Sickly

Monday was a national holiday, Flag Day, and so we did not go to campus. Instead, we got everyone together and played sports all day. It was lots of fun and drained lots of energy from my weary body. We started with Ultimate Frisbee and then ended with the oh-so-popular soccer, or ¨futbol.¨ It was Argentines and Yankees alike. I enjoyed myself. That evening we played games at our hotel with some of the Argentines and continued the celebration and fun.

However, the next morning I woke up not feeling well. I´m not sure if it was the running around the previous day, sharing mate with everyone, or staying up too late...maybe a combination of all three. Whatever the case, I remained in bed for the day with a fever and did not go to campus with the rest of the group. It was not very pleasant. The next morning I still had a bit of a fever, but I took some medicine and got to campus. When my fever broke, it was like flipping a switch...I switched immediately from fever to cold. My nose turned into a faucet and I developed a cough. I´m still in that state, with a slight sore throat, but doing better. SO many of the people we had been hanging out with within those few days before I got sick are sick too. It´s going alllll around.

As far as ministry, I had been feeling rather discouraged because I hadn´t been able to be on campus, but today was great! Candice and I got to have a really great conversation with a girl and I left feeling more sure than ever that God wanted us to talk to her and remind her of God´s love and plan for her life. If there was one person we were supposed to talk to today, I am sure it was her.

We ended the day with our Friday activities of English club and our Vida meeting. We decided to do a ¨Christmas in June¨theme, since it is cold in the USA during the winter and it is cold here now. The Argentines were quite confused by the theme, but many of them still arrived wearing red and green. We made cookies, hot chocolate, and played Christmas songs in the background. It was a fun evening. Later it turned into a dance party, but that´s just ´cuz we enjoy dancin´so much. haha.

Anyways, tomorrow is our service project. We´re going to an orphanage, which should be a good experience and give us a chance to really love on some kids who don´t get much love.

Speaking of love, I send some your way! Thanks for keeping updated and supporting this sweet ministry here in Argentina. :-) I´ll be seeing you soon!!

Hi all!

Another week has passed and I can't believe it! We only have 2 weeks left here in Argentina. The time has really flown by! We actually only have about 7 more days on campus and we will be going to Iguazu to see the beautiful waterfalls in the north of the country.

I had a very up and down week. I was so discouraged on Wednesday because we just couldn't find anyone who was really interested in hearing what we had to share. Everyone had the attitude of "well, whatever works for you"....I got the feeling of "WHY am I trying to convince these people to accept this free gift when they don't even want it?" I know that was the wrong attitude to have, because number one, it's not me "convincing them" but instead presenting the gospel and letting them make a choice, praying that God will lift the veil from their eyes. Number two, I had to remind myself of God's love for each one of these students and the pain he feels at their rejection of his truth. I can't imagine. I get the comfort at least of knowing that they're not rejecting me, instead they're rejecting God. Even though it was a discouraging day, it was good for me to remember that we're fighting for lost souls and I need to have a broken heart for them, no matter how hard it can be to feel sometimes.

The next day was much more encouraging. It was really cool because a couple of girls and I got to share the gospel in Spanish to a girl from France. None of us were using our native languages, yet we were able to communicate very well. It was neat!

Thursday was very interesting. Sam, one of my fellow team members, and I went and passed out a bunch of fliers for English club and a talk/debate we were having on Friday. We were encouraged by some of the students' responses and afterwards we were SO pumped and ready to do ministry. We decided to go talk to one girl sitting alone and ask if she wanted to do a survey. She didn't speak English, so I then asked her in Spanish. She immediately asked if the survey was about God. Nodding my head yes, she calmly looked me in the eyes with a nasty look and said, "I don't want anything to do with this God of yours. You all come here and think you can evangelize to our country like we're one of your colonies. Well you should just go home." And then she looked back down to her book and resumed her studying.

I honestly felt like I had confronted Satan himself. Sam and I were so excited to do ministry this was clearly intended to break us down and discourage us. To be truthful, it did put a damper on the rest of my day, but it was also encouraging in a way. It showed me that Satan and spiritual warfare is real. Our whole team had been feeling it all week. It also showed us that what we are doing on that campus is making a difference and we're making headway with the gospel. Satan does not like that. I love these verses from Luke 10:16-19

"He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name."

He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

Thanks for the encouragement and prayers!!

This is our whole team of 14 in La Plata!

Hi all!!

Today is a day of rest!! Yay! This past week and weekend has been full of stuff to do and so it´s very nice to just have a day to listen to a sermon, chat a little, take a nap, post some pictures, and head to church a little later on. Since I haven´t been doing a very good job on keeping y´all updated on daily activity, I´ll do that now.

We had the fun opportunity to go to Uruguay as a group last weekend. Each week we get one free day with which we can do whatever we´d like. We took a bus very early in the morning to Buenos Aires and got on a ferry to take us over to Uruguay. We got to walk around a pretty town called Colonia and enjoy the sights of a new country. It did seem rather similar to Argentina, but it was quiet and peaceful. The group rented motos to ride around the city, but a couple of us decided to stay on foot and so we adventured the city on our own.

