Man, what an experience. What a week. Last Monday, I left Porto Alegre for Canela in the Serra Gaúcho of Rio Grande do Sul to attend the Brazilian Missionary Conference. The first day was quite exciting because of all the familiar and new faces I saw. It was really cool to meet Carlos Castilho,a missionary in Rio supported by MacArthur Park. We were roommates.

I was truly blessed by the presence and teaching from Murray Wilton, mentioned in my last post. He led the daily men’s sessions. What I learned during our sessions is the relief that comes from complete reliance on God, filling your life with the Spirit makes a difference in your desires, far better is joining in God’s work rather than constructing my own ideas of reaching others, and the freedom that comes from absolute, nothing held back, let it all out confession to another brother. Murray cares and he lets God work through his life. He was a gift for me.

John Willis, from ACU and the Highland church, took us (“the two that were listening”) across the Old Testament and a bit of the New. The day and evening trips were fun too. Gramado EXPLODED with music and Christmas lights. For some reason the ATMs in the area would not let some others and I take out money. One day we visited Parque Estadual do Caracol, home of Cascata do Caracol, a 130m (426ft) waterfall at the base of 768 steps. My thighs burned for a few days. It was a good time to catch up with my olf friend Ali and her husband Mark who are now working in Itu.

Cascata do Caracol, Canela, Brasil

The crown jewel of the fun at the conference was banquet night. No roast this year, but a Murder Mystery Dinner. I know, my head almost exploded like an atom bomb. I asked myself, “How can fifty-something people participate in the murder mystery of Big Daddy?” Well the organizers, the Rio team members did an excellent job. Drag and all.

Thanks to the Porto ALegre team for an excellent conference.

I went from Canela to Tramandaí on the coast to meet up with Roberto and Moema. I was there one night, but I couldn’t go to Brazil in the summer and not go to the beach. “Those who know the good they ought to do and do not do it, sin.” The next day we went back to Porto Alegre. I met up with Clemens, a friend I met in São Paulo on the way from Santiago to Rio. We had a great conversation and it was good to see him again. EARLY Sunday morning, after two and a half hours of sleep, we went to the airport to catch my flight (6:10A) to Buenos Aires via São Paulo.

Kevin Blume prayed over Dottie, a speaker at the conference and currently my housemate as she is working with the Santiago team, and I as we were about to depart. He’s a special guy with a big heart and a top notch family. Dottie and I arrived in São Paulo and made our way perplexedly through the airport I do not love. The signs in the airport are truly backwards. Well she headed towards Santiago and I Buenos Aires, after an hour+ delay (this is Brazil).

Buenos Aires was fun. It was one day/night. I stayed at a nice hostel, V&S. I have a lovely meal at a parrilla a few blocks away, El Establo. Honestly they had this Caprese salad (basil, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and a vinaigrette). Oh yeah. I left my chocolate and chicken from the restaurant in the refrigerator locked up in reception and had to leave prior to the front desk opening. My flight left an hour later than I was thinking, so I could have stayed longer, but that’s ok, I had the opportunity to talk Sueli, my Brazilian roommate at the hostel. Man, our room was hot. While waiting for our, yes, delayed flight, we met Mariano and his newly wedded wife on their way to Brazil for their honeymoon. It’s amazing who God leads you to talk with. Well they were great and before I knew it I was saying goodbye, Mariano hopped up, and gave me a hug and a kiss, well, you know, “kiss-the-air-next-to-my-ear kiss. Those Argentines. Gotta love them.

Now I’m back in Santiago. In the words of my friend Renzo, “buenas noches handsome men.”

Sadly, I did not mention it in my last post, my point-and-shoot camera’s screen broke in Rio so I sent it back with the group to be returned to my mother, so no photos. Check out Mark & Ali’s blog and The Blumes’ blog for some photos and other points of view.

Written quite a while back…

Much has happened since Buenos Aires. I mean A LOT!

BA

We had a pleasant stay in Buenos Aires. Honestly the place is a superb place to visit, but the people are so hard and cold, it would be a difficult city to live in, even less to work in. But it was a good stay and we were warmly welcomed and sent on to Chile.

