Finishing Itineration

 

Funerals in Argentina

When someone dies in Argentina, the culture is different than in the United States.  When a person dies, within a few hours a wake starts.  It is a non-stop, roughly 20 hour wake (it can be less, depending on the family).  For example, a sweet lady, 80 years old, died at 8:30 pm.  Her body was prepared, arranged, and sent to a funeral home for the wake to begin at midnight.  The body is placed in the casket without embalming fluid.  People come and go throughout the vigil until the ceremony to place the lid on the casket.  In this case the ceremony was at 4:30 pm.  The family was there the whole night.  She was transported at 5 pm and buried at 5:30 pm.  The whole process is less than 24 hours because the body is slowly decomposing during this process.  

Im-Pacto de Fe Baptism

Last weekend, the church Im-Pacto de Fe (that we helped to plant) had a church service / picnic.  We baptized 6 people in a small creek - these were huge decisions to follow Christ, decisions that were not taken lightly.  We had a wonderful time!

Getting Ready ...

Yesterday, we headed up to a small town north of the capital city of Jujuy.  Volcán, Jujuy is a town of about 2,500 people. We will be having an evangelistic campaign at the end of March, during "semana santa" (Holy Week) leading up to Easter on April 1st.  Pray with us that God will continue to open doors in this small town and open hearts.  

Knives & Blankets

Everyday life always has it's ups and downs.  Chris was recently invited to speak at a church's first (ever) missions service / convention.  He did an amazing job!  But after service went outside to find that one of our car's tires had been punctured by a knife.  So, he got all of the stuff out to change it (and put on the spare) - in his nice dress clothes, of course.  After he had finished, a few more people were coming out of the church.  Another pastor found that his van had not one, but two flat tires that had been cut with a knife as well.  This is a problem, since no one carries TWO spare tires.  So, they started calling around trying to find a tire repair place that was open - even walked around town a little trying to knock on doors.  No one was open / available.  Which really wasn't surprising since it was 1 am early Sunday morning.  The pastor called his car insurance and they said that they would send someone "right out" and that it would take 2 hours (or possibly more) since the only available towing company would have to come from the neighboring capital city of Salta.  Chris finally got home around 3 am and the pastor (to his house) around 5 am.

While Chris was gone, I needed to get ready for a baby shower the next day.  With limited funds, we are always creative in what we give to people.  I made (from leftover materials) this pink fleece baby blanket with purple trim.  We are praying that things go well for this young couple with their first baby.  We could only stay at the baby shower (which was an all night event) for a short time because then we were headed to the 43rd anniversary  of the church, Templo Buenas Nuevas.  

The anniversary service was great!  We enjoyed a wonderful guest speaker, our presbyter from Salta, and tasty food prepared by the ladies of the church.  It was chilly that night, since we are at the end of the fall season.  God is continuing to move here in Jujuy!  Continue to pray with us and for us for more salvations and health as we travel. 

New Church Location

We wanted to give you an idea of where our next church plant will be... The building in the top picture is a house that the kid's club has been meeting in and the picture on the left is the stairs leading up to it.  The stairs are one of the first things that will need to be repaired (especially when it rains) before we can have an adult service.  The living room, in the small pictures below, is a great start for a meeting room, but is very limited in its capacity.  There is an open area (like a soccer field) where the kids can play; this area is right next to the river, but since they all live next to it, it's not a problem (except during the flood stage).  The last two pictures are of the road leading into this community and a video of the kids playing (just to give you an idea of what it's like).  Not all of the kids stayed to play and the pictures I took of the living room were taken before most of the kids arrived.  Pray as we start ministering in this area!

Newspaper Advertisements

We wanted to share with you some random pictures from our daily newspaper, to give you an idea of what the people here see each day.  These are advertisements for witches, red magic, black magic, tarot cards, mystics, fortune tellers, and other ways to get a miracle.  The other half of this section of advertisements deals with the sex trade, but we chose to not include those ads.  

Pray for the people of Jujuy!