Well, here we are, at the end of this amazing Journey. Here’s a quick update of what we’ve been up to for the last few weeks.
Our final assignment is to do Unsung Heroes for the month (essentially scouting the country for new contacts for future teams.
We arrived in San Rafael a few days before Halloween with two of the other teams to take a few days to get our bearings and pick up some leads for new contacts. We stayed at a Christian hostal run by an amazing older couple, Maria and Stewart. He was an ex hippie from California who met his also ex hippie Italian wife on the beaches of Italy doing evangelism. They paired up and then spent their lives living in various contries in eastern Europe and North Africa living out God’s word (evangelism, smuggling bibles and the like.) Now they’ve finally settled down in Argentina to run a gorgeos hostal open to all. Needless to say they had some pretty crazy stories.
After a few days of working around the farm and catching up with other squadmates, we headed out to Mendoza, a border town with Chile, to stay with a pastor and his family there. We had actually met them a few weeks prior in Chile when the pass to cross the border into Argentina snowed shut and they came knocking on our church doors looking for a place to stay. Marcelo and Carlita are church planters, and they’ve been working in a poor neighborhood for the last year starting a new church and ministering to all the children in the neighborhood who mostly come from problematic families. Whilr we were only there for the weekend, we were recieved with such love and hospitality I will never forget my experience. We helped run 2 children’s bible studies and took over the Sunday service to give Pastor Marcelo a break. Fue una experiencia tan linda.
For the last two weeks we worked with Adulam, a ministry that works to get people off the streets and children a home to live in. We mainly stayed at one of the farm group homes they have for teenagers and young children. We got to go out to visit other ministry sites they have to help out and get to know the ministry better. We even got to go to 2(!) quincineras! (Birthday parties for girls when they turn 15). The overwhelming love the family and the people had for each other was so evident in everything they did. It was a great experience to finish out our race with.
