Closing Thoughts: Annie

Closing Thoughts:

Annie

Well... here it is. Time to go home. I think this is the first time I’ve ever truly been ready to go home from a mission trip. Then again I’ve never been on a trip longer than 2 weeks, and those have been in my home country of Honduras. I’ve decided that 6 weeks is the perfect time for a mission trip. You accomplish a lot, and the time flies, but then again, it seems like you’ve been gone forever. I’m so ready to see my family. All three of us decided this trip has definitely made us love and appreciate our families more. I personally have grown a lot closer to my mom and dad these past few years since I no longer am living at home. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder. I’ve been praying a lot about that actually. I want Katie and Jenn to be able to come back and appreciate their friends and family more just like I hope I will. 

I’ve definitely learned to cook a lot better. Being on my own and making do with what few ingredients we have had has really helped me step up my game in the kitchen. Even Katie and Jenn have improved and learned a little :)

As I decided to sit down and write this, we were packing up all our last belongings. We’ve each walked away with a few new trinkets for friends and family and a few for ourselves too. Katie’s walking away without her iPod, and Jenn without her retainer (haaaaaaaa), but we all three can agree that we’re gaining so much from this trip to South America. The people here are different. I can’t really explain it, but they just are. Living in the “Bible Belt” of North America has really left me now, and I hope I can bring what I’ve seen and learned here in South America back home. There are so many people who don’t have any clue who Jesus is, and I can’t wait to continue that journey to spread the good news. Jenn couldn’t have wrote it any better, but being able to tell people from the beginning who Jesus is, what He has done, and what He is STILL doing has really been an amazing experience. My faith has always been such a huge part of who I am, and all three of us can’t wait to bring that new fire we have back to LU and Nashville. 

As far as my personal closing thoughts, I can’t decide where to begin. My spiritual life is truly a beautiful mess. All three of us are currently reading different parts of the Bible, and I’m in Deuteronomy. I really have learned a lot from this book, so I’m taking my sweet time with it. One thing that I really just have to continue to beat through my thick skull is that if God has given me these rules, why can’t I just obey? What makes it so difficult to follow His rules? Why do I stumble as a Christian? As a young woman? Why do I try to add my own words or variations to his perfect words? Deuteronomy 12:32 ends that chapter by saying, “See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it”. Why can’t I just live my life HATING sin and LOVING God and LOVING what is GOOD!? Deut. 7:26 says, “Utterly abhor and detest it (sin), for it is set apart for destruction”. It’s time for me to grow up. It’s time for me to decide. I need to stop living the lukewarm life. It’s time for me to pick which way I’m going to live. Next to this verse in the Bible I wrote “HATE SIN. This will make it so much easier for us to live as christians if we abhor what is evil”. If we as christians just start living our lives hating sin and loving God (and I mean TRULY LOVING GOD), sinning will become so much harder. I still have a lot of questions about the Bible and about God, but I’ve also learned a great lesson about all those questions I have for Him. He is God, not me. He is the center of the universe, and I am only a small speck. Why do I think the world revolves around me? Around Lipscomb? Around Nashville? It doesn’t... so I’ve decided it’s time for me to accept that there will always be things I don’t understand about God, his decisions, etc, but as a Christian, I have to learn to trust Him. I say I trust God and His plan, but I MEAN TRULY TRUSTING GOD. Trusting that He will take care of me. Trusting that He will give me food, clothes, and the things that I truly need. Deuteronomy speaks a lot about Moses going up on the mountain to talk to God, and how he needed nothing for 40 days but to be filled with God. I cannot imagine the beauty of living on nothing for 40 days, but to imagine living for that long being filled with the Lord is even more spectacular. I pray that I learn a lot this year at school, and that we three can be lights at our school and jobs for our friends and families. I know God is working through me, and I love it. I have to ask God to have patience with me and my friends, just like Moses did for his brother and his people. 

I’m trying. I’m excited. I’m fired up. I’m living for Him. 

“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” Deuteronomy 6:5

Thank you all who prayed for us while we were here. Your prayers have been so needed, and we feel so blessed to have you all as brothers and sisters. Can’t wait to be home and tell you all our stories! God is good. 

Closing Thoughts: Jennifer

Tonight is our final evening in Buenos Aires.  As the trip comes to a close we have been reminiscing and talking about our favorite memories, funniest moments, and what we have learned from our experience here.  Overall I feel as if we have each grown in our own lives and in our spiritual walks.  LST is definitely a unique type of mission trip.  You are not building houses or handing out foods packages to the homeless.  The students we have been teaching English are well off and in need of the good news, not material things.  This makes it more difficult in some ways because it is not a quick fix.  Over the course of the past 6 weeks we have shared our faith, built relationships, and tried to show our beliefs through our actions as much as our words.  Starting off in BA we were really excited to have the freedom of living on our own and being in a new city.  Of course, though, as time went on challenges arose.  Three girls living together was much easier than we expected though and there was rarely tension between us.  I could not have chosen two more awesome girls to share my time here with! We are so compatible and have learned the real meaning of patience.  As much as I cared for them before, I truly love them for who they are and have seen Christ working in their hearts and radiating into their lives.  They have been so encouraging to me in my own spiritual journey! It has been impossible not to see God working through the situations and conversations we have found ourselves in.  I love the people God has placed in our lives.  We had many different types of students.  Some were there because they attend the church and love to study God’s word, while others had never even opened a bible.  These students were my favorite because it gave me the opportunity to explain what I believe and why I believe what I do.  I had never been in this situation before; it was kind of scary but also exciting.  This allowed me to examine my own views and decide my exact opinions on certain things.  I was so blessed to have the opportunity with a man who was very skeptical and kind of awkward about the Bible- he was there solely to practice his English.  He listened to my story with no judgment.  He was just purely interested in a different view of life than his own.  Also, explaining the idea of baptism to another one of my students was exciting because it is kind of a strange idea when you really think about it, but she was so receptive when she realized that God was the one inviting her into a committed relationship.  The majority of our students come from a Catholic background and has very negative opinions about church.  One challenge I faced was trying to overcome their presuppositions about “the church.”  Through my time here, I feel that God has opened my eyes to how powerful and complex He is.  He is alive all over the world and each of His children has a different story and a different purpose.  But He is alive in us all! All we have to do is accept His will over our own and He will guide our feet and give us His wisdom!  I have learned how weak I am without the strength of my Savior and how important it is to spend time with God every single day.  One can see the world in a whole new light if you look at it through God’s eyes and not your own.

      Our time in Chile was also a huge blessing in disguise.  Although we were really bummed to leave this city at first, God showed us how, as his followers, we must be willing to be flexible and mold to the plans he has for us.  I formed some wonderful friendships in Santiago.  First of all, the Andes Mountains were staring me in the face every morning, which humbled me more than anything.  They were BEAUTIFUL!! Seeing something so magnificent reminds me of how small we are and how great God is.  Also, the church there was very different from the one here in BA.  Several missionary families from Dallas started it, so the dynamics there created a totally different environment for us to work in.  The ladies that worked at the church were so fun and had such pure hearts.  Learning their stories and spending time with them was such a blessing.  We again met so many interesting students with different religious backgrounds.  This sparked interesting conversations with them and then even more so amongst each other.  We really began diving into the word during our time here.  This brought about more questions than answers, but I loved talking through some of the stories in the bible and truly examining Jesus’ life.  We spent most of our free time there with our students- this was probably one of my favorite experiences.  It is one thing to spend an hour a day with a person reading through a workbook, but many of them really let you into their hearts when you put time into the relationship in other activities.  It can be frustrating at times because you don’t want to preach to them, but you want so badly to explain what an amazing life one can have if you give yourself to Him.  That is another challenge.  The fruits of your labor are not immediately visible because building one’s faith is a difficult process that takes a lot of time and a lot of God pulling at their hearts.  It was difficult sometimes to not let satan get to us and let us think we were not making a difference here.  Although we weren’t doing physical work to help someone, I know we touched many of their lives. A lot of people here think it is so strange that we would want to give up our time off in the summers to come down here just to help someone.  But these types of conversations are what make it all worth it!  Jesus served; therefore, we serve. 

