The Way home.

We have been back in the states for about a week now. It felt like a long six weeks and about halfway through I was really ready to be back. But by the end I was wishing we didn't have to go home. I think I was just getting used to Argentine culture. I expected to have some reverse culture shock coming back into the US but it really only lasted a day or two.  The most shocking things were that everyone spoke English, all the currency was in dollars, it's hot and humid here, and people (strangers) aren't as friendly. Driving a car was weird too. Actually, the weirdest thing might be being away from the awesome people I was with and grew close to this summer.

What impact did our Summer Project have? I think only God knows the full impact of our project (he's in control anyway). But here are some statistics to give you an idea.

• We told and invited a lot of people to Vida Estudiantil
• We handed out a lot of flyers
• We did a lot of follow up with new believers
• We did service projects that helped gain the University's favor toward Vida Estudiantil
• We had more than a thousand spiritual conversations with Argentines, many of which may have helped them to overcome some obstacle to accepting Christ.
• Our project shared the Gospel 638 times
• 26 people that we shared the Gospel with accepted Jesus into their lives!

Looking with hindsight, I can see that God wanted everyone of us there for the exact amount of time we were there. I say this because we had 26 students on our project and exactly 26 people accepted Christ! And even on the very last day we did ministry, 3 people accepted Christ. He was perfectly in control.

I think that's the biggest thing I'm taking away from the project: that God is in control. His plan is good, better than my own plans, and his plan will be done even when, while the plan is unfolding, we don't see it or understand it. I learned that God can even use me to bring about his plan.
I don't think I have any regrets from the trip. The second week we were there, our project staff had us write down what we wanted to see and how we wanted to be used. I looked back over this since returning and everything I wrote down came to pass. Awesome.

And now that I'm finally back in the States I can post some pictures:

Exterior of the campus I was on.

The library where we did most of our surveys

the view from my hotel window

on a boat in Tigre

'Our North is the South'

There's a few pictures; I have a lot more on Facebook. Thanks for reading this blog!

Gestures

I know, I know. I've been back for a few days and I haven't posted anything since. I apologize.
Here are some fun Argentine hand-gestures to hold you over. I only saw or used like 5 of these and they even forgot some of the fun ones.
Part 1: I saw the 'ojo' (which means, "I see what you're doing"), and the 'ok' symbol one
http://www.seashellsandsunflowers.com/2010/03/argentine-hand-gestures.html
Part 2: I saw the 'chin flick' (que se yo?), and the 'what the heck are you doing',
http://www.seashellsandsunflowers.com/2011/03/more-argentine-hand-gestures.html 
They didn't include the ones for ' there's a thief around' or 'it's ok'

decelerating

We have one day left on campus. I can't believe we are so close to being done. On Saturday, the 25th our team will leave for debriefing in Uruguay.
Today we walked home from campus in the thunder and pouring rain knowing we'd only have one more day to do our work here. It's sobering to ask myself if I've used my time well here. There is just so much work to be done in this 14 million person city.
A cool story: Last week Aaron and I decided we'd have one more conversation on campus. Aaron took off before I could even gather my things and approached a guy named Pablo. Pablo was really friendly. We talked too him for a really long time and started to share the gospel with him. He told us he used to always turn away people who wanted to talk with him about religion, but that he's been more interested and seeking more recently. We explained to him that it is not works that saves him and that our sin is payed for on the Cross through Jesus' perfect sacrifice. He still didn't get it. So we explained it again... and he got it! He said he wanted Jesus to come into his life but he had to think about it more. We arranged  to meet with him again last Friday. So we met with him at Subway and he told us that later that night when we talked to him he had prayed and asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. It was awesome! I've never had the chance to be a part of leading someone to Christ before then, and it was such a joyful thing.

Fun: On Monday it was Flag Day, a national holiday. So, the whole team took a bus and visited La Plata. It's a much much smaller town where a lot of people I know who had been on Summer Project in Argentina in the past were based. We went to the plaza at the heart of town, walled in on one side by a massive cathedral. We went inside. It was so massive and quiet and holy feeling. I love cathedrals. This morning I went with three others to the Buenos Aires Zoo. It was a lot of fun and the animals were all really lively (pictures  and a video of the lion cubs wrestling, coming soon).

Today I was writing down the things I have learned in the past six weeks. It was a long list and until I started writing them down I hadn't realized the change.

