Remember the alamos

 
Alamos, or poplars, are very prolific here in Patagonia. Everywhere you look, you see them. They have quickly taken their place in the top three of My Absolute Favorite Trees (lodgepole pines and weeping willows being the other two).


alamos are majestic

 

tall

 and they spring up everywhere

  

planted around the perimeters of fruit plantations, they serve as windbreakers 

 

they love water, so here in the desert they line irrigation canals



and line farms, protecting the animals and crops from the gusty and persistent Patagonian winds

 

even neighborhoods

how to get a family of 5 around without a car

Yes, that's right.

Besides bumming rides and borrowing friends' cars, this is how we've gotten around for over a month now. A little exercize, a little fresh air (and dust kicked up by passing cars), and some quality family time - ah, riding bikes. It's been fun and good. God has a purpose in everything, even in the one-week-turned-four that it's taken our car to get through customs paperwork here in Patagonia. But it finally did, Hallelujah! Tony is attempting to register at this very moment. I say "attempting" because one must attempt things many times, over and over again, fighting the whole way, just to get anything done here. It's called bureaucracy. Everything really is easy in the United States. We practically have everything handed to us. I kind of miss that. Life is easier there. But it's kind of boring, too. Here it's been challenging, but fun and interesting.

So now that we have our car back, time to have a little fun!

an unexpected dinner guest

He was tangerine-size. My son said wolf spider; someone else said huntsman.

All spiders are venemous, but no worries, this one is not dangerous to humans.

:)

Building Churches, Patagonia style

Two days ago was a holiday - the el Dia de la Virgen [Day of the Virgin]. No school, no work; everyone had off. So several pastors and guys from the church, including Tony, traveled 45 minutes south of here to build bathrooms for a church plant. They worked hard for 12 hours in the hot desert sun.



the pastor's house, which also functions as the church meeting place



Edgardo, a civil engineer, explaining the plans



breaking ground, all by hand - no machinery here




Edgardo is the pastor of our church, a full-time civil engineer, a missionary, leader of the Mennonite church in Argentina, leader of the Mennonite church in Latin America,  and is always out there leading the way by example



Lee, our missionary friend, watering and preparing the ground
and Elvio, another pastor, figuring out level ground



they figure out level ground using a hose with water in it

"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you..." - Genesis 3:18



preparing the foundation



making the steel frame for the foundation

pouring the foundation and not ashamed to take their shirts off for the gospel



how far they got after 10 hours



Elvio, an accountant, and Edgardo - both pastors of our church



Daniel, the pastor of the church plant and full time steel worker

blessed

a great video

a house in the neighborhood on the hill

Every Wednesday night a few musicians from church meet up in a neighborhood up on a hill with a couple other people to play (oh, what do they call it here? I can't remember...) musica folklore? musica criolla? I know it as "musica del altiplano", music of the high Andes, from my time in Ecuador... but my brain is too tired to tell you what they call it here. It's one of my favorite types of music, though. So beautiful.

Just watch.

In this video they are playing Christian worship music.

Tito, the guy strumming the little guitar really, really fast, came by to pick Tony up. The car broke down on the way there. Somehow he repaired it with dental floss (okay, it wasn't dental floss, but he fixed it somehow, right there by the side of the road.)

I wanted to go, but had a headache, so decided to hold off til next time. As I was talking there in our kitchen with Tito before they left, he noticed I had a little Andean panflute lying on top of the microwave (the one that doesn't work, by the way, it has transformer issues). I casually remarked how it has been my life-long dream to learn to play the Andean panflute (called something else here... but, alas, can't remember. Tito is a musicman and gave me a mini music class just standing there in the kitchen as he rattled off all the names of the different sized panflutes...). Tito then said he would teach me to play the panflute. He said he and his friends love to teach people. I should come and he would teach me. Wow... really?! Total dream come true!

Tony just laughed and asked if this is going to be like the time I wanted to learn to play the guitar. The one that just sat there in the living room, and then later in the basement.

I guess we'll see...

