Montecito Covenant Argentina Mission Team!

some more shots...

2008-04-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

We wanted to share a last few pictures of our trip with you. The following help to complete our story of our trip and our time in Argentina from March 26 - April 6, 2008.

This was a trip of a lifetime for all of us... Thank you for your support, prayers, and love!

- Mark, Ali, Nicole, Alex, Lisa, Liam, Kim, Fuj (Suj), Amanda, Dono, Chloe, Garrett, Austin, Brian, Tro, Brandon, Corey, & Nathaniel

El Camino Covenant Church - Bernardo de Irygoyen, Argentina

Brian. One of the most poverty stricken families we have ever met. He captured our hearts.

The Soccer Game we went to in Rosarrio

We had to check Fuj's luggage before we left to make sure he didn't sneak this one with him back to the states.

Classic morning, afternoon, or evening with the neighborhood...

Fernando became a fan of our group and loved hanging out with us.

Construction work we completed.

Fred and Dono posing for a smile.

Walking through downtown bernardo de Irygoyen.
Really, it was this small!

Street kids near Tiagre

The boats and water in Tiagre

Lukas and Alexis leading us out of the town when we left.

Susan and Mike, we went ahead and took your family christmas card picture for you.

LaBoca

Nicole and Lisa in the Artisan markets

Fuj and Liam got really close on this trip...

This is downtown Buenos Aires. It has the widest street in the world...up to 22 lanes of traffic!

At the mall in Buenos Aires, they had this live nativity type thing. It was called "Santa Tierra" and I wasn't paying attention. They had people there like when you go to visit Santa Claus at Christmas time, so I just assumed that they have this photo booth to get your pictures taken with people from the Bible. After all, the name "Santa" was in the title. Well, it turns out that "Santa Tierra" means "Holy Lands" and this is a place you can visit, sort of like Disneyland, that is all Biblically themed. They were selling tickets at the mall.

Grilling meat on the streets...

Our Driver Jonathan. We grew to love him, and he grew to love us. Seeds were sown.

The Falcon. Nicole begged her dad to buy this car for their family. Mark was so glad she asked.

Visiting the cemetery called Receletta. It was unlike any cemetery any of us had ever gone to. This is where Evita was burried.

Tango Dancers in the streets downtown.

We're leaving on a Jet Plane

2008-04-06T03:23:00.000-07:00

We are off to the airport. Here are our last two pictures for you to enjoy!

With Tango Dancers in the La Boca neighborhood

Mark, Nicole & Ali Westlind - best hosts ever.

last night....

2008-04-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Well, it is 1:30am and I am not packed yet. We had a GREAT trip. We fly all day tomorrow. Pray for great and safe travel. Pray that no one gets sick from the bug we had all week. Pray for our energy... as we are still up at 1:30pm.

We'll post more pictures on Monday afternoon when we are back from traveling and all.

Thanks for your great support for the week!

Blessings!

Lisa

Gaucho Ranch and Friday Pictures....

2008-04-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our Adventures! These are yesterday (Thursday) and this morning (Friday).
Enjoy!

Our main prayer request is for the health of our team....
7 people have gotten pretty sick, but it last only about 24 hours, and then they are fine.
Pray for those of us who haven't gotten it yet...that we can keep up with washing our hands every 20 minutes....
Thanks!

This little guacho man is the one that took us on our horse ride. His family owned the Ranch.

The log with dulce de Leche.

We don't have dog walkers like this in America... yes, 9 dogs.

The Cathedral near Westlind's house in San Isidro

The central park in San Isidro we walked to

Ice Cream. One of our main themes of our trip....

Sunset at our Ranch at the pool.

If you notice, there is just a bunch of land around us with fields. We drove through more fields and scenery just like this...

Our cows and horses at our ranch

HORSE RIDES!

Dinner with the horses at the ranch!

Kim and Ali

More meat at the best meal EVER at the ranch...

Chilaxin at the pool. Yes, we are on Spring Break...

Alex and Brian

Lots of Frisbee

Chloe and Nicole

Amanda at the pond @ the ranch

Friday Morning

2008-04-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

Good Morning Friends!

We had a GREAT day at the Argentine ranch. We will post pictures soon.