      This trip has allowed us to grow and deepen our faith, but most importantly it has given us the opportunity to share with others the one who has saved us and given us new life in him!  For the first time in my life I have this deep desire to know more and more about the character of God.  I have so many questions and there are so many things I just do not understand and probably never will.  But I know and recognize that God’s story is a journey for each of us.  He reveals Himself to us in different ways and at different times and all we have to do is open our heart to His love.  He has given us people all around us to love!  He has given us the task of sharing His love- and there will always be work to do!  I feel so blessed to have partaken in this mission experience and hope and pray that our time here has planted seeds in the hearts of our students so that they may also come to know and love Jesus, for they are already loved by him in return!  We hoping to keep in touch with many of our students, which I know already will be a blessing for all of us! Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and for supporting us in our time away!  I know that prayer is so powerful and effective if we but believe! Our time in Chile and Argentina has been a blessing straight from God!!

LOTS OF THINGS HAPPENING IN SANTIAGO

So where to begin... we’ve had a lot of fun these past few days here in Santiago. Busy, but very fun. I guess to start I need to talk about the weekend. On Saturday we each had readers for about 5 hours straight, then we left the church around 3 to hang out with one of Jennifer’s readers, Carola. She’s GORGEOUS. She’s seriously so amazing. Listening to her talk is so awesome because she’s a younger woman (early thirties), and she’s confident in being alone. Me, Katie and Jennifer have all talked about how society, and especially young christians, put a lot of pressure on getting married really early. For Katie and I, we are the stubborn independents who don’t want to get married until much later in life. Even though we feel this way, it’s still pretty scary to think about living the rest of your life alone when all your friends are getting married. As for Carola, she has a great job that she loves, great friends, and enjoys living her life mainly by herself and with God. WOW. I mean, the thought of living my life alone and being content is pretty cool, considering how much I love my “me” time. Anyway, she’s really an inspiration to us, and we love spending time with her. She’s beautiful, inside and out, and really fun too. We headed to the Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Beautiful Arts) and other fun places on Saturday afternoon. We looked around at some of the museums and heard Carola’s version of Chilean history. Then she took us back to Jeff and Penne’s house (where Katie and Jenn stay) to babysit that evening. We got back around 7, and it was just in time to put the boys to bed. Date night babysitting=success.

Church on Sunday was great too. We went to class to sing before the service so we could learn a few songs, then we had church service after. Of course, it was all in spanish. I could understand the preacher pretty well- he was from Brazil, so that was good to hear the different accent. After church we were invited over to eat lunch with Kelly and his wife Julie and their 4 kids, Duncan, Abby, Victoria, and Connor. Jennifer felt right at home hearing that name - love you jenn :). Anyway they have an awesome house and the little girls share a room, which is so COOL! I wish my room had been that awesome when I was little... I would’ve always been daydreaming. We watched this really funny (and clean) comedian perform on DVD, and waited for lunch to be prepared. It was really good, and the conversation was great. That family is so funny. As you can imagine, four kids never leaves room for a dull moment. The dad is really sarcastic, just like the three of us, so spending time with their family was really fun. They are one of the four missionary families left here in Santiago, and I forgot to mention earlier that all four families have created plans for their family’s remaining time here in Santiago. Each family leaves at a different time, so that one by one, the church has to learn to depend on the Chileans to keep the church alive, so that when all the missionaries return to the US, the church is able to continue serving each other and the community. The Grants (Kelly and Julie) are planning on returning to the US in December, so they’re in the process of trying to sell their home, car, etc. Each of the families wanted to make sure they left before the kids got too attached (like in high school) so that it wouldn’t be extremely difficult for them to start over when they returned to the US. Back to my story... sorry I have A.D.D... but we went to an artisan market that’s pretty touristy over near their house called Los Dominicos. There we walked around and saw a lot of the touristy stuff... keepsakes and souvenirs. After that we went back to Jeff and Penne’s house to get ready to go out with Jeff to eat dinner/see a movie. We ended up just going to dinner since he misread the times for the movie, and therefore it was 2 hours later than we initially thought. We drove around and he showed us the more wealthy community, and of course it looks just like all other wealthy neighborhoods in the world- big and new. Monday is our day off, so we had made plans to go with Penne to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. All I can say about that trip is one word... BEAUTIFUL. It was breathtaking. These oceans were literally the most beautiful I’ve ever seen... considering I’ve only traveled out of the country to Honduras, but there aren’t words to describe the beauty of these rock formations and the color of the water. The town is old and picturesque, and we had a good time just walking around and looking at the beauty of everything there. We took lots of pictures (of course), and we also had an amazing lunch at this old hotel that looks like a boat from the outside. Sea bass here= awesomeeeeeeeeee. Monday night we came home to just chill with our host families. I got to watch a movie (ICE AGE) and eat dinner with mine, and it was good just to see the kids when they are awake. They’re always asleep when I get home every night because they have school right now, so I really appreciated getting to spend some time with those sweet little babies.

Tuesday and Wednesday we worked at the church... normal long days- 10 am until 10 pm. Tuesday was a slow day for Katie and Jenn, and although I had 7 readers scheduled, some of my readers called and rescheduled. Either way it was a great day. Yesterday was amazing though. Not only was it a great day for all of us with our readers, but HARRY POTTER PREMIERED HERE!!!!!! After work yesterday, we went with Carola (one of our favorite readers who has been mentioned several times before) to the movie theaters. She's awesome, and bought us tickets for only $4 somehow??? So we arrive and the line is OUT THE DOOR to wait to get in the theatre, because there were two showings, one at 10:30 pm and the one we were going to at 8:30 pm. Finally at like 8:30 pm they opened the doors, and everyone rushed in. The anticipation was unbearable, but the movie was worth all the wait and anticipation. I loved it!!!!! I can't wait to see it again in Buenos Aires (it doesn't premiere there until the 23rd of July).

Today was a national holiday because it was some kind of catholic holiday, therefore since 90% of the population is Catholic, no one went to work today. Malls, some restaurants, and touristy places were open, so we headed off early this morning with Carola (yet again - like I said, she's our favorite and loves us too) to explore more of Santiago. We went to her work place this morning downtown because she works in this HUGE tower that you can go up to look all around the city. It was really awesome, we got to go in a restricted area, and we felt really cool. Don't hate. Since I'm turning into my mother and sort of afraid of heights, I got a little nervous and missed out on some of the pictures. Then we went to San Cristobal which is this GORGEOUS place that circles all around this mountain where everyone runs, bikes, etc, and at the very top there is this massive statue of the Virgen Mary. We took some awesome pictures, and I had an awesome conversation with Carola too. We drove about half way up, then we had to walk the rest of the way. It was quite the walk, and we were shedding layers quickly. Carola and I had truly an awesome conversation all the way up the mountain, and it was really uplifting to be able to talk to someone you barely know about important things IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE. After walking all the way down the mountain we went to a typical Chilean restaurant. It looked a lot like Fudpuckers (as far as the walls were covered with writing from customers), but yet was more like a sit down family-style restaurant. We ordered, and after a little encouraging from Carola (because I said I wanted fish), I ordered a small *what I thought was* entry of salmon with these spicy potatoes for my side dish. Well my "entry" came, and I thought it looked a little strange. It was like creamy pieces of salmon that were mixed with onions that were COLD. Well... I figured I'd better eat it just because I ordered it and didn't want to disappoint Carola or make her feel bad since she suggested it. Then I started wondering about how this was cooked considering it was really cold.. but then I decided to ask her if this fish was even cooked at all.. and of course... it WAS NOT. For a girl who doesn't even eat sushi, I tried to hold back vomit. I seriously have NEVER eaten raw fish... except for the one time I tried sushi.. and immediately spit it out. Well I held it together... just because I'm a champ, but it was pretty gross, and I couldn't eat it anymore. Everyone else liked it, but I guess I became the picky one for a moment. Anyway overall lunch was a success, and now we are currently babysitting for my host family because tonight was their date night. They just got back, so it was a short babysitting night. We played a little soccer with all four kids - girls against boys of course - and the boys won. Whatever, we let them. Then we made pancakes and watched HOMEWARD BOUND. Great night, great people, great city, even greater God. Tomorrow's our last reading day, so pray that we can have great last reading sessions and that God can work through us tomorrow like he never has before.

