Friday Morning

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

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

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

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...

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

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...

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...