Our day began with a breakfast at the Westlind home (Thanks for hosting us Westlinds!) then we boarded the bus and cruised to the ranch. We swam in a pool, played ultimate frisbee, ate like royalty and got to ride horses through the ranch. We meandered through open fields, along wooded trails, and over tranquil streams. It was a truly fantastic day. One highlight was glimpsing some of the Argentine wildlife. There were many hawks, owls and other birds that we encountered, not to mention all of the small dogs that followed our group of "Gauchos". Don't worry--the dogs are domesticated and are very sedate unless they are herding horses.

We are now preparing to explore the San Ysidro neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. We are looking forward to touring a local cathedral and visiting the artisan shops along the boulevards.

We continue to appreciate your prayers. Many blessings to all of you!

-Liam and Co.

Pictures from Tuesday and Wednesday

2008-04-03T05:01:00.000-07:00

Ciao!
This is both the greeting and the sending here in Argentina.
We are putting up TONS of photo, photo, photo, photos (ask us later)....
Enjoy them!
The first few are the MCC leadership with the Argentina Covenant Church President Elia, and his wife, Esther, The pastor at the Bernardo de Irygoyen church Hugo and his wife Alicia, and the whole Westlind Family with us.

A couple host family pictures...

Our Argentina church friends

Host family again...

VBS

The guys with Alexis.... he hung out with us a lot this past week

Grilling the Lamb that the kids got to see slaughtered. Dono even gutted it...

Sick guys in the room...

We all got Mate mugs with our names on it.
They got the spelling of Fuj wrong. He is now Suj.

Pictures from Sunday and Monday

2008-03-31T16:22:00.001-07:00

Mark is helping with VBS in the church

The girls with our new friends

This kid in the wheelchair is so cool. We think he has Cebral Palsey. His friend on the left takes care of him non stop...wiping his face, helping him color. SO cool.

Leading songs

Downtown of Rosarrio where we saw the soccer game. It is 2 hours away from Bernardo de Irygoyen

Our Group in front of a major monument in Rossario

FUTBAL! our boys love playing soccer with the kids

All the kids that were at VBS today. Watch out NOAH's!

Monday, Monday, Monday

2008-03-31T16:02:00.000-07:00

Monday @ 1 PM
by: Brian Peters

In Argentina everyone takes naps or “siesta” but I can’t sleep so I will tell what we did today. This morning after our wake up call at 7:20am, we got to sleep in for 5 minutes more then usual (which is a small but added bonus). For breakfast we had eggs again but with an added bonus of hot dogs. (Which were not that tasty like everything else.)

After breakfast we went to the only elementary school to teach kids about God. They had an assembly of the whole school just for our group Before we got there we learned we were not supposed to talk about God like we were originally told we could. We compromised by not including the word “Jesus” in our play that we acted out. We performed David and Goliath in front of them. The kids loved it especially when Liam fell down as Goliath almost hitting kids in the front row. We then told the 120 kids to come to VBS today so they could hear about God, do crafts, and play soccer with us. Afterwards they asked some questions about our American culture.

We then headed down to the high school. When we got there we went into a junior classroom. They asked us a lot of questions about our culture and if our lives were like the American shows they see like “Super Sweet Sixteen”, a show about girls sixteenth birthday as they get everything they want including cars and music artist. They also gave us some matai a drink that they fill with herbs hot water and sugar. We will share about Matai later. We then asked the about their culture. It was really a good experience. After we did some debriefing and did some VBS prep, we ate lunch that was beef (maybe Fred) and some squash. When lunch ended we started siesta and me writing this blog

You stay classy, readers!
Brian Peters

Worship in Argentina...

2008-03-31T15:45:00.000-07:00

Worship Services
By Kim Crawford

Lisa leading worship (the whole team is off to her right where you can't see her...that is why there are so many empty chairs)

Offering

On Sunday we woke up early and after a quick breakfast we turned our sleeping room into a sanctuary. Together with the people of the Covenant church we worshiped with singing, prayers, preaching and an offertory – of course. The service was pleasant and joyful. Our group doubled the size of the congregation of this quaint town. We, the MCC folk, tried our best to sing the songs that they led and they did the same in turn. There was a delightful energy to this little service that concluded with an encouraging benediction from our friend Mark Westlind (aka Marco). In our debriefing time last night Amanda said, “Even though we’re from opposite places in the world and have different worship styles, it was cool how we could all worship together.” And we all agreed. It was neat to worship together.

