Amistad... and the next great adventure

Well, the time has come for the start of another adventure.  For those of you who don’t know I am starting the trek back home from Argentina… but won’t be returning until about the 15^th of March.  Yesterday I started my journey from La Plata, Argentina and made my way to Puerto Iguazu, Argentina.  Tomorrow I will going to Iguazu Falls which is right on the border of Brazil and Argentina.   

Florianapolis!

 Following this I will be making my way to Brazil to spend some time with friends until the 10^th of January.  This means Christmas and New years will be spent in Brazil; Christmas in Florianopolis and New Years in Copa Cabana.   

Copacabana - New Year's Eve!

                                                 

Following Brazil we will be flying to Colombia, then we will be taking a boat from Colombia to Panama, then Ojala (Lord Willing) we will travel up by bus through Central America and back to the motherland. 

I will be traveling with 2 friends of mine… Craig another gringo from Texas and Guille an Argentine.  We are excited and can’t wait for this experience of a lifetime.  I will be keeping my blog better updated than it has been and keep you all posted   on the wild adventures that we will be having. 

For those of you who have followed my blog you will know I have done a poor job at keeping it updated during my time here in Argentina.  Before I move on to new wild adventures… there is still so much I need to say about my experience in Argentina.  So much happened to me, I learned so much while I was there, but the past few months I simply wasn’t able to get what I was thinking and learning out in written form.  I am hoping that this time I have traveling will allow me to process what happened and what I learned during my time there.  The past few weeks I have been trying to process all I have learned because everyone asked me, ‘so what do you think about argentina now?’   or  ‘what did you learn down here?’  these are all really good questions… and I think the best way to answer that at this point in time is friendship!  Amistad (as they call it in Spanish).  That word means so much here in this culture.  People just like to be with people…   This stuck out to me the as soon as I got here and I continued to learn more about this every day.  My last week in La Plata was like a week long going away party.  We had an initial party… then people had me over for dinner, and gave me gifts and it really impacted me at how much people cared for me.  As I left the from the bus station yesterday… about 12 of my friends came to see me off.  They met me there just to watch me leave.  This is something that Argentine’s do very well… Show one another love.  

I don’t have the words right now to express how much Argentina has impacted my life.  I like to say it was like living in a Cold Desert, because when I arrived it was freezing and La Plata didn’t offer many things to do… but if forced me to slow down, look in the mirror at who I really am, allow the Lord to start a molding process.  But as you and I both know, before any remodeling can take place, things need to be broken… and that’s exactly what Argentina was for me.  I have been extremely uncomfortable, vulnerable, fragile, unsure and yet so full of life.  It has been a time of learning… so much learning.  I have seen the Lord work in such mighty ways, in ways I have never seen or experienced before.  I have seen my weaknesses and how helpless I am without the Father.  I have seen my desperate need for Lord… I have been confronted with my depravity and have never been so thankful and yet undeserving of the love and grace that He floods us with. 

I have been confronted with the simplicity of the Gospel… a glimpse of what it looks like to live in community… simply loving one another.  A good friend of my Jonathan has taught me so much about this.  I have seen the way he simply loves people… and its obvious that it is directly from the Lord.  He doesn’t care who you are or what you like to do, he just likes to be with you.  The way he simply loves people has taught me so much.  I wonder what would happen if we as Christians learned what this really means, not creating the next best organization or church, but simply being the hands and feet of Jesus loving people… allowing it to become a way of life. 

Thanks to all of you who have been involved during this process in Argentina.  You have all had a significant impact in my life and I can’t thank you enough.

Until next time Argentina...