Please pray for our last day on campus and our last few days in Argentina. Thanks!

El Tigre

I really, really wish I had brought my cord so I could upload my pictures.
This post isn't really about ministry.
The staff have been really awesome about listening to our needs (particularly for sleep and rest) and balancing them with the goal of the trip-to share the gospel as much as possible. So, today was a totally free day. I went with a few other people to Tigre. It's a place about an hour by train north of the city along the river. It was a beautiful day today (in the upper 50's!) and a great day for an excursion. We bought tickets for a boat ride to a small island about half an hour down the river. We had some awesome food there and got to explore the island for a little while. On the boat ride back the sun was setting. After being cooped-up in a skyscraper canyon for weeks, getting among some trees, and in places you can see the whole sky, and out on the water was amazing.
When we do picture surveys with Argentines and we ask them what they wish were a part of their lives they always choose pictures of nature, and after being in BA this long, I can see why. Almost all the Argentines always say they experience God in nature. It can be a little annoying that person after person picks the exact same picture to represent God, but after today and seeing again the beauty in nature, I think I understand a little better. Sitting on the boat with your head out the window and your fingers scraping the wake from the boat, with the sun setting over the Paraná river... its hard not to see God. Romans 1:19-20

Middle of the road

We are half way through our time here in Buenos Aires. In some ways it feels like it has gone really fast but in a lot of ways it seems like the first day we got here was soo long ago. We are finally getting into our schedule, people have stopped getting sick, and we're all starting to get used to Argentine culture. We are spending around 25 hours a week at our respective campuses and it can be exhausting at times. I'm finally getting to the point where I know my way around the labrythine, hogwarts like campus. I wish I could post pictures now, but it'll have to wait until I get back.
Ministry has been getting better and better. I have never spent this much time before talking to students (most of whom only speak a little English) about what they believe and sharing the gospel this much. Early last week I was just getting really exhausted. Last Wednesday I hit my lowest point when I woke up thinking, ''why am I even here?'' I was feeling like I had only really come on the trip because I had started sending out letters and started raising support and it would be embarrassing to send out other letters that said I'm actually not going to go. I prayed about it a lot that morning and later when we went on campus I was feeling a lot more calm and confident that I was supposed to be here. A friend and I were talking to a guy and sharing the gospel later, and she was leading this one while I was praying and supporting. And it jut hit me then that 'this' is why I am here. To share or to proclaim the gospel. That it doesn't matter what successes or failures I see but just that I am telling people that God loves them, that he sent his son to die for them, to save them from their sins to enable them to have a relationship with him. 'While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' This is why I am here.
Two stories:
     A week ago, Erica and I talked to a guy named Augustin. We shared the gospel with him and he was really receptive. He had to go so we gave him a 'Four Spiritual Laws' Gospel tract/pamphlet (which are totally normal here and people seem to like them a lot more than in the States) and hoped to meet up with him again. Later I was in the cafeteria and I saw him across the room, reading the tract. As he was leaving I waved at him and he came over and told me, 'This is very interesting, I'm reading it again.'
     On Monday, Steven and I talked to a guy named Ricardo. He told us he was shy and not very sociable which is weird for an Argentine. The conversation went well and we asked if we could share what we thought. We shared the gospel with him and he was following along with us really well and agreeing with everything we said. We finally asked if he wanted to pray to give his life to Christ, and he said 'yes.' And then we kind of sat there for a second and I asked if he wanted to do that now, and he said 'no.' I'm hoping we can meet with him again.
These past three weeks have been awesome and challenging and completely the opposite of how last summer's Summer Project was. Please pray for me and for the entire team.
Some things I miss from the US: Napkins that actually absorb stuff, understanding what everyone is saying, peanut butter, having a car, having a cell phone/computer/internet access, getting refills at restaurants, vegetables
Things I really like about here: mate (its a drink, kinda like tea that everyone drinks pronounced mah-te), public transportation (subway), everyone is really friendly, people are eager to share what they have, that its not 95 degrees and super humid, that people don't worry about political correctness.
Thanks for reading!

Half-way

Sorry, I haven't posted anything in a while. I'll try to post soon.