After church we hopped onto our bus and headed to Rosario, a city just about an hour or so away. And there we went to another worship service. Tens of thousands of chanting, screaming fans poured into the stadium to cheer for Newhall’s Old Boys -- THEIR football team. In a sea of black and red, people wore shirts, waved large flags, held banners and even stood on the high pillars of the stadium. As the team made their way from the tunnel onto the field the crowds began to play drums, sing and cheer. Throughout the game the fans would break out into singing songs to cheer and implore the home team. They also sang songs to jeer and mock the rival. There were no cheerleaders to guide or jumbo-tron to direct them – they simply knew these songs by heart and joined in spontaneously. They threw confetti and all held red and black balloons. A giant banner was strewn across the fan section covering hundreds of people. All of this to give laud and honor to their team.

Some of the boys bought jerseys that said something like "we don't need speakers 'cuse our fans are loud enough..."

People wore clothes declaring, “I am a Newhall” and “Newhall is my passion.” Passion? Donovon later remarked, “I was drawn in by how passionate they were. There’s not anything that I an as passionate about as they are about football. If anything we should be passionate about God,” His words summarized how I felt as I sat in the stands among the fans. These people are truly passionate about football; they live and breathe by it. They identify themselves with this team, its colors, its nicknames, its history.

So Donovan, I get your comment. Am I passionate about Jesus the way they are passionate about their Old Boys? Would I wear clothes that say so? Do I spend hours on a Sunday yelling and screaming and singing in tribute to God? If someone were to judge my worship would they call it passionate?

A Man among Men

2008-03-31T15:40:00.000-07:00

Argentina Day 5
By Kim Crawford

A Man Among Men
Many denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant, are predominately led by middle-aged men, particularly white men. This is evident at events such as the mid-winter conference in January and in many congregations we know quite well. It’s even true here in Argentina where the Covenant church has a number of women pastors. And while this bugs me for various reasons I still have to ask the question; What makes someone a man among men?

While we are here in Bernardo de Irigoyen Elia Pineyro and his wife are here too. Elia is the President of the Covenant church in Argentina (aka Iglesia Pacto Evangelica de Argentina). That means he oversees all of the Covenant churches in the entire country. It means that his ministry, lifestyle, character and relationships with others have warranted him the respect of all of his peers. He was chosen from the collection of pastors in all of Argentina to lead the church. In denomination world that means he’s a big deal.

So when I heard he was with us this week I began to observe what this great man is like. After a few days I’d like to share some of the things I’ve seen him do: deliver a benediction, lay bricks, buy football (soccer) tickets, carry water to our kids, give plates of food to our kids, laugh, encourage, play goalie in a pick-up game on the street, bus the table, pray, shovel sand, smile (A LOT!!), chat with friends, help in the kitchen. Do you get the picture? He’s a servant. This man of great respect and power has been nothing but a servant to our group, the other pastors and the workers here with us.

Yesterday was Elia’s birthday. I don’t know exactly where in his middle-age this birthday puts him but I know that we were blessed to spend the day with him. May God bless Elia, his family, his ministry and his giftedness for beautiful servant leadership. Feliz Cumpleanos Elia!

PS Don’t even get me started on how totally awesome his wife Ester is . . .

Saturday March 30 - GP style...

2008-03-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

Argentina Day 4 (Saturday)

After our first real night of sleep we had a long day of fun, hard work and eating. Donavan, Nathaniel, Garrett F, Amanda, Chloe, and Corey were at three different host families. The rest of us have been staying here at the church.

Breakfast was great. We had eggs and dulce de leche (a caramel spread like Nutella) that was spread on bread. It was stupendous. We had devos led by Kim. We began our trek to the worksite (which is 3 walking minutes away). There we moved bricks/ gravel, made cement and learned to lay bricks.

We ate our lunch of rice and Fred (the cow slaughtered for us). Overall, things have been good…

Garrett Prather

Just a usual sight here in our super small town...
Dono and Amanda with the random goat...

