*Warning: graphic photos of a sheep*

 

Last month in Argentina, ministry looked different every single day. We were told only to be flexible and the rest was all up in the air.

So our first Friday there, we were instructed to help with the high ropes courses for high school kids. Half way through, we were suddenly told to go pack our bags- we were leaving for the weekend and heading into the desert. Flexibility at it’s finest.

We were given zero instruction or information except that we’d be staying with the chief of an old indigenous tribe. I don’t know about you, but when I think of ‘indigenous tribe’ I think loincloths, face paint, spears, and bones through people’s noses.

So we loaded up our over-night bags, pots & pans, tents, tons of canned foods, multiple water jugs, 50 pounds of onions, and 11 of us into a small rickety pickup truck and drove 2.5 hours through deep sand into the barren, dry, lifeless, and extremely hot desert.

Of course, 11 grown adults don’t all fit inside of one vehicle so they needed a few of us to ride in the bed of the truck on top of all of our belongings. Adrenaline junky, risk taker, adventure seeking tomboy that I am, of course I volunteered to be one of those people! (It’s a good thing we don’t mind getting covered in dust and dirt).

*Me & my boys, Matt & Tim, ready to ride the dunes!

Our team arrived hours later at our destination- an adorable 3-room farmhouse surrounded by animals, cacti, and miles upon miles of sand. The nearest neighbor lived an hour away by horseback. These people really don’t get much company and they spend their days tending to their farm so our ministry that weekend was to bring them some company and love on them. Also, my loincloth wearing, spear-throwing assumptions of these indigenous tribe people were completely wrong. Yes, they were descendants of a tribe but they looked exactly like us. This was the home of a beautiful couple, Tata and Theresa and everywhere I looked, there were animals all over the place! Cattle, sheep, goats, horses, pigs, chickens, cats, roosters, dogs, day-old baby goats, ducks…it was my dream home!

*Newborn babies!

We set up our tents in the sand and realized they were so old and worn out, the zippers for the tent doors were broken…we might as well have put a doormat out that read ‘Welcome scorpions, spiders, and snakes.’

After settling in, our team leader Amy informed us all that our hosts were so happy to have us there that they wanted to bless us with one of their sheep…that they would kill…in the morning…for us to eat…in our honor. This was just a tad different from the way we ‘honor’ our guests back home by serving them some coffee or a glass of wine so we were pretty excited to experience this!

We crawled into our tents for the night, Amy sharing a tent with Jon and I like one big happy family, Jon sleeping on the hard ground since he forgot his sleeping pad, and we fell asleep to the peaceful sounds of creation.

6 AM: a rooster begins to crow directly outside of our tent. After stumbling out of our sleeping bags, we spent the morning eating a light breakfast in their garden, drinking coffee and sipping maté. Maté is an Argentinean loose-leaf tea that they pack inside of a funky cup with tons of sugar, pour hot water over it and sip it through a metal straw. Basically everyone shares the same cup/straw and you take turns sipping and passing the maté around the table. Argentineans love their maté and we did too!

*Traditional Maté

And then… the time had come. Tata roped this poor innocent black sheep and dragged him over to where the deed would be done. The boys on our team held the legs and Theresa (she’s a tough cookie) gently and expertly slit the sheep’s throat.

After it had died, we brought it up onto a table and helped skin and gut the sheep, which was so fascinating. We helped Theresa prepare the meal and let me tell you- we all agreed it was the best lamb we had ever eaten. I mean talk about farm-to-table cuisine! Theresa made fresh bread in her outdoor hearth oven and we ate. And ate. And ate.

*Matt helping to saw the ribs apart.

*Gutting & cleaning.

Argentineans eat dinner very late. Like 11 or 12 at night. So later that evening, when we were all basically ready for bed, they brought out empanada filling and homemade dough and taught us all how to make empanadas at midnight. We star gazed, we huddled by the fire, we drank some wine, we laughed around a table with friends who didn’t share the same language, and we ate delicious empanadas and leftover lamb at 1 in the morning.

*Our lamb feast!

The remainder of our time in the desert consisted of more crazy sand dune rides in the back of the pickup while holding on for dear life, holding baby goats, visiting their far-off neighbors to pray for them, playing with the animals, sipping maté, eating carne asado, pooping in the middle of the desert for the first time in my life, sharing stories, and learning about the farm life that these people had committed their lives to.

Limited electricity, no refrigerator, zero cell phone or Wi-Fi service, sunburns, an outdoor bathroom with a toilet that didn’t flush, dirt floors, broken tents, tons of bugs, scorching hot sand, and a kitchen that constantly had at least 40 flies buzzing around it made for the greatest weekend I think I’ve ever had in my life.

This is the way these people live every single day and they are beyond happy. They are so full of joy and full of life that they don’t put their happiness in material items or fancy homes and cars. They don’t complain about not owning the newest, latest and greatest iPhone or Play Station. They are more than content and probably the happiest couple I’ve met in a very, very long time. They don’t have much at all and yet they were thrilled to bless our team with what little they had to offer but to us, their hospitality and love were the most abundant we had ever experienced.

My prayer for the remainder of my life is to live with the same joy and contentment as these people do without needing or wanting anything that the world could ever offer me. Jesus is more than enough for me!