El camino

We made it to Argentina.
 I really expected to actually feel like I was on another continent and half way across the world. I'm not exactly sure what feeling I expected but it really didn't feel that weird when we arrived. Buenos Aires is a massive city that keeps on sprawling. I'm having a hard time picturing the city because there's no one place where you can get a good view of it.
The food is different. The Argentine food pyramid has three levels: cheese, meat, and bread. And maybe fruit for breakfast. People drive really crazy here. The lanes are just suggestions and mopeds and motorcycles swerve between cars instead of staying in their lanes. Lots of honking all the time.
I know a tiny bit of Spanish (they call their dialect Castellano) but definitely not as much as I thought. I really wish I knew it better. I have had lots of chances to practice. Yesterday I talked with an Argentine from Vida Estudiantil (the Campus Crusade for Christ of Argentina) for like 45 minutes in Spanish although he was talking very slow.
The people here are awesome. Everyone is friendly, the personal bubble is way smaller, and people share everything. One of my teammates and I were talking to a student we had met maybe 5 minutes earlier and he offered us to drink from his half finished Sprite bottle. Instead of shaking hands when you meet someone, you beso. It means kiss and you go right cheek to right cheek with them. You beso your friends and all of their friends who are there, too. Even guy to guy... haha.

Ministry:
   Our team of 36 is split on to 6 campuses of the University of Buenos Aires. I'm on the Economics campus which is about an 8 block walk from our hotel. We have been going there and doing surveys called Soularium which is a great way to start spiritual conversations with students. After the survey, if they are interested we share the Gospel. Our team has the goal of sharing the Gospel 1500 times during our six weeks here. Thats a lot. And the language can be a big barrier. It can be discouraging walking up to student after student and getting a ''no'' to the question of if they speak English over and over. But when we do find english speakers, the conversations have been really good. Argentines love to meet new people, share their opinions about life and God and they love to hear what other people think, too. Here's some cool stories about ministry so far. On Monday, me and another student, Steven, were talking to a guy who didn't really agree with much of what we said. He had a class coming up and he said, "I really like talking about this stuff with you all, can we meet again on Thursday?" And then on yesterday, Erica and I talked to a guy who had never heard the Gospel before and he was really interested and asked a lot of questions. We gave him a gospel tract. Later I was in the cafeteria with someother guys from Summer Project and I saw him across the room reading the booklet. As he was leaving I waved at him and he came over and said " this is very interesting, I'm reading this again." Awesome. Just those two conversations were really encouraging.


This is all I have time for tonight. I'm having a lot of fun too, and exploring the city as much as possible. Thank you to everyone who supported me to help me get here! 

Preparations

Its almost here. May 16th is only hours away. In 24 hours our team will all be in Miami. In 36 hours we'll be flying somewhere over Brazil. And in 36 hours and 50 minutes we will finally be on the ground in Buenos Aires.

     It has been a long time coming. I first thought I might want to go on a Summer Project last spring (2010). Last summer I went on a stateside Summer Project in Vail, Colorado (here's the blog from that:  http://vailsp2010.blogspot.com/). It was amazing and I definitely wanted to do something like it again. I talked to several people who had been on International Summer Projects. It sounded a lot different but, if it's possible, even better than stateside project. The focus in International Summer Projects is a lot more about evangelism which wasn't a huge focus last year (it was definitely part of it but personal growth was emphasized). I finally decided for sure that I wanted to go in January after the Encounter conference. Then I had to figure out where to go. My first thought was East Asia but I couldn't think of a lot of good reasons to go there except for just wanting to. I was encouraged to go Argentina because it is the University of Louisville's partner location and they depend on us to send summer project-ers there. I ended up choosing Argentina and I'm glad I did.
     Then there was support raising. It's called Summer Project but a lot of the time it felt like a Spring project too. Raising the money was a lot more work than I thought it would be and it stressed me out. I was seriously worried I wouldn't get enough money in and then I would have to (ashamedly) return the money that people had sent to me. But the Lord provides. In one way or another, all the money came in!
Classes have been over for two weeks now and May 16th has slowly crept closer. And now its here.

     I'll use this blog to keep you updated on how God is working, how he is bringing the Way, and the Truth, and the Life to Buenos Aires. We aren't going to have a lot of internet access there so I probably will only be able to post like once every week at the most. And pictures won't be up here or on Facebook until I get back.
Please pray for me, our team, our travel, and all the Argentines we'll be meeting in the next six weeks. Thanks