Our first week in Argentina is wrapping up. It has been incredible. Argentina is beautiful. The Andes mountains are mind-blowing and they make me fall more in love with the Creator of them every day.
It’s all-squad month, meaning that all 48 of my squad mates are here and we are staying at a YWAM base outside of Mendoza. It’s set up kinda like a youth camp and I’m not at all mad about it. It’s refreshing and peaceful and my heart is full. Our rooms are filled with bunk beds and there is basically no space for all our of “stuff” so I’ve opted to set up my tent for the month and use my bed as a closet… or something like that. PTL because I’ve been having the best sleeps.
We eat dinner super late here. We are lucky if it’s before 10 so that’s interesting and apparently normal in most of South America, I think. All of that just to say that last night, as we were walking back, I saw my first real live tarantula in the wilderness. I was walking with my teammate Miranda and she screamed when she saw it in our path. Then I screamed. We shined her head lamp on it, which made it freeze, and examined it for a solid three minutes before walking back to our cabin. It was a little smaller than my fist and unbelievably hairy. So that’s exciting.
Anyway… We have had different jobs for ministry each day. So far, my team has worked on cleaning out the largest swimming pool I’ve ever seen in my life (raking the leaves scrubbing the dirt out so they can get ready for the summer), taught students in a Christian school about missions, worked in the kitchen preparing meals for everyone on base (including a couple’s retreat for 78 people that took place this past weekend), helped with a kids camp, preached/shared testimonies/led worship at a church here, and washed a billion dishes.
The Lord has been teaching me a lot, which I might share in another blog or just keep in my journal?… but I didn’t have much time to pull my thoughts together before my pals were walking to the gas station. We don’t have wifi here so we had to walk over a mile down a dirt road to the gas station to post this.
I just wanted to say I am alive and thriving. Thanks for your continued prayers. God just keeps getting cooler.
(Written November 19th – Turns out the wifi at the gas station was a no-go, so I am currently posting this from Starbucks in the city. Only an hour long bus-ride for wifi… lol).