God is good.

Annie B

Celine Dion, cookies, and karaoke

Well I need to catch everyone up on the past few really busy days. I would be blogging more, but the internet at the church only alloys us to have skype, but not access our internet sites. Therefore since when I return home at 10:30 every night, I go straight to bed and am too tired to blog. Por eso, I am trying to write this one here at the church today during my free time, and that way I can just add it tonight when I get home and do nothing more. 

The past week has been an amazing one to say the least. It’s so funny (funny meaning ironic) the way that God works. We were really upset to have to leave Buenos Aires to come to Chile, and now I’m in LOVE with Chile. Santiago is absolutely beautiful, as you can tell from the previous pictures posted, and the people here are just as “linda”. The church family is seriously just that, a family. Over the past few days we have become really close to Annie, the cleaning lady, and Fernanda, the secretary. Everyone knows them here because they are like “tias” to everyone. Tia here is an endearing term to anyone older than you. They are both so fun and light hearted, so needless to say we have tons of fun with them. They both speak pretty good english, so we’re learning spanish while they practice english with us. We’ve worked out a pretty good system. Annie loves Celine Dion, and so when we’re cooking lunch or dinner in the kitchen she comes in and sings and dances with us. In order to describe Annie, I can only quote her to try. When we first met her, these were her first words: “Hola I’m Annie. I’m 18 years old and “loca” (that means crazy for those of you who don’t know)”. Needless to say, we’re in love with her. She’s far from 18 in age, but her heart and spirit are seriously around just that. She’s seriously LOCA, and there’s never a dull moment in this church because of her and Fernanda. Fernanda lived in Canada for a few years, so her english is much better. When we made pancakes the other day for lunch, she was so excited to see Maple syrup in Chile. She begged to try some, so we of course obliged. I can’t fail to mention she’s about 5 ft tall and weighs MAYBE 100 lbs, but it’s cutting it close. Everyone here acts like they’re really concerned with their weight. We have been making a lot of cookies and desserts for our party we had last night (which I will mention later in the blog), and everyone here (the women at least) act like they can’t eat much of that because it will make them fat. They’re all seriously less than 120 lbs. Needless to say, that makes me, Jenn, and Katie feel awesome since we eat that kind of stuff all the time. I told Annie that my philosophy is that I’m going to eat all that stuff while I can (aka while I’m still young and my metabolism still exists before I get too old to enjoy it and it seriously catches up to me). 

We have about a 10x better kitchen to cook in now that we’re in Santiago. The apartment was great, but just VERY small and we had to buy pots and pans in order to cook. This place is stocked and has anything we need, so we’ve (or I guess I should say  I have) been taking advantage of these benefits. Everything, as far as food goes, is still really cheap here, but more expensive than Buenos Aires. You can buy kool-aid type packets for like 30 cents here, but they’re fruit juices instead... and they’re heaven. I drank a whole pina (pineapple) one today by myself. All you do is add water. Voila! We found this out when we were getting ready for our party. Annie told us to just buy lots of those and make them as needed. This was best choice as far as spending the least amount of money possible. We spent a few days baking because the people at the church told us how much they loved brownies and peanut butter, but how they never eat that here because it’s so expensive (quick update on PB here: it’s super expensive because its imported, therefore no one really uses/buys it). We made 2 types of brownies... one that had candy bars in the middle :) and the other without. We made a HUGE batch of no bake cookies... which they love because of the peanut butter. We also made chocolate chip cookies from scratch, but those didn’t turn out very good because of the altitude messing with our cooking. It’s really strange how that affects the food, but we don’t notice until you actually try it. We also had chips and cheetos to serve, along with coffee and tea. Needless to say, the party was a hit. Karaoke, great food, and fun people is an automatic good time. The music choices here are seriously awesome. Everyone in Chile LOVES the 80’s, and that just happens to be my favorite choice for karaoke. We opened with “My Heart Will Go On”... in Spanish. That was a sight for sore eyes. Me, Katie, Jennifer, and Annie (the cleaning lady who’s obsessed with Celine Dion) belted our hearts out, and cried a little from laughing so hard when Annie grabbed me from behind, lifted my arms, and reenacted the scene from Titanic with Jack and Rose on the edge of the ship. Then some of the jovenes (young people) got up and sang a couple fun songs in Spanish... more that we didn’t know. At this point we decided to take back the mic with a couple of women who read with us. Us three sang “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by Whitney Houston with Adela, Carola, and Helena. It was AWESOME. Immediately after me and Katie decided to sing QUEEN with one of her readers, Fernando. Of course the missionary here thought it would be hysterical to pick “Fat Bottom Girls” as our Queen song. We just went with it. It was really funny, but we stopped the song half way through when he finally played “Bohemian Rhapsody”. If you want to see the funniest thing in your life, get spanish-speaking natives to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Not only is this hard song to sing in English, imagine beginners to intermediate-level spanish speakers to try and sing alone. SO FUNNY. 

After that it was time for a break. We sat down, but since we have such amazing voices (hah), they requested our singing again on Michael Jackson’s “Bad”. Of course once Michael played, we had to get up and sing again to honor our old friend. In the end, everyone sang a lot, and I can’t wait to upload pictures. 

This morning I didn’t have any morning readers, so I went with my host family, the Perkins, to see their oldest son’s 3rd grade play. It was so precious. All four kids go to this private school that teaches half the day in english, and the other half in spanish. This obviously helps with kids becoming bilingual since all their teachers speak both languages too. The play was really cute, and Isaac was one of the 4 main characters. He and his 3 siblings went to travel around the world and “learned” how to say certain things in different languages around the world. It was really a cute play, and I loved getting to spend some time with the kids since they’re always asleep when I get home around 10:30 every night. After the play the two youngest, Simeon and Enoch, came home since their school day ends at 12:30 anyway. We all three road in the back seat and it was really cute when they fought over who got to sit by me :) They’re precious, and I can’t wait for Sunday when we get to all go to church together. 

Today has been a long day to say the least. When I arrived at the church building around 11:45 am, I had a reader that came immediately at 12 pm. He was a new reader, and I really liked him a lot. We ate lunch at 1, white rice and onions, and then I had several more readers this afternoon... all back to back. We had cereal for dinner, and now I’m waiting on my last reader to come today at 7 pm. Tomorrow is going to be a grueling day as far as reading sessions, for Saturdays we work 10 am to 3 pm without a break for lunch. I have a reader every single time slot, but I’m excited to get to work on vocabulary with my readers. Here almost all my readers except for 2 are beginners, and it’s really tiring at the end of the day when my head has been thinking only in spanish. I hate being such a bore when I go home to the Perkins house, but I can’t hold my eyes open long enough to even skype my parents. Tonight I’m going to try to head to bed as soon as I get home and rest up for my full day tomorrow. After reading sessions we’re hoping to cook lunch and then head to a museum for the rest of the day somewhere in the city. 