Pedro

Lost internet for over a week. We can't go on like this. Hopefully getting internet here at home this week. Which means probably next week. Or the week after. Patience required.

Here is Tony's friend, Pedro (the one who works and lives in the tent next door). He came to church on Sunday, then Tony invited him in amongst all our boxes and craziness to stay for lunch. Afterwards, we showed him two of the Torchlighters Series, the Richard Wurmbrand one, I believe, and the Amy Carmichael story (not sure, I was washing dishes... as usual).

He was riveted. Tony also bought him a really nice study Bible at church. You should have seen his face. He held it up in front of him and stared at it like it was made of gold.

He said he was only going to use it on Sundays.

We said, "No, no, you have to read it every day! And study it. It's the only thing that can change your life."

Please pray for Pedro. He began coming to church with us, and Tony takes him to a men's discipleship group every Monday. But he has a lot of problems, one being with alcohol. He said he wants to quit but doesn't know how. The day this picture was taken, he wreaked of alcohol.

just a few pics from this week

I'm sitting here on the edge of the bed, by the window, holding the laptop at various and sometimes elevated angles, just to catch a signal - something I do every time I want to do the internet. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's doesn't. Let's see...

Tony freelanced a lot this week, thanks be to Jesus - here he is covering the news around the city

since the Mission Mobile is currently on lock down, he rode one of our donated bikes 8 miles one way
in 90 degree heat to work, then back again 12 hours later. one does what one has to do.

freelancing for a production company somewhere way out in the middle of nowhere Neuquen Province
(he clearly gets to do all the fun stuff)



Me, what have I been doing? Oh, I'm busy wiping noses, hanging laundry (no clothes dryers here, nosirree), washing dishes by hand (such suffering!), and sweaping and dusting the whole house a mininum of twice a day due to the dust and ash that blows in the windows. Exciting, evangelistic stuff. I know, you're jealous. You're thinking, Wow, I wish I had her life. I know, I know, it's tough not to envy me and my amazing life.

This week I reached three kids for Christ. I made brownies. Hey, happy kids, happy mommy. We ignored the boxes that needed unpacking, the heat, and the fact that we still don't have fans and the oven would make the kitchen a bit more toasty than it already is, and dug into our precious chocolate chip and brown sugar stash to escape reality for a bit by drowning ourselves in butter and sugar and chocolate. It was worth it.

Sorry, no pics of the finished product... they were gone way too soon.

got some of my extra kitchen stuff together to give to Yoli, the wife of one of the construction guys
next door who came here from Mendoza with barely a thing to even cook with. it feels good to give.
(hey Denise, see your cups??)

met and talked with Enzo about going down to help him do some sort of Christmas outreach in Bariloche -
he is an artist and the church's contact there who lives and works in a very poor and pretty rough neighborhood reaching the community with change for Christ by teaching art

we shared our testimonies with the youth group - great group of kids - half of them are first generation Christians that have been reached through the church's Christian school

getting to know the church better - they're still pretty awesome

finally unpacked some books (shudder with happy goodness)... ah, you're never alone with a good book

It was like Christmas! Here I was a little worried about how we're not able to do "normal homeschooing" like all our good and diligent and disciplined homeschooling friends back home, but just hide the books for a couple of months and then voila! All of a sudden they're eating up the Classics. {Oh, yeah, and blowing out the big screen TV works, too.}

My boy actually read his first non-fiction book this week all on his own: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I couldn't believe it! My girl read Anne of Green Gables, Black Beauty, and Grimm's Fairy Tales. Great Illustrated Classics are a great way to ease them into good literature. The pictures and shorter versions are working for us.

And by far my favorite picture...

seatbelts and car seat optional! (and this is the pastor's wife... they're a fun bunch! lol)



gearing up

About this picture: this is about as big as our living room is, the carpet is a BIG MISTAKE (but it's going to take a lot more desert dust and volcanic ash being ground into it and a few more weeks to convince the husband {who doesn't clean} of that, and those speakers put out some serious sound!

testing the speakers that hook up to the laptop and projector

We found the box with the speakers in it! Also found the box with the projector and all the ministry DVDs  (thanks Dave and Emmanuel!). They all made it safely. Nothing was lifted. Very thankful. Prayer works. We could have a movie ministry and nothing else, just spend all our time travelling around showing the JESUS film and creation videos, with all that was donated. Sweet stuff.

