard God, or saw visions, dreamed dreams etc. They put my whole former life to shame. Before I came to YWAM I hardly ever remembered to have a daily quiet time. I think as Americans we never really know how blessed we are until we can come to a place like this and see how some people are used to living. Yet living such a rough life teaches some of them so much more about reliance on God and having complete faith. They also were really open about sharing when we did outreach. They loved talking to people about Jesus, it gave them such joy and motivation...I have a lot to learn from them, I dont know why I was a "leader" : ). It made me really proud to see them do the dramas and dance we taught them too, they are just a great group in general!
Well, today we are all taking a much needed break. The past two days I was not feeling the greatest though everytime we had presentations to do, God always helped me through it and I would be energized and excited. As I have said before, seeing the small blessings is just as cool as seeing the big ones. I am feeling pretty decently today though my body is still recuperating from two weeks of little rest so I could sleep all day I think. But sleeping is no fun ; ). We may go to the capital tonight for a tour so that should be interesting and tomorrow is another slower day (or so we have been told). I hear it is unbelievably cold in PA right now....97 degrees was our hottest day so far, I miss the icicles sometimes. Though I can't say I am too jealous of your weather : )

Bendiciones a todos! Until next week!

Is it really January? I think the sun is confused...

I am at a bit of a loss for words when it comes to describing what Argentina has been like so far. We have only been here for 10 days but it feels like I have lived here for years. We already have developed some close friendships and have had many opportunities to minister both on the street and in the church. There are a few things I am still getting used to though, like being invited to give a presentation at a dinner party at 1:30 am and sweating like crazy all the time. By now we have all gotten used to the fact that we wont have many opportunities to wash clothes or take showers, and really there isnt much of a point to frequent bathing because the moment you step out of the bathroom you start sweating again anyway : ). However, there are definitely some Argentinian customs that I want to introduce in the States; like giving EVERYONE a traditional cheek kiss greeting when you enter or leave a room..it doesnt matter how long you have been gone either (this was rather comical to me the first few times it happened). Also, almost any time you enter a room, there is a maté cup being passed around (basically maté is a kind of tea that is served in a special cup and you drink your fill then pass it back to the server who refills it and passes it on to someone else). I like these kind of customs. They emphasize the fact that everyone is important and should be recognized and included in everything. If you are eating anything here, you are expected to share it, this goes for everything from a banana to bread - there are no ¨germophobes¨ here, you just learn to get over yourself when it comes to being paranoid of pathogens. I laughed out loud the other day when I read in Mark 16 how Jesus promises that those who follow Him and preach the good news will be able to perform signs and wonders, handle snakes, and drink poison without dying. So I thought to myself, if God can protect me from poison, then what is a few germs? (I just hope He never asks me to handle snakes...) There have been a few times we have felt under the weather, mostly because of the heat and eating different foods, but the cool thing is we have been praying for each other and almost immediately start to feel better. It is awesome to see even the little reminders of Gods power and how He cares for us.
Some people have asked me if I am homesick yet considering today marks the longest time I have ever been out of the country. The answer to that is no...sorry Mom...but there are a few things that I miss about home. While I do so love waking up in the morning to masses of mosquito bites all over me and the daily duty of lassoing the enormous cockroaches that gallop down the halls...I do miss having a bed that I can occupy at a decent hour of night. But I have decided that I am going to try this whole -live in the moment-thing while I am here. God has brought us here for a reason so why should i let little things like sweat, no sleep, or unually ginormous bugs bother me? Besides, how many times in your life can you drink maté and get a tan while sitting on a patio still decorated for christmas and new years? : ) I even got to co-lead worship last night with the pastors daughter...we sang two songs half in english, half in spanish. Plus, we recently did a few street presentations and got to see a whole bunch of children give their lives to Christ- what is cooler than that?

Bienvenidos Argentina!

Well here we are! Buenos Aires! We arrived midafternoon on Friday after an 11 hour flight from NYC. The past few days have been more relaxing (our leaders decided to be nice to us), we have been staying at a local pastor"s house just getting a feel for the area...yesterday we walked 80 blocks around town. Let me tell you, these people define hospitality! From the moment we arrived we have had food within reach at all times and always someone to talk to (as much as my Spanglish allows). We are slowly getting used to the schedule, which so far has been- wake up midmorning, eat a breakfast of chocolate milk and bread (Argentinian bread is awesome), have a "noon" meal around 1 or 2, a snack of some sort at 4, then we go to church and come home just in time for dinner...at 11. Dinner is quite the social event, there are usually people from church over, or grandchildren. Everyone is really friendly and want to get to know us. Poor Jenny has become our pass-around translator for those important conversations when "si", "no", or "claro" are not enough " ). The day usually ends around 1 am. Eating dinner here is synononamous with putting on PJs, you always eat right before bed. We told them that in America we eat at 530 and they could not believe that! Of course, it also gets dark much later here. The sun doesn"t start going down until around 9 so it just makes sense to eat later.

Tomorrow begins our more intensive schedule which I"m not completely sure of the details, but we are planning to travel from one church to another just about every week. Later this week we"ll be having a kids club for five days in the morning, and an evangelism training class for teens in the afternoon (and I still don"t know exactly what we are doing for those things...welcome to YWAM). I am excited, though still pretty nervous. Here we are no longer students, we are missionaries, and as far as everyone is concerned, we supposedly have all the answers...rather nerve wracking. I know now what it means to literally depend on God for everything that I say, not only because of the language difference. The church we have gone to for the past few nights is so great, people here really know how to worship with all they have! It is beautiful to experience.

Right now I am in a dark internet cafe, listening to Katy Perry (yes, Katy Perry) trying to avoid the heat (it is about 90 degrees here..and only the beginning of summer), and I am still sore from all the dance/drama practices we have been cramming into our free time (which is slowly depleting).

We all thank you for your prayers as we prepare to start ministering tomorrow.

-Oh, I have to add this for certain someones - Yes, peaches are definitely in season!