This weekend we’ve got a lot on our plates. Sunday and Monday are our two days off, and of course Sunday we’ll be attending our first church service. I’m really excited to see what it’s like, and then after service we have been invited to eat at Kelly and Julie Grant’s tomorrow with them and their four kids. Then Sunday night Jeff, the missionary who helps out with LST, has invited us all out to go to dinner with him and see a movie. This is his excuse to get Katie and Jennifer out of his house because his wife has some kind of group meeting at their house Sunday night. Either way we’re excited. Monday is our big day out though with Jeff’s wife, Penne. We’re getting up early in the morning and heading to the beach!!!!! Valparaiso and Vina del Mar are our destinations, and luckily they’re right next to each other. We’ll most likely get to spend the whole day there, and then return late that afternoon, rest a little, and be ready for our last week of readers. This upcoming Thursday here is a holiday, so the church will be closed, and reading sessions will also cease to exist for the day. We’re hoping to spend that day doing something fun too, or maybe just hanging out with our families. We love them!! I’m going to be so sad to leave these beautiful people. Their hearts are so sincere and loving, and their whole lives are lived for God. Either way and religion aside, they’re beautiful people inside and out. I pray that maybe I can be as humble and patient as they are, and I especially pray that one day I can return and continue these relationships I’ve established. 

Loving life.

Loving God. 

Annie B

"It's like the Andes aren't real..."

Dont have time to blog. Tired.

JUST HAD TO POST THESE AMAZING PICTURES FROM WHEN the other LST team showed us around on our first day in Santiago!

God is good.

AB

Update on Chile

Well... we made it. Aerolineas Argentinas came through for us... at least for this time. It's been a crazy, long day so far...

This morning I woke up at the crack of dawn to finish packing and to shower and to get ready for breakfast at the church. We packed up and went to the church to serve breakfast and to say goodbye for a few weeks at least. Breakfast was a success- there were surprisingly many people there despite the swine flu, and banana bread was all gone way before breakfast was even over! After cleaning up, we said our last goodbyes or "see you laters" before we headed back to the apartment to finish cleaning up and to wait for the remis (hired car). The cars came to pick us up around noon, and me KT and Jenn were in one car and the luggage and Joel (missionary) were in the other. Because of recent events, we frequently make jokes about how we have the worst luck ever. Nothing is ever really a surprise to us at this point, so therefore the next events didn't even really phase us at first. 

We got nailed from behind and were in a car wreck. Ha... my first thought was SERIOUSLY?!?!?! but then I realized that this is our luck... and the fact that anything can happen at this point. This pretty serious wreck didn't even end up being a big deal, because wrecks in BA are like Honduras... everyone's immune to them. They just exchange information, and then everything is eventually taken care of. Anyway, after that we rushed to the airport, fearing we wouldn't make our flight or something if traffic was bad. FALSE. We made it there in plenty of time, and sat around for about an hour before our flight started boarding. We made it to Santiago in a little over 2 hours, yet they served us a meal? It was strange... but the azafata (stewardess) successfully managed to spill hot coffee on my ivory/winter white scarf. COOL. I just couldn't do anything but submit to her in that moment. I mean seriously... anything that could go wrong, will. I'm not being pessimistic by any means, but I am just trying to ready my mind for it to be rocked 20 times a day like it is being. 

We had some issues paying for our hefty entrance tax ($131 american dollars to enter Chile) because we only had Argentine pesos and they man at the money-exchange place wasn't where he was supposed to be, therefore we payed on credit cards because the missionary had been waiting on us already for like 35-40 minutes. Then once we wandered around the entrance to the airport forever since we had no idea of where we were going, the name of the church, or what the missionary looked like... until he finally figured it out that we were the 3 USA looking girls wandering around looking lost. We shoved all our luggage into his little car, which meant Katie had to hold her bag since it was the smallest. We drove BASICALLY IN THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SCENERY I'VE EVER SEEN aka- the Andes Mts. in my whole life!!!! I took some great pictures of the mountains, and I can't wait to be able to see that scenery every day. I can guarantee it won't get old!

Then we arrived at the church, and the group prior to us briefed us on all the basics, most of the readers, and we got a tour of the church too. The working facility here is awesome. HEAT INSIDE THE BUILDING! After leaving the church, we dropped Katie and Jenn off at the missionary's house (Jeff) and met his precious kids and beautiful wife. I can tell I'm gonna love their family. Then we went to MY HOME for the next 2 weeks, which is also awesome. It's very close to where Katie and Jenn are staying, so it won't be difficult to meet up. I'm the 5th of 4 kids for the next 2 weeks, and they're all under the age of 10. This will seriously be so fun. I've always wanted little brothers/sisters. I am currently sitting on the couch with the wife, Tay, while the husband, Zane, is skyping their friends/family. They both grew up in missionary homes, so the longest they've ever lived in one place has been 7 years (which is how long they've lived here in Santiago). Crazy!! I've loved picking their brains for the past hour or so, and I can tell I'm really going to love getting to know them and their kids. After we dropped off all our luggage, Jeff took us to dinner. We had some fabulous quesadillas and DESSERT at this close cafe next to my house. We had so much fun at dinner getting to know Jeff, and I know that this is going to be an amazing 3 weeks. They're are a TON of english-speaking people here at this church, and I think like 6 missionary families in all. We're going to make great friends here and learn a lot. 

Well I'm beat, and I have not slept over my usual 6 hours every night in quite some time, so I'm heading to bed. I'll try to upload pictures on my next blog, since I just learned how to do that from a friend in Buenos Aires- shout out to Bob. Muchas gracias. Anyway, keep praying for us. We love you all and are excited to keep you posted on this loco journey we're currently living in called life. 

God is good-

Annie

Future: CHILE??? & Learning to follow God's plans..

We're all really confused right now with what is going on here in Buenos Aires. Supposedly over 40,000 cases of Swine flu in the capital alone have been documented, and yesterday the government declared a Medical State of Emergency. So right now, we're basically being thrown in a whirlwind of uncertainty. The planner in me is freaking out a little. We receive one phone call around 10:30 this morning telling us that our next 2 weeks of classes are cancelled. Then after we inform some of our readers that they can be expecting a phone call from us in 2 weeks to reschedule their new class time, we receive another call from LST saying we may possibly be sent to Chile to finish out our time here in South America. 

I wrote that yesterday, but since we didn't have internet last night, I didn't have time to finish it. So here's my update today. We are leaving Sunday afternoon to fly to Santiago, Chile for the remainder of our mission efforts. We will be doing follow-up there with a church who just had a team from LST for 3 weeks. This includes more reading sessions just like the ones we were doing here in Buenos Aires. Therefore, we will read for 2 weeks with people in Santiago, then maybe have our pre-planned vacation type week (5 days) for those days then return to Buenos Aires and hope that our last few days here before we head back to the States can be beneficial to seeing people/saying goodbyes/etc (this is hoping that the medical emergency is no more).

After feeling a bit upset and depressed for this recent development, I really started thinking about what me Jenn and Katie have been spending a lot of time reading about in the Old Testament- faith and trust. We've been especially aware of Abraham's trust with every step of his life. We all discussed how we envied the faith Abraham had in God and his plans for Abraham and his family. Well once this thought entered my mind, I knew I was doing just the opposite. I was being selfish and putting my plans/ideas ahead of God's. Obviously, this is above me. A medical emergency isn't really something you can blame on one person, and it's definitely not God's problem. Currently, I'm trying to be submissive and as understanding as possible. I am now looking at this as an amazing opportunity of God's plans for us while we're in South America. We all three have definitely learned something in the past few week we've been in Buenos Aires- God is good, His word is true, and lastly that in order to tell people about His word... you must be willing to obey and follow it. We are definitely learning this week that we must be willing to "practice what we preach", for God is really putting us outside our comfort zone. 