More Pictures from Days 1 - 4

2008-03-29T15:36:00.001-07:00

Waiting in the airport...start of our 33 hour trip...

Fred is dead... sorry if this is too much for you to see...

Kim and Mark

The water well in our small town we are in. Really, it is SO small. We walked the WHOLE town in about 45 minutes.

This was walking to the worksite (the camp). It is just a half block from the church where most of us are staying. We are going to have four more walls completely up, we have to tear one down and rebuild it (they had done it a year ago or something), and we might work on the roof stuff.

Saturday March 30

2008-03-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

The computer is SUPER slow...so I am just going to focus on getting pictures up.
The main work project (building brick walls at the camp) and VBS started today and we have had a great and fun day.

Here is the post from the guys that they wrote on Thursday night/Friday morning...

Aregentina Trip = Day 2 4:18 A.M.
Hola amigos! We have plenty of extra meat, would you like some? We’ve been traveling now for 29 consecutive hours. Despite rigorous travel and lack of sleep, spirits are still high. Thus far, international relations have been muy bueno (insert picture of Dono and Nathanial playing hackey sack with some Costa Ricans). To this point, travel has been smooth: no lost luggage, no viruses caught, and we even got a pretty good exchange rate. Mark, Aly, and Nicole Westlind, as well as Alex from Merge ministries, were cheerfully waiting to pick us up at the airport. Thanks again, guys! We kicked off the Argentine experience by heading to the Estancia (est. 1962), a local favorite of the Westlinds. It’s traditional Argentine fare, consisting of grilled cheese squares, empenadas, bread, chorizo, carne, pollo, and of course, goat.(insert restaurant picture) After that, we hopped on a (small) bus and started making our way up to Bernardo de Irogoyen. Due to a lucky wrong turn, we were actually able to go over the bridge that is on our sweatshirts (Lisa’s favorite moment so far)! Instead of making our way to Uruguay, we turned around at the end of the bridge and headed back in the right direction. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on our next adventures!

-Garcor O’Fujihara (Garret Fujiwara and Corey O'Hara)

Shout Outs!:

Byron Beck for getting us the awesome guitar case 4 minutes before we left,
Carl’s Jr./Mike Zoratti for buying the burgers!
Apple Inc. – for inventing the iPod
Copa Airlines - for making the real food in Argentina taste that much better
Elvis – No, you ain’t nothing but a hounddog!
Will Smith – Thank you for saving the world over, and over, and over again.
Javier Bardem – “Call it.”
Ben Stiller –for the riveting portrayal of Dereck Zoolander
Kevin O’Hara – for being so prompt in responding to the first team email. You rock too, K-Dog!

Friday March 28

2008-03-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

We are here in Argentina! We are having a bit of trouble with getting our pictures loaded, but we have some great ones to share with you when we are able to get them up. The town we are in is called Bernardo de Irygoyen. We traveled yesterday for a total of about 33 hours, so we were tired. We arrived here at about 5 in the morning today. We then slept for about 3 hours.

We are loving being with Mark, Aly and Nicole Westlind and also with Alex. There are about 7 people who drove 6 hours to be with us for the week from other churches. We are being treated with SO much love and honor by the locals in the Covenant Churches here.

The town has been described as the ¨"Nebraska" of Argentina. Meaning that this is a super small town and there aren´t many tourists that will come and visit here. We sure do stick out as the big group of visitors in town. I just had 4 kids peering over my shoulder watching me type because I was the new person here in town.

We have eaten more meat in the past 24 hours than we have eaten in the past week combined. Amazing food. They actually even bought a cow for us for our meat for the week. We named him Fred, but Fred is now dead...and is probably dinner tonight.

Most of the boys showered outside in the outside showers today. They had bought matresses for us to sleep on, so we cleared out the chairs at the church and all slept on the mattresses on the ground. About 6 students will be in host homes.

Everyone is feeling good with their health. Chloe is keeping up great and no one else is really struggling. Liam´s stomach is still a little weird, though.

Thank you for praying for us! We have a really fun blog to post that Corey and Fuj wrote yesterday, but again, we are having trouble uploading it. I will try to get pictures up later tonight or tomorrow.

Blessings and love from all of us!

We leave tomorrow!

