Daily Happenings

Greetings to all!

I can't believe that it has been so long since I have seen all of you! It's been almost five six months already!! The Lord has been a blessing here to me in so many ways as I am sure he has been to all of you in Illinois. I am writing to you all tonight because I would like to share my “Argentine Life” with all of you.
It's been a very busy time here since class has started. I am now living in an apartment with a roommate and attending the mission seminar started by the Mennonite Church of Choele Choel. Elizabeth Nachtigal and I are breaking Arm In Arm history by being the first two North Americans in this mission seminary. It would be a lie if I said it has often been easy. Homework alone can be time consuming, especially because of the language factor. Late nights are not uncommon due to the tasks of daily life.
A lot of the things that consume my time are usually some meeting or other in the Church: out of my week nights, only two or three are free from having some sort of worship or meeting. But lets start with the week mornings, those are all pretty much the same, wake somewhere between eight or nine thirty to get ready for class. The cold mornings, and lack of a heated, or even insulated apartment make rising difficult at times. Ezequiel, my roommate (and Brother) spend time in individual prayer and devotion before class starts. We have class at ten until noon every day, except for the days when we have Juan Sieber, and then we have class from Nine to Eleven Thirty in the morning. Ezequiel and I do not have a lunch schedule, it just varies by day, and the level of our hunger. Some days we eat with his family, and some days we cook for ourselves. Every Thursday Frieda Herb cooks lunch for all of the Seminary Students (eight in all) and we are usually there until two or two thirty. Afternoons are spent in any of the following order; starting/completing homework, taking a siesta, doing devotions and praying individually or together, and going to Ezequiel's house to do laundry, watch TV, and use the internet. (Some afternoons involve all of the above, and in rare occasions none of the above; and the use of Luis and Mari's house for washing clothes and bathing is due to the fact that our apartment has no washing machine, heated water, or even a well functioning heater.) In the late afternoon, or early evening on Tuesdays and Thursdays Ezequiel and I go and pick up garbage in a neighborhood and work on making contacts with people in the zone, to continue spreading the good news to the people in the community. Also in the afternoons every Saturday that I am in Choele Choel I help lead worship in the praise team for the Saturday bible school in the west zone.
Evenings consist of helping lead the Monday evening Youth Prayer Meetings, a side class on the book of Hebrews every Tuesday evening at eight thirty, Church at eight on Wednesdays, with Thursday nights and Friday nights being my free nights to do the things that I need to do. Saturday and Sunday nights are spent in the youth meeting, and the general worship service respectively. All of the above is a general list of, “The Normal Schedule.”
Then there are the trips, this weekend makes it the ninth trip greater than two hundred kilometers that I have made in Argentina. Once again I went south with my Seminary class to visit Caleta Olivia and encourage the Brothers there. Along the way we stopped at Sierra Grande, Puerto Madryn, and Comodoro Rivadavia. I still have five more trips to make before returning home, so keep praying for me, especially for the energy and enthusiasm needed to travel. One trip will be used to travel to Buenos Aires so I can obtain a visa to travel to Paraguay, and I will also travel into Paraguay Lord willing to attend the Mennonite World Conference. Two days after that, Lord willing, I will be on United States soil once again, though not the nice rich black farm soil of Illinois.