One of our biggest worries is that we'll be split up as far as housing goes. That really makes it difficult for us as a team, because night time is our main time to regroup from the day. Please pray that even if we are separated, that God will work big time inside each of us. We are excited for Sunday in a bittersweet way, but we feel so blessed to be able to stay in South America for the rest of our alloted time. We will finish our last day in a big way... Happy early 4th to all those reading this from the States. We miss you all, and we're making USA french toast for breakfast tomorrow... we know that's not exactly what we would make in the US, but its what we can do while we're here. Tomorrow during the day we hope we can get some loose ends tied up... picking up laundry, mailing some postcards we wrote you all the first week we were here, and maybe spending a little more time seeing Argentina before we leave. Tomorrow night the youth is hosting a HUGE soccer game. We will be decked out in Argentine colors/jerseys, but our hearts will be red, white, and blue :)

Cheesy... but we're pretty cheesy girls. Tonight we saw Transformers 2 with some of our favorite people here, and we were so grateful for the extra time to spend with them. We can't wait to keep these friendships for the rest of our lives! I'll try to write again tomorrow because I'm not sure when our next time to write will be. We are really clueless as to our information/lodging/work that we'll be doing in Chile. We know the flight information, but that's about it. Pray for us to walk with certainty that the Lord is taking us on a crazy, but beautiful, journey. 

Thanks for all the prayers... we really need them right now. 

Love you all so very mucho :)

AKB, KAM, JSM

Cancer

Well Mabel came again yesterday, and to those of you who have read my previous posts, she's someone I've already written about. I love her to death, and I can tell just from the short time we've talked that she has had a really hard life, but she continues to have strong faith. She doubts sometimes, but don't we all. I know I doubt why God does certain things, but we just have to trust that his plan is so much smarter and greater than ours. His plan covers the rest of our lives and even when we aren't living, while our plans involve right here... right now.

Well Mabel and I started talking about why bad things happen to good people. One of my LEAST favorite subjects. It is so frustrating to not know why this happens, but this particular discussion lead to an even greater one outside of just Mabel's conversation. Hers led to my next reader later in the day, and then lead to a great conversation with my roomies last night.

The fact that many people, including those who call themselves christians like I do, tend to want to blame someone else for their misfortunes, faults, accidents, misgivings, etc. We tend to say ¨where is God at a time like this??¨ I hope that if I have learned anything over the few weeks Ive been here and in my life, that I have learned this- God is not at fault for our issues. Hes right there when we mess up, and the only person to blame is ourselves and mankind. We make the choice because he granted us with free will. He loved us enough to give us the power to make our own decisions and run our own lives. If you think about it, we can really do anything we want. We make break the law when we get away with it, we can lie as much as we want as long as we don´t get caught, and a mountain of other things... we can do it all. The only thing we have to remember is that God knows. He wants us to choose Him. He wants us to choose to live our lives according to how we want to please Him. I know there are probably more times in the day when I make actions to please myself than to please God. It´s pathethic the way the human race lives to please ourselves.

One of my readers started talking about Africa, and man did I get excited. For those of you who know me, this is my new recent obsession (shout out to all my friends from IC and the DLU2 team thats there right now!! Keep writing your blog... we love it over here in SA!). She went on to say how can God let the people and kids in Africa have such crummy lives and not let someone do something about it! I totally agreed with her on the fact that the situation sucks, and not enough people with power to change it seem to care. But I do disagree with her on one instance. I told her that its not Gods fault for whats going on in Africa. Its not his fault that all these children are being abducted and all these women are being raped. Its our fault for allowing it to continue. He gave us this free will, and if he just jumped in every single time we did something way wrong, it would defeat the purpose of the free will, because it wouldnt be our problems then. Its like our parents teach us when we are little, if we create a problem, we need to get ourselves out of it. Weve made this mess in not just Africa, but all over the world. Its our job to end it. So people like Analia are headed in the right direction... be active. Stay aware of whats going on in our world. HELP. But dont blame God for our problems. He gave us this ability, and we misused it and continue to do so daily. My challange for myself and for you today is to be active in the community. Look into doing something today to help tomorrow be a better day for everyone. Mankind has been blessed with many gifts. Now we must use those gifts for the greater good.


Now that I have preached for the day... I want you all to know this is almost like a journal for myself as well. The majority of these things I write about, I want to be able to remind myself how I felt when I was here and how things should be.

Thanks for reading-
Ill write again as soon as possible, but our internet in our apartment is out. Im using the churchs internet right now... woops. But I had to finish this blog so sorry about the typos or lack of punctuation. This keyboard is confusing in spanish.

MUCH LOVE

PRAY FOR OUR HEALTH

Nervous

Just a quick minute to write a blog since it has been requested by the DOCTOR Jeffery McCormack. I hope I spelled your name correctly.. but it's the DOCTOR part that really counts though, right?

Anyway, I'm really tired and I only have about 20 minutes left on my computer juice, so here's a quick recap of the past few days.

Katie got mugged.

Jennifer has the swine flu.

Just kidding!!!!!! Haha... I'm pretty funny.

We went to La Boca on our day off (Friday). This is just like a complete tourist trap, but I got some great pictures and we had an amazing lunch. We went into this restaurant (more like we were forced into it) and had awesome food, awesome service, and we even had the bonus of having a real live tango show while we ate. It was awesome. 

After eating lunch, we headed back to the apartment for some rest. That night we went to a show with one of our readers, Mariana. She's around late twenties I believe, and she is such a bubbly, fun person. We went to this "Brazilian Dance Show" as it was advertised, but really it was like a Portuguese play. Haha- it was funny. We didn't understand a word, but it was funny so we had fun trying new foods (Brazilian) and meeting some great people/playing fun little Brazilian games/etc. 

Saturday morning we went to Recoleta. This area is really famous for the cemetery where Evita is buried. Ironically, her grave is less than impressive. Although hers wasn't that great, this place was AMAZING!!!!! I took almost over 100 pictures alone of this beautiful, serene cemetery, and we were there less than an hour. I could have spent hours walking around, but I wouldn't have known who anyone was or what they did. We had an english-speaking tour guide throughout the cemetery, so that really helped in learning some important people from Argentina's history. After the cemetery we went to this beautiful church next door, and of course everything was white with gold accents and just beautiful, beautiful details. 

There were about 100 billion shops outside the church/cemetery, so we did a little shopping for some friends and family back home :)

This was I think one of our favorite parts too because we all really like shopping for other people... except maybe Katie haha. Even Katie agreed that this place was awesome though. All these people come together everyday to sell their products that most HAND-MAKE! I mean just about anything you could want, they sell. It was really inspiring to see all these people who love what they do (and do it VERY WELL might I add) and make a living off of it. We walked around a little more, but as I have previously said... it extremely cold here in BA. At least for me... I am very cold ALL THE TIME. 

That night we went to a youth devotional at the church and had the opportunity to hang out with/meet some of the teenagers at the church. Surprisingly, I was able to keep up with most of the devotional that night. It was about temptation, and the youth minister, Pedro, actually used one of our lessons from the LST Luke workbook as his textual reference in the Bible. That was cool for us because we were able to chime in on our thoughts which we had maybe developed when reading with some of our students. It was also really cool to hear the difference in opinion from their culture and ours. Their minds are so different, and this was a good kind of different. They are so open minded, and it was really refreshing to hear such young people have such open, loving hearts. So many of these people here we have met at the church are more mature than I was at their age. Having hung out with these people a little more, I see they are so driven. They appreciate what they have, and do what they do to the best of their abilities. Oh and they do all of this while striving to please God. Amazing.