2008-03-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

Ways you can pray for us today and tomorrow:

For Chloe Eaton to get better. She has had strep throat for the past week.... Pray for the health of all of our team!
For all of the details to get finished up and put together.
For our team to remember everything while packing.
For great traveling on Copa Airlines. (We go through Panama City!)
For our bus driver that we are hiring to be with us for the week...that we can be a light to him. Also, that he is safe while driving.
For dealing with a LOT of middle seats on the airlines. oh well. could be worse.
For Mark, Aly and Alex to get the rest they need before we all arrive tomorrow night around 9pm.
We will be driving from the Buenos Aires airport and take a 6 hour drive up to Bernardo de Irygoyen (Northwest of Buenos Aires). We will arrive around 3:30am after traveling for the previous 27 hours from Santa Barbara, CA!
For us to be able to sleep on the plane (our flight leaves at 1AM!)

3 days till lift off...

2008-03-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

It is Monday. We are on our way in just 3 days. SWEET! I am still in awe that this trip came together and it is SO clear that we are being supported by so many of you wonderful friends around the world!

Here are a few more pictures to enjoy from recent preparations...

In one of our recent training sessions, we had a foot washing ceremony. It was super cool and the kids really were servants to each other. In the midst of a worship time, they would go up to each other and ask if they could wash their feet. It was cool and bonding for all of us.

Our Clean Feet...

and then we enjoyed dinner together at BJ's...

Team Training Days

2008-03-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some shots from our Argentina Training Days.

Fuj...you gotta love him...

Happy 15th Birthday Brian!

Working on the VBS teaching times

Craft planning....

Argentina Fundraising dinner!

2008-02-24T08:49:00.000-08:00

THANK YOU for helping us raise $3,700!!!

Last night was our Argentina Fundraising Dinner. We had called it, "A Taste of Argentina" and it was SUPER tasty! Our parents and students worked SO hard to pull off a wonderful dinner and a great silent auction. We thought we would share some pictures with you of our event!

Marcy and Chloe chopping Peppers

Fuj helping the boys learn how to set a table... :)

Garrett dishing up and plating the Flan for dessert.

Chloe and Brandon serving the Tostones (Fried Plantains)

Corey being SO proud of his beautiful drink table.

Mike and Sandi were our BBQ and Kabob king and queen! They were amazing!

The finished plates.

The Team!

2008-02-07T21:40:00.002-08:00

top - Garrett, Corey, Liam, Garrett
middle - Donovan, Michael, Brandon, Austin, Chloe
bottom - Lisa, Brian, Amanda, Nathaniel
missing - Kim

Here is our Argentina Team! We are SO excited about how God is bringing us together and preparing us to head off on this huge journey.

Please continue to pray for us before our trip (which is in 7 weeks). Here are some ways we can use some prayer:

For God to prepare our hearts to serve and be served
For our fears and concerns to be surrendered to God
For Vacation Bible School Preparations
For details for the trip to come together
For Mark, Aly & Alex (our hosts & missionaries)
For our "taste of Argentina" fundraising dinner on Feb 23

Our Mission Trip is HAPPENING!

2008-01-15T11:18:00.000-08:00

ARGENTINA, HERE WE COME!
Montecito Covenant Church is sending 10 students and 4 leaders to Argentina from March 26 - April 6, 2008. We are SO excited about the partnership with our Covenant Missionaries, Mark and Aly Westlind from Buenos Aires.

We will be helping to do construction on a Covenant property in Bernardo de Irigoyen, which is in Santa Fe, just six hours north west of Buenos Aires. We will also be meeting with Covenant Churches, possibly working with children in the communities, and providing any help that Mark and Aly need in their offices.

Please pray for our team and leaders:
Mark and Aly Westlind
Lisa Holmlund, Liam Murphy, Kim Crawford, Garrett Fujiwara, Chloe Eaton, Amanda Nelson, Garrett Prather, Nathaniel Taylor, Corey O'Hara, Donovan Fisk, Brandon Malde-Zoradi, Austin Malde-Zoradi, Brian Peters, & Michael Tro

Our trip from LAX will be about 16 hours of travel each way!
Our total team budget that we are raising is about $34,000
this includes about $5,000 in construction costs!

Meet our awesome missionaries, Mark and Aly Westlind!