Over the week we went to campus every day and talked to students. The time on campus goes by very fast though. One day a week I am discipled by one of our staff members and another day our group had to plan English club.

This past Monday was my birthday, which I enjoyed very much! Our group went out to dinner together and then afterwards had decided to go bowling. Well, once we got back from dinner we discovered that the bowling alley is closed on Monday nights, go figure! So instead we decided to go upstairs and play cards and whatnot. Well, when I got up there my group had decorated and brought a cake for me. :-) It was very cute of them. I also got flowers from my roomie and earrings from Elizabeth. They made it a special day!

Friday I got a very special opportunity to go to Buenos Aires for their weekly meeting. I had asked a week or so ago if it would even be possible, since we have our weekly meeting here in La Plata on Fridays too. The leaders talked it over and figured things out so that I could go. I was SO so excited to get the opportunity to see all of my friends from when I had studied abroad. It meant a lot that they let me go! I ended the evening spending the night in the apartment of Kim and Alexis, two of the girls I became close to while in BA. It was just like I had never left!

Saturday I went to visit Vicky, my host mom from last year, but she was out of town sadly. The one day I came to visit! Hopefully I will get another opportunity to see her. I enjoyed being back in my neighborhood and seeing all of the old places I used to walk by every day. It was a great day!

This is a picture of us dancing at our Friday night meeting in La Plata. We had a very fun dance party!! :-)

Runnin´ the Race

Buen dia!!

Hi everyone! I hope all is well in the USA...it´s going well here in Argentina, although the weather is getting a bit colder. Sad day to know that I´m missing out on the lovely summer weather! But I do enjoy fall (which I missed this past year) so I get to see it here. I am currently at a locutorio, a place to get internet, and trying to upload pictures for everyone, but it´s not working! So, I will definitely do that soon! I know I keep promising it. :-)


Thanks Pastor Dave for your awesome words of encouragement! I too love the verse from Jeremiah 29:11 and have reminded myself of it since arriving here in La Plata. I also am reminded of this verse from 1 Peter 1:6-7 :

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

I feel like the whole experience of summer project is the process of being refined by fire for me. It´s great and fun and exciting....but it´s also challenging, draining, and a huge learning experience. As our leaders put it, when you´re on a summer project we each come with a big bucket of junk, following along after us. Througout the summer our junk starts to slosh out and get onto everyone else. Our sins become much more evident and we´re put in a position of great growth. It´s hard to ignore change! And, as Pastor put it, it hurts to change our ways sometimes...but so necessary if we´re to continue on the path that God has for us.

Gosh, I´ve been learning SO much! We listened to a sermon on Monday morning (my birthday, whoot whoot!!) that we followed up with a discussion. I ended up in tears, which shows that it impacted me in a great way. It talked about just the absolute need to share our faith no matter who we are, what we´re doing, or where we´re at. It used a great illustration of the Titanic. After the Titanic sunk, there were many people floating in the water in their life jackets, with no one to come rescue them. There were also people in life boats that we´re not even full. The lifeboats didn´t stop to pick up those who were desperate to be saved. The next morning searchers arrived to a sickening scene of hundreds of dead people floating in their life jackets.

Those people didn´t die because the Titanic sank...They instead died because those who were already saved wouldn´t go back for them.

Isn´t that how it works with us? We´re so content in our salvation that we don´t recognize the fact that there are hundreds and thousands of people we see each week heading in the direction of Hell. We have a voice...we can tell the truth. At least if people hear the truth, they can make a choice too, just like we once did.

Anyways, that was a tiny piece of what I´m learning. We´ve also focused a lot on the power of the Holy Spirit and how we need to yield EVERY area of our life to him, even the very difficult areas. This is convicting for me because there are definitely some areas that I need to hand over the reigns on.

Lastly, how I am doing. I´m genuinely joyful and content with being here in La Plata. I get tired easily, but I know a lot of that comes from long spiritual conversations with non-believers (or even those who believe) and pouring yourself out constantly. It´s easy to get discouraged when you have a day where you only have one conversation with a person and they´re not even that interested in what you have to offer. However, it´s teaching me more and more that God does not define success like we do and it´s not MY job to work in the hearts of those who we talk to. He will lift the veil from their faces when the time is right. I get to constantly be a seed planter! Spiritually I am constantly learning and (hopefully) growing. I am developing new friendships and I can´t wait to see where they lead.

Thank you SO much for keeping up-to-date on my experiences and know that ALL of us here appreciate your prayers. Know that you´re helping us over here be the bearers of Good News!!

You can pray for:
BOLDness! Our goal is to share the true gospel and it can be intimidating!
Energy! We are only running this particular race for 3 more weeks and we need God´s strength to keep going.


Ciao!!