We ate pizza for dinner after the devo, hung out a little more, then headed to bed. Church the next morning was good to see everyone again, and then there were no classes because of the election in Argentina. Many people are also sick because of the swine flu/regular flu since it is their winter. Therefore there have been lower numbers in attendance since we got here on Sunday mornings. 

Afterwards we were invited to eat lunch at the church, so we went home to change and get our stuff for our afternoon reading sessions, and came back to eat a DELICIOUS MEAL with around 20 people. They made rice, chicken and veggies for everyone, and it was divine. Much better than the potatoes we were going to have if we had eaten in the apartment. The conversation was great, and spending more time with the people was even better. I'm definitely going to be sad to leave this beautiful place with these even more beautiful people. 

Today was a good day for reading... mine was rather slow. One of my 3 readers cancelled, therefore I only had one at 3 pm and one at 7pm. Katie and Jenn had rather full days, so when I stayed home this morning I prepared lunch. We had a yummy lunch, a productive afternoon, and then a good night at the church. Some of our readers are getting sick and not showing, so we have to make sure they are still interested in coming or if they are just too busy this time of year. I hope that tomorrow (my full reading day) is productive. I'm really nervous about several of the conversations I left them with the last time we read (Thursday). I've been talking with the girls and getting their advice on several things, and they have helped reassure me that there is only so much we can do. The rest is up to the Holy Spirit moving through us. I pray that this week is a great one for all of you as well as us here in Buenos Aires. 

You guys stay hydrated... we'll try to stay warm!

Love you all-

Ciao

Praying for God to speak through us...

Well today was an interesting morning. Jennifer didn't have any readers, so we've each had a turn to sleep in for an extra hour one time in the past week/2 weeks. Me and Katie headed to the church in a good mood and excited for our readers today. My first two are 2 of the better english speakers, so I knew I wouldn't have too much difficulty. My first reader, Mabel, is a middle aged woman, probably in her mid 50's, and has several children. Her english is pretty good, and she has talked to me some about her kids and how she worries for them since they aren't very religious. I try to comfort her saying that sometimes as teenagers (since I was one for quite a few years), we hear what our parents tell us and know that they are most likely right, but we don't want to obey them or agree with what they say just to annoy them or rebel against them. I know that I didn't appreciate the way my parents brought me up until just a few years ago. I try to comfort her by using the famous saying in English that sometimes it takes "distance (since I have been in college now for 2 years) to make the heart grow fonder". I know in my case that is very true. My parents are now 2 of my best friends. I know I don't tell them how much I appreciate what they did for me, and especially all they sacrificed, but I thank God for putting me in such a loving, Christian home.

Mabel and I were in the part of Luke where Jesus tells the parable of the men who owned the banker money. While one owed 500 coins, the other only owed 50. When the banker tells them that they don't have to pay, Jesus uses this as an example to show how all sins are the same in God's eyes. "Which one loved the banker more?" is a question we have for our readers in the LST workbook. Most people see why the one who owed 500 coins loved the banker more, because obviously his debt was greater, but it is more difficult for them to see the underlying reason Jesus uses this example the first time we read through the story.

Well then Mabel and I start to talk about forgiveness, and after we translate a few words, she asks me why God forgives all sins. Of course my obvious thought is that all sins are the same in God's eyes. Although while I believe this wholeheartedly, I can easily say I didn't see her next question coming. She then proceeded to write down a word in spanish, and then she turned her book around for me to read it. Violacion. Rape. I immediately think... "great... my favorite subject". Rape for me is my worst nightmare. I know this is something that usually isn't discussed, but it is now something that frequently happens in our world, and therefore I believe it should be discussed and acknowledged. I look at her, take a deep breath, and say "I know."

It was like we had ESP or something, because we knew what each other were thinking. Especially for women, this is something to be feared. The fact that men or even women today can take something so precious from you is really scary. Mabel went on to say that she thinks something like this is "imperdonable", or unforgiveable. Because I am human, and a woman at that, I agree with Mabel. Something like this to me is unforgiveable. It is literally in my mind the worst thing someone can do next to murder. I maybe could even think that rape is worse than murder. But what to tell this woman? Mabel believes in God, and as far as I can tell has a really good faith. I want to encourage her to trust God in this sense, but something about this conversation tells me this is something personal to her. She then goes on to ask me to forget explaining that to her, but how would I explain this to a CHILD.

WOW. I mean... seriously... what a great question. Something I wish I was wise enough to tell her how I would go about doing that, because I wouldn't know where to begin. I look at her and decide the best way to be with her is honest. I tell her I have no idea how I could explain to a child that they should forgive the person if they ask for their forgiveness. Or how someone can be released from jail after good behavior or whatever when they raped a child (or anyone at that matter). At that moment all I could do was pray to God to speak through me. I was lost for words as far as I knew, and already trying to fight through the language barrier.

Finally I took a deep breath, and then I told her the only thing that I could think of. It's not our decision. We don't have that power to judge. We may have the earthly power to judge someone, but in the end it is God who has the ultimate power to judge someone's heart. Only he knows the intermost depth of someone's soul, and whether or not they are truly sorry for what they do. At that moment I confessed to Mabel that I was only human, and my love ended at rape. I told her that if this happened to me or my children, all I could do was hate that person. I could fight the temptation to hate them, but in the end I believe it would overcome me, and that it could only be God or the Holy Spirit working through my heart for me to actually forgive a person for wronging me or my family in that way. She seemed to follow me, and I tried to explain that the enormity of God's love is just too big to understand for we mere humans. We can only love or hate as much as any other human, but it is God who can love even the ugliest of hearts.

All I know to do at this point is pray for her and hope that God can heal her heart. I know of nothing else to say or do, but encourage her to think that if Jesus can forgive us all for ALL of our sins combined, I must too be able to forgive one person or a few people for the wrongdoings they have done on my behalf.

I ask that you all pray for me, Katie and Jennifer. As the lessons continue, the questions are only more difficult and they are only going to become deeper questions that even I still ponder. Pray that we can be a light to these people here in Buenos Aires, and that they can see a glimpse of the Holy Spirit working within us.

Ciao-
Annie

Interesting

MVP of reading sessions today:
BRENDA
congratulations, Brenda!

We're so proud of you. But seriously... she's awesome. She not only brought us alfahores (pronounced ALPHAWHORES), but she also talked to me and Jenn both about baptism and stuff. she's 18, and she literally found our add in the newspaper by herself and came all the way across town to talk to us in English. SO COOL.

SPEAKING OF READERS-
we had our most interesting reader yesterday. Katie had this reader who came in and had lived in NYC and somewhere else in the US, and so we figured she'd be a good reader- no issues. HA wrongggggg.

Well she starts talking about the first lesson with Katie. The first lesson for those of you non-LST people is about the introduction of the story of Jesus by Luke. Really simple. FALSE. Somehow the woman got the idea of REINCARNATION. Yes, I said it. REINCARNATION. CRAZY. Here's a quote... "So like if you're a bad person, maybe you come back as a rat"
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahahaha... WOW.

Templeton was my first thought from Charlotte's Web. ha HA. So funny.
Anyway, so Katie handled the situation very well and told the woman what she believed about Jesus in a respectful way. The woman obviously doesn't believe and didn't want to come to church, but Katie did a really great job of being very reserved in that situation.

I had to blog about this because it wins for the funniest moment of the week. REINCARNATION.

never have i ever...
love you all-

Week one

I'm not getting to write as much on this as I want... but just know that we are so busy it's kind of ridiculous. We had free time this weekend, but between working and trying to sight see and eat sometimes, I try to sleep as much as possible. Right now both Katie and Jenn are falling asleep, and I am staying up to write this. I'm trying to keep video journals as well, just because it's quicker, but I know I'll want to remember this trip forever.

