Last time I was able to connect I did not have time to tell you too much about what we have been doing. We are staying in Cordoba, Argentina with a very nice family. They have three daughters, sixteen, thirteen, and eight years old, and a baby boy a hear and a half old. They are very active in church in a couples' fellowship. There are about fifty couples in the fellowship. We arrived here on Thursday after an all-night bus ride where I couldn't sleep at all, which is very unusual for me. Alberto and Claudia both work, but their schedules allow one of them to be home at different times during the day. The girls also have different schedules; therefore, there is always somebody available to babysit. We were so tired when we arrived Thursday morning, that after a light snack we went to sleep with all our clothes on. We just crashed on top of the bed. They had to wake us up for lunch, and we went to sleep again after that. Carlos and Rosario are staying with another family. Rosario was scheduled for the first presentation to women. They gave me the option to go or not, so I chose to stay.We slept all night and felt better the next day.
Christ for the City here in Cordoba is made up of all volunteers. They are mostly students, but some are adults with jobs. They are doing a great job helping out in the community. One of the women is a manicurist. They go to the marginal communities and work with women. As she does their nails, she compares the transformation of broken nails to what Jesus does with our broken lives. They also have ministries with children and community clean up.
Friday morning we left to see a beautiful place out of the city. It is a place where people go to spend summer vacation. There is a river. The small community has center and they are open to help with Christ for the City. One former missionary who lives in the community is working with community leaders on behalf of Christ for the City to see the needs and how they can get involved. That evening, back in town, we had a meeting with all the volunteers where we presented our work in Costa Rica and they presented what they are doing here. Evening meetings start at 10:00 pm here and can go until 1:00 am. They asked us is we wanted to go out for supper after the meeting, but we declined and went home.
Saturday we left early to try to get tickets to fly back to Buenos Aires on Monday. We were having a hard time getting a flight on line. It is a good thing that we went to the office of one of the local airlines because we were informed that the flight we were trying to get goes to a different airport. We are going to have to leave early here and then spend 15 hours waiting for our flight home. There is no way around it. If we ever comeback to South America, we are going to do the schedule very differently. After purchasing the tickets, we went to visit a friend of Carlos at another resort town near a lake. They have a beautiful home overlooking some hills. He is the founder of a post-graduate school of missions here in South America. It turns out that we know one of the professors. After breakfast we went downtown and walked around for a while. It is a very cute tourist town. We left to have lunch with German and his family. From there we went home to rest. We are old and need our nap if we are going to keep up with these Argentinians.
Saturday night was the event with couples. It started promptly at 10:00 pm. After a few minutes of worship together, men and women were separated. Carlos and John had the men, and I had the women. I did my same workshop on the Secrets for a Happy Marriage. Now, these women really tracked with me. They were participating and laughing. This is the way that the workshop is supposed to work! We finished at about 1:00 am. It was past two by the time we went to bed.
Sunday morning we did not have any engagements, so we slept late, had a nice breakfast with our hosts. Then it was time to get ready for the BBQ. German, his family and the Corderos came over for lunch at about 3:00 pm. Argentinian BBQ is everything: sausages, including blood sausages, beef and pork. We had salad and bread also, but mainly, beef. We had to nap after such lunch.
Sunday evening John was schedule to preach at a large Pentacostal church on the other side of town. We arrived just in time for John to be introduced. They were so nice to us. They have a person in charge of welcoming the guests when they arrived. She got us bottles of cold water and took us to our seats. This church was in a wearhouse; therefore, the acoustics were poor. Besides, they were making and selling empanadas on the back throughout the whole service. John found it a little distracting, but he finally got on the groove for the second part of his message. This church's pastor is currently on a short-term trip in a very delicate area of the world trying to get more information for his church's future involevement. The assisstant pastor prayed for us at the end from the pulpit and gave John a big kiss! I don't think that John has ever been kissed by a pastor before.
We all came back home again and had some more beef, plus some empanadas they make here that they called "Arab empanadas." They are very good. We went to bed at 2:00 am again. Today we got up at 5:00 am to go to the airport. We caught our flight to the capital, and now we have a 15 hour layover until we can get on our plane to Miami.
That is all...pictures will follow, but I can't get my little computer to connect to the Internet here at the airport. This has been my problem all along. I think I need to have the wireless card checked. We will be home soon. Thank you so much for praying and tracking with us. Happy Thanksgiving... still in South America, but not for long!
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