BA Airport (from Hell)

We arrived at the Buenos Aires International Airport and ended up staying seven hours to get to the front of the line to be told we were not flying, slept four hours in a nice hotel on the main avenue of BA, 9 de Julio (all on Aerolíneas Argentinas’ buck), arrived at the airport around 5A to wait 14 hours for our 7:30A flight to Santiago. Oh the joys of world travel.

Santiago

Well because of the delays with the airline we missed the retreat we were going to start our time off in Santiago. Our first week was visiting a local private school, St. Gabriel’s, to do language and cultural exchanges with classes, i.e. telling who we are and the playing games for two hours. Well to make it short, our time in St. Gabe’s went very well. Our second week was focused on visiting university campuses to meet students interested in English study. We invited those we met in the daytime to activities we had in the evenings. Lot’s of fun – balloon soccer, most disgusting pizza contest, etc. Good fun.

We also had times of play in Chile. Skiing, AFCSA vs. missionaries soccer, a flop of a 42 tourney, El Oasis, sight seeing, trip to Valparaiso/Viña del Mar. Great fun. Chile was fantastic.

Cochabamba

We had the opportunity on the flight in to go in to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world, for lunch before catching our next flight to Cochabamba. We were received well by the team there. We worked on several small work projects and passed out some flyers near the church. It was a great place to transition back in to the return to Texas – more freedom and warmer weather.

AFCSA was superb and all who went, received us, supported us are very much thanked by me for making it a top-notch trip.

We arrived two days ago to Buenos Aires and have been promoting a youth event happening this weekend. Today we will venture out to see the sights of the city.

More to come.

It was a quick stop, but we had a fantastic time in Foz do Iguaçu. Originally we were going to visit Itaipu, the largest power plant (a dam) in the world, but we opted to go shopping in the third largest duty-free zone in the world – Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. Cheap computer stuff and everything else.

The visit to the park was nice too. We actually received passport stamps this time when we crossed the Brazil-Argentina border to Argentina. It made my day. Most of the group went on the boat ride, but I decided not to. It was pleasant walking around tha park, touching coaties, looking at the falls.

Quite a good visit. Now we are in Porto Alegre after a thirteen-hour bus ride overnight. Should be fun.

It’s so fun in S. America every one you greet, you greet with a kiss. Well not every one, in Chile and Brasil one greets with a kiss to the girls and a shake of the hand with boys. But in Argentina one kisses everyone and it’s nothing. Really it’s a kiss in the air while pressing each other’s right cheeks together. Very unAmerican.

Today we went to an other church building to paint and work on other projects around the building. It was a good day. I went with an intern, Ashley, to get some fruit in the morning for lunch, and honestly I thought I was going to vomit. The smell in the area we were in was horendous, truly – worse than the Bangkok sewers. It smelled like old cheese and car exhaust, just nasty.

Tonight, four of us were invited to go to a small group Bible study at a member’s home. We, the four, shared about our faith – joys, struggles, why we were here, etc – with the group. One of the guy’s birthday was today, so we had cake for him and the father of the household made baloon animals. His name is Jorge, he’s deaf, but with my signing background he is very easy to comprehend. He actually does not use Argentine sign language, but his own he created and taught his wife and children. Amazing and very easy to understand. Great people.

Good night. Too bad for the Spurs.

We caught an Air Canada flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires today. Our group is spread over three church buildings in BA. We didn’t do too much today, but quite a lot for our first day in a new city.

An indoor futbol coomplex butts the church building all the guys are staying at, so two of ours went over and soon came back disappointed. Later we were sitting around and a knock on the door came and we had five minutes until 8 o’clock to get ready and play for an hour. Some guys JB, one our guys, had met wanted us to come play with them. It was a fun game. Total play for the full hour. I was a bit afraid to play with some locals after seeing how good they were, but still a great time was had.

Dinner was on our own, so we headed a couple blocks down to an Italian place. I got some gnochi. Superb. The exchange rate is so good here it ended up being a cheap meal. Oh so good.

Being so indepedent is so fun and a blessing to jump right in to culture. No one translating or guiding an other. Just pure interactions flaws and all. I love it. Buenos Aires, ‘bu/e/nos ai/des,’ not ‘aries,’ is tops.

Buenos noches.