The first week was really a lot of fun. We have done a lot of sight seeing the past couple days (Friday and Saturday) and Sunday (Father's Day) we spent at our friend Alejandro's house with his family. They are Soooooo COOOOL!!!!!!! The dad's name is Ruben Dario; who to all you spanish majors out there.. you know that is the name of a famous spanish author we studied in Lit this past semester with Martinez. Anyway, the dad is crazy fun and awesome. He is originally from Colombia and his wife is from somewhere else too but at at the moment I forget. She cooked Colombian food on Sunday, so we went over there to eat with her, Dario, Alejandro, and his brother Juan David. The church secretary came too, Rosalina, who is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite people (talk about the heart of a servant)! We enjoyed some amazing rice y frijoles (beans) and steak. Although I don't really enjoy red meat, I ate it so I didn't offend anyone on our first impression. Katie's a vegetarian, so I didn't want to add to the pressure of them trying to find something else for us to eat. We were so grateful to be invited over after church because we were planning on making gross pasta when we were already missing our families.

After we ate lunch, they brought us ice cream. IT WAS HEAVEN. They have these ice cream places here where you can get like a tub of ice cream to feed a bunch of people that you can pick 4 flavors... so we had vanilla, chocolate, orange sherbert, and DULCE DE LECHE (my favorite). It was so good- I could eat that every single day. They drove us home quickly since we were already running late for our Sunday afternoon reading sessions.

I guess I could tell you all about our weekend. On Friday, we went with the youth minister, Pedro, to Plaza de Mayo. We wanted to sight see, and one of my readers (Analia) told me several places in the area to visit, restaurants to eat at, etc. We walked around for a while, then Pedro pulled us in this Burger King. I know what you're all thinking- because I was thinking it too... Burger King is nothing special. UHHHHHHH HOLD YOUR HORSES: I'm afraid I'm going to have to burst your bubble. It was ridiculous. I know the BK's and McDonald's,etc in Honduras are really nice, but this one was 3 floors, straight out of Italy or something, and BK had like mosaics on the walls and sculptures and the ceilings looked like something painted back in the Renaissance period. This place is seriously ridiculous. Look for pictures later. Then we continued walking down the famous Calle Florida (Florida street) to visit shops, kiosks, etc. We walked over to Puerto Madero, which is this really awesome place (port) with an awesome bridge/view. We ate lunch at this grill in that area which was delicioso. It was good to have some more normal food from the US of A since lately we've just been eating a lot of ridiculous snack foods. From Puerto Madero we walked about 95 miles to San Telmo........




Just kidding. It only seemed like it was around 95 miles, but it was worth it. This place is AAWESOMEEEEE. Talk about such a cool little tourist town. I say touristy town, but there weren't a ton of people out. We were there around the time the sun was setting, and it was gorgeous. The roads were stone, and the buildings all seem to have little balconies with cute chairs and tables (post pictures later). I wish that I could just upload my pictures, but until I can get internet on my laptop, I don't want to slow this computer we have in the apt down by uploading a zillion pictures. This is why I am trying to describe every little thing! Anyway, I could totally see myself living there. Me and my future dog... ideally a white husky... just trotting around for an afternoon stroll. We went to the most adorable Flea Market inside San Telmo, and I felt right at home. It was like going to the Flea Market like I do once a month with my parents. I wanted everything!! We didn't have enough pesos to get anything, so we decided to go home and get money out to exchange since they didn't take debit cards obviously.

The end of that day was exhausting since we seriously walked probably over 20 miles... easy. We were so beat, so we came in and hit the hay early that night. No late night weekends for us! Saturday morning we decided to get up and return to San Telmo. We took the subte (subway) to Plaza de mayo and walked to San Telmo. We did this after we did a little grocery shopping at the market that morning (since we slept in to avoid walking in the rain). We got to San Telmo around 4 and hit up the Flea Market. We each bought at least one thing, yet I only spent 10 bucks. Holla.

We took a taxi...

A.D.D.-
TAXIS are super cheap here.

and headed back to the train. We switched lines about halfway through Line A for Line B and took that to a part of town we had never been. This was a little scary (sorry, Mom). It was night time, and the map we have is very small so we had a hard time finding the person's house we were trying to find. We were supposed to be arriving at 7pm at 2 of our readers' apartment (they're newlyweds). We finally called them at like 630 and said "we're inside the western union on the corner of _______ and _______, can you come find us???" Of course, I am the translator of any and all phone conversations we have... therefore it was a frustrating moment when I couldn't hear a word the man was saying... in Castellano...in a busy area... when I was scared of being kidnapped (sequestrada).

NEEDLESS TO SAY, God was looking out for us. They arrived shortly after and drove us to the market. We got some things to eat and some delicious Dulce de Leche cake (if you can't tell by now... that's my new obsession), and then we headed back to their apartment. We ate empanadas and chocolate muffins (?) for the main dinner and the cake for dessert with coffe.

1. Empanadas are super cheap here. They are like a pastry shell and you can eat anything in them. The chicken ones are my favorite. We tried a veggie one (they made these for KT obviously), cheese and onion, meat, and pollo (chicken). They had broken their oven earlier in the day, and so the empanadas were cold. haaaaaa that was funny... but I cannot complain because it was a lot better than eating cold pizza and trail mix like we usually do :)
2. Unfortunately i'm going to return to America addicted to coffee and tea. That is literally all they drink here as a beverage. That and sodas.. which I like some soda like Fanta, but I'd rather drink water. I seriously don't know how people here aren't dehydrated because no one drinks water, and if they do... it's carbonated? I miss my filter in America (spoiled).
3. DULCE DE LECHE=HEAVEN

Ok well I am now ending this blog because it is past midnight, and I have to get up early for a super long day tomorrow (I have readers from 11-1 and then after lunch from 3-8 pm.

As far as prayer request go, this is our list:

1. pray that we all have patience with each other and our readers. Also patience with ourselves and with God. I'm finding it difficult to remember this is his thing, not mine. I'm getting so frustrated not knowing how to approach the people who don't want to believe or maybe just don't have a clue. I want to save them, but I don't know how!!!! We talked tonight and decided we really just have to give that to God and trust that all we can do is pray (we would love your help with that)
2. please pray over our health. we're starting to feel the wear and tear of going all day every day, and being tired is something we feel is not fair to our readers. we want to be able to give everything we have for the full time we promised to our readers.
3. please pray over our families. we know they are really missing us right now, and we miss them a lot too. it was really hard being seperated on Father's day, and so we want our Dads to know we love them and miss them so much.
4- finally, pray that God will teach us to be a light in the way we act every moment of every day. we want to be an example not just to our readers, but to the people of the church and of the community.



Thanks to all of you who took the time to read this- we miss you and love you SO MUCH!!!!

Annie, KT, and Jennifer

PS- we have a computer in the apartment that works with Skype. our names are:
anniekatebrown
jensheree
katiemcmack

We're here!

So we arrived after a 6 hour delay in Dallas.. because our plane was BROKEN. Rest assured though, our 10 1/2 hr flight was a success. We tried to pass the time in the airport by eating and making videos on our computers, which I might add are pretty funny. We arrived around noon in Buenos Aires to be picked up by our missionary and two people from the church, Marcello y Estella. We were nervous, but we drove back to the apartment first to drop off our luggage. The apartment is really cute and perfect size. There's one bedroom with a queen size bed and one small room in the front with a twin bed (which is where I sleep). We have a small dining room and kitchen and a little bathroom that only turns on the light by motion detector. It's funny to be taking a shower and the lights turn out... scared us at first, but now we're used to it.