I told the kids that their Science this year would be to test drive all the videos in that box. I'm sure my boy will be a big help in setting up all the equipment once we get it all untangled and figured out. He's good that way with technology. He tried to explain to us about the adapter and the TV and why it needed to be on Low; and later: "well, you didn't listen to me..." (um, that would be Tony that didn't listen)... the TV blew up and big wisps of gray smoke poured out of the top. One or two people burst into tears (not me). Who needs a TV anyway? We're here to do missions, not waste our lives away watching TV.

(FYI: We hear it can be fixed. The 120V motor blew out on the 220V here, just needs to be replaced and wound with higher tension copper wiring... or something like that? Embobinado. I guess, in the end, it'll be good to be able to show videos when people come over?)

This week we have been learning all about electricity. Converting Amps to Watts by multiplying by Volts etc., etc., etc. Well, Boy was right. Those adapters should be set on Low. They just don't work for high wattage appliances - not because they're not made for up to 1600 watts on the High setting, but because they just can't handle 220 volts, apparently.

So, back to the speakers... we were giddy happy to be able to test the speakers out on the laptop. Dave had given a little training session (sorry, can't link to that post, internet cutting out on me - it's back in Sept '11 somewhere), but it was just three days before the container came, so we had to seal that box up right away and haven't seen it for two months. I didn't know if I would remember how to work all the cables, and was praying I wouldn't blow the speakers out since we needed to use an converter to plug them in.

But (happy sigh), we did it! Those speakers make it sound like the movies! The kids watched "Creature That Defy Evolution" Part I, and begged me to let them watch Part II pleeeease.

Fun times. Step by step.

mission plan

This big map is hanging on the wall at church. It is the church's mission plan and vision to reach Patagonia. (We are in Neuquen, the province located in the upper left of the map.)

On the right is a small map of Argentina; Patagonia is the area in red.

Red squares are established works, green are where missionary work is being done, and blue are contacts.

Looking outward is healthy for the life of the church, and without a mission vision the church stagnates, will atrophy, even die spiritually. We need to sow in the fields, not in the barn where the wheat already is.

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" ~Isaiah 6:8



Lock down

A (really nice) customs official came to lock down the Mission Mobile today.

Tony went to the Customs Office here to register our vehicle today.

No problem, they said. All the paperwork is in order, you just need to park it until we process it all. No driving it until it is inspected and legally registered.

They really meant it.

Pablo was a really nice guy. He's actually the boss, and coming out to our house was not his job. He's not sure why he did it, the guys responsible for this part of the tramite are on vacation. It was 92 degrees and he came anyway. Sealed our baby right up and took a picture of the odometer just to insure we don't get out of line.

They mean business. We are impressed, in an ironic, inconvenienced kind of way.

Good news is they said it would only take 10 days until all is well and legal. Public transportation is very, er, not prolific here, so good thing we went food shopping yesterday. Hopefully we'll make it until our car is released into the land of the living.

the church here

Is awesome.

Look what they gave us - a welcome to Patagonia house-warming box filled with goodies!

our own mate carrying case and thermos engraved with our names and the church's name, Bible verses attached to little gifts, kitchen stuff, a metal colander (I've always wanted to replace my plastic dollar store one!), and on and on and on...

There was even an envelope with money in it, and a verse. Joshua 1:9,

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Very humbling. We are in a developing country and they give us money? The church even paid our first month's rent until Tony finds a job.

Can  you believe that?!?

We can't. I told Tony it's just not right. How can they do that?? We hope we can bless them in return someday, somehow. The other night at the table (our little plastic table that has plastic stools), Tony just shook his head and said, "We are so blessed. Do you realize how blessed we are?". I know he was talking not of the material blessings they have bestowed on us, but of who they are as people, as Christians.

God really hooked us up. We love it here, and we love the people.