We walked around the area of our apartment first called El caballito. It's a lot like downtown Honduras with small shops and narrow one way streets. The apartments are all really nice so it's nicer in some ways than Honduras, but other ways it's very similar. Joel took us to the church to get to know the area and where to go, how to get places, which places to buy the cheapest produce, meats, etc.

Considering that me and Katie don't like lots of meat, Jenn can knock herself out at the meat shops :)

Our first day we had to go meet Savanna Roe, who is here with Wheaton on study abroad. We got on el subte (subway) to go a few stops down to meet her at Plaza de mayo. It's very European-like, since that's where lots of businesses and government places are located. We've heard this is the part of Buenos Aires that reminds people of Paris. There is a long part that is only where people can walk and so it's really nice, but reallllly crowded. I didn't take my camera when we went the other day, so I'm taking it since we're about to head back to that area, and I hope to get some good shots.

The subway was a little tricky at first, but I think we've mastered it at this point. The people here are awesome, or at least the ones we know. Some people tend to think that Jennifer and Katie look a little strange here with their blonde hair, so sometimes/all the time we get some crazy looks. I have never once felt unsafe to say the least. At nighttime obviously we don't walk alone, but everywhere and everyone says that it's always really safe here.

We're really excited to get to know some of the youth at the church because the ones we have met are really awesome. A lot of people have some kind of English knowledge here. They at least know several words or sentences/phrases, which is really convenient especially for KT and Jenn. My highlights of my days are listening to them practice their Spanish. It's AWESOME. We'll have to show you the videos we've made sometime, they are so freaking funny.

Speaking of funny, I could not have asked for two better buddies to do this mission trip with. They are so much fun, and we are all so carefree and laid back that we haven't fought or had a misunderstanding about anything.. yet. Let's hope it stays that way (knock on wood).

Our first reading session was all day yesterday, and we started at 10 am and read until 1 pm, took a break for siesta time/lunch, and then returned at 3 pm to read until 8 pm last night. It was a lonnngggg day. Although we were really tired, I really got a chance to get to know some of the people at the church and our readers a lot better. Usually when I don't have a reader for an hour or two, I like to talk to Rosalina. She's the secretary at the church, and she doesn't really know any English. She's really helping me practice my spanish and get used to the accent here. It's crazy, but it is also crazy beautiful... kind of like the people.

Rosalina is seperated, but not divorced. She has been like that for over 11 years she said, but yet her "rebel" of a husband, as she called him, still bums off her and lives with her and her daughter in the church building. She says its so sad to see that her daughter, Kara, is more like him in a lot of ways, and she thinks he has influenced her for the worst. She doesn't attend church, but she believes in God she says. Rosalina and I had a great talk about faith and our parents who have set us on the right path. She hopes that her daughter can eventually be able to see her faith and learn from that like she did from her parents.

One of my other readers, Hernan, is a well known atheist that has been reading with LST for several years at this church. When he first started out, he was very strong about his belief/nonbelief in God. I was told beforet he trip he had softened a little, but I kind of hoped I wouldn't get him as a reader. Of course, the first person that signs up for my time is Hernan. God really stuck it to me there, didn't he. Well Hernan was my first reader yesterday at 10 am, and he is just now getting over a cold so he was kind of standoffish. We started talking about what he does, what he likes to do, etc, and basically he loves to learn. He has been studying english at school and wants to learn more languages. He really liked that I spoke spanish, and said he wants to talk to me sometime outside of our session in spanish instead of english. He brought his own Bible that we read out of instead of the book that he said one of the old LST workers had given him. It was good to see that he carried this around, and that gave me some hope for our sessions. He was really receptive of everything we talked about when we were reading in Matthew 5-7. We talked about forgiveness though, and he said that he didn't want to forgive people who have wronged him. I told him that is something that I definitely struggle with as well, and he was surprised. I kind of found it ironic that this is what we read, considering it's probably what I need to work on the most. We also spent some time talking about holding "things" up over God, like money, clothes, etc. When I told him I struggled with this too, he REALLY found that surprising. I think he found hope in my honesty. I am really looking forward to reading with him on Monday.

I reallllly had the greatest conversation with a 19 yr old, Catalina. Her and her brother have been going to the church here for awhile, but she is weak in spirit because she finds it difficult to be a Christian in Argentina. She seems like she is new at being a christian, and she wants so hard to believe in "these things" as she would say. It is so exciting to work with someone so eager to learn about Jesus. Even the story of Mary "giving light" to Jesus in a barn is so strange to her (in Spanish they use the phrase "dar una luz" as giving birth). I am so eager to see where we can go in our conversations about the Word and her being baptized. Right now she wants to wait until it is warmer because it is winter here. I think she is going to become a very good friend who I can have for the rest of my life.

We are in love with our landlord, Pablo. He is so nice and very cute... too bad he's married.

Today we went back to Plaza de mayo and walked for about 90 miles... or so it seemed. We got some great pictures that I'll upload later on facebook. We walked around Calle Florida which is a very famous avenue that only is for walking down with millions of shops on the sides. This is the part that reminds me of NYC or Chicago. We then walked alllllll the way down to Puerto Moderna and ate lunch at this precious little grill. The food was awesome... definitely more Americanized. It was good to have something besides peanut butter or trail mix. It's hard to eat here since the main thing to eat is steak, which I don't like and Katie (the vegetarian) obviously doesn't eather. We've had pizza the past 2 nights... which has been awful.

I am very sleepy since we've been up and walking for what seems like forever. Tonight we're hoping to hang out with Alejandro who is a youth from the church. We are also expecting a visit from Pablo around 830 to fix our computers to pick up internet access in the apartment!! CANNOT WAIT TO SKYPE YOU MOM AND DAD!

love you all and keep praying-
Annie B

One week away-

This blog is more for an introduction of what exactly I'll be doing, how long, etc. I leave one week from tomorrow on Monday, June 15th. I will be stopping over in Dallas and from there to Buenos Aires. We'll arrive early Tuesday morning (we're flying through the night, and they are 2 hours ahead of Nashville). 

When we arrive we will be picked up by the missionary from the church there in Buenos Aires that we'll be working with. His name's Joel and he speaks English. HOLLA. I really hope that even though I'll be working with a lot of people who at least have a base in English, I can practice at least with my Spanish a lot. It will be different because I'm sure since everyone their uses vosotros and speaks with a different accent it will definitely be difficult. I'm hoping after a week or so I'll be able to pick up on a lot of stuff though. 

I think that the first day we are there we will be getting accustomed with our apartment that me, Katie McCormack, and Jennifer McMurtry have all to ourselves!! We will probably have Joel help show us the closest groceries, markets, restaurants, etc. I'm pretty sure the first day is just to help get us comfortable in the city and at the church building. Starting on Wednesday evening, we'll have readers come to the building who have already started with LST. These readers will have more advanced English-speaking skills, so our job that day is to get to know them on a more personal level. Through LST (Let's Start Talking) we are encouraged to get to know our readers that way so that we can evangelize in a more subtle way. For those who do not know about LST, it is a program that works to teach people conversational English using the Bible as the text. It is a very gentle way to introduce people to the story of Jesus and the Bible as a whole. We will start with the book of Matthew (Jesus' story) with the readers who have never read with LST before, but most likely the majority of people we will be working with at this church have already started/finished the book of Matthew. Luke is our next text. 

I am really excited to see how everything will play out. Katie, Jenn, and I have decided it really is up to God, and we just have to trust and know that He is going to help us when we don't know the answers to all our readers questions. But PLEASE, pray for us anyway!! We are nervous since none of us have really had to work with people before who have never heard of Jesus, so pray that we will have the knowledge and patience to help our new friends in Buenos Aires!!!

We love you all-

Katie, Jenn, and Annie B