across the river/cruzar el río

well, about a week ago I arrived in the home of the lovely Richline family to begin what is officially called working as a Missionary Associate through the OPC church. Reflecting on how I ended up in this place at this time shows me God´s providence and planning. In this post I hope to give a little context on how I ended up here in Uruguay and what I hope to be doing here.

The Background: I had run into a scheduling conflict sometime last fall while planning my study abroad time and found a way to spend as much time in South America as possible following a suggestion from the lovely French professor at Grace to start looking for some sort of internship during the summer break. The subject came up at church and my pastor suggested applying to work as a missionary associate in Montevideo, Uruguay, right across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires.

map credits:
south america: http://espanol.vacationstogo.com/cruise_port/Isla_de_la_Plata__Ecuador.cfm
rio de la plata: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%ADo_de_la_Plata



Soooo, I applied for the position and by the grace of God, the Richline family and the OPC Foreign Missions Committee, was accepted.

I had the opportunity to visit the family for a weekend around the end of October, and this just fed even more my excitement for living with them. You can read more about that in previous posts.

The Characters with whom I will be working: (pictures to come)
-The Richline's (American Missionaries - OPC): Mark and Jeni and their kids Sabrina, Josh, Julia and Isaiah
-The Call's (American Missionaries - PCA): Ray and Michelle and the kids Rebekah, Jeremiah, Ana Grace, John, Daniel, Christina, Peter
-The Rolim's (Brazilian Missionaries) : Mauricio and Sandra and the kids Calebe and Ana Tereza
-And finally, the members of La Iglesia Presbiteriana del Uruguay or, the Presbyterian Church of Uruguay.

The Job:
To give a broad idea... I will will be attending the church functions, possibly teaching a few Sunday school classes in Spanish, house and dog-sitting for the Richlines with Rebekah Call my awesome roomie while they are on vacation in the US for four weeks, celebrating Christmas with the Calls and helping them settle in as they just moved into a new house, tutoring the Call kids in Spanish, doing some basic cultural observation and processing that information, and helping plan VBS which is in February, among whatever other odd jobs my bosses give me. It will be a workload, but I am pumped to have the opportunity to be of use here in Montevideo. I'm really hoping for a few solid beach days thrown in there too, as the city is surrounded by playa (beach).

Prayer Requests:
- for safety in many travels, the Richlines in the US for a month and the Rolims going back to Brasil on furlough until March.
-for safety, wisdom, responsibility and trust in God for Rebekah and I as we learn how to clean, cook and shop for ourselves and basically take care of a house and dog, thankfully we have Flechita (the dog) to scare off any potential trespassers.
-for the growth of a sister church plant in Mercedes, about a 3 hour drive from Montevideo
-for the church members here in Montevideo, for their growth in the knowledge and grace of God, their kindness has already made a huge impression on me!
-for me, that I would learn dependence on God conducting a lot of stuff in a second language and in doing some things I have never done before, as well as continual perseverance in learning the language.
-for the Calls as they settle in, that they would quickly learn the culture and how to get around and how to speak the new accent
-for the future church plant in Montevideo that the Call's and Richline's will be starting, and trust that this is the plan of God.
-for two things that I am learning to be very important in the church and am excited to see taking place here: humility and unity. (John 17, Jesus prayed that the church may be one so that the world would recognize that Jesus was sent by God - vs. 20-23 and Philippians 2 putting others needs before ourselves following the humility of Christ)

La Comida

                                                             

This entry is going to be solely dedicated to one of my favorite things: food. Since I don't really know how to describe or share the smells of every amazing food I have tasted I figured I would just share a bunch of pictures and a few short descriptions with you all.

I already told you a little about mate in the first entry, but here is something new! Tereré. It is a Paraguayan drink. The real stuff is the mate yerba (tea leaves) with ice cold water and a little bit of mint leaf. My host mom showed me a new way to do it that I cannot get enough of on hot days: with juice. so refreshing!

with medialunas 

Milanesa, something very porteño-thankfully it exists in Uruguay too. Milanesa a la napolitana is the best, it has ham, cheese and a tomato sauce. riquisima! I actually did learn the story behind this one in school the first week I was here. Apparently a man at a restaurant ordered a regular milanesa and the chef´s assistant burned it, so he covered the mistake by adding the toppings and served it to the costumer, who loved it! (photo credit: google images - http://ar.letsbonus.com/buenos-aires-centro/milanesa-napolitana-fugazzetta-o-capresse-p-2-213789)

Medialunas, aka sweet crescent rolls, perfect for any time of day, but i have them every single day for breakfast with dulce de leche (a wonderful concoction, like the south american version of nutella or peanut butter but with a flavor of its own)

the cafe´s here are beautiful, there are so many and each one is unique if you get outside of the chain one´s like Havannah, Cafe Martinez and Starbucks. 

 

Pastafrola and Sopaparaguaya, two Marí specialties that get me drooling. Pastafrola is a sweet pastry that you can fill with plum, apple, or sweet potato type fruits. We eat this for breakfast or Merienda. Sopaparaguaya is made with eggs, vegetables, cheese and flour. I really can´t compare it to anything in the US, but she taught me the recipe so hopefully I can do it justice when I return! 

Here´s a fun fact: apparently Buenos Aires has the only Kosher Mcdonald's outside of Israel. I don't know if that's true or not, but after passing three Mcdonald's and eating at one of them plus a kilo of ice cream for four, we didn't have room for another meal once we finally found this hidden treasure. I plan to return and actually eat something that follows all the dietary rules of the Torah just to say I did it.

welp, that is all i got for now! there will probably be more to come...

parent's visit

hey everyone!

I guess its about time to update this thing....

This is the last week in Buenos Aires before stage two of this adventuring thing. Tomorrow (Friday) is my last day of class, an oral final that will only last about 4 minutes, Saturday is a ballet performance by Gulia, José and Marí´s grandaughter, Monday night I take an overnight bus for Montevideo, Wednesday night Laura and Victoria fly back to the US. It really doesn't seem real. The truth is I spent the entire afternoon practicing for the final and watching Spanish youtube videos to practice my pronunciation and learn what the youth are saying these days, It was kind of pathetic.

OH! One pretty sweet thing, my parents visited last weekend for a few days. Dad was only able to stay for the weekend, but Mom and I enjoyed the easy life sitting by the hotel pool and walking around and just catching up on life and being friends. That's one thing I like about growing up. The first night we went to a wonderful restaurant called El Establo and my parents got to experience the inconsistency of nighttime public transportation matched with my lack of any sense of direction, but, in the end, we made it there and enjoyed wonderful food and probably the best service I've had at a restaurant. The waiter was actually from my neighborhood, which was kinda cool. (Ever since serving this summer I evaluate every restaurant I go to... watch out world. :)

Saturday we went to La Boca, one of my favorite neighborhoods and actually quite touristy where we went which is called El Camino.  It is full of colors and art and has a really relaxed atmosphere. We enjoyed our time chatting with Laura and Victoria. La Boca has a history of Italian immigrants and one of the two opposing soccer teams (River and Boca are the two mortal enemies of Buenos Aires futbol.) Because of this, you can just taste the passion in the air <- how poetic. But its true. I want to get to know better the people that live and work there, what life is like outside of the touristy hours.
 

One of my favorite parts about their visit was Sunday night when they came to the apartment to have dinner and I got to play the part of translator. I LOVED doing this. Something about helping people understand each other, who wouldn't be really able to know much about each other's lives otherwise is freakin' awesome. I loved having the chance to explain cultural things to both sides and practicing thinking on the spot of translations. this also showed me how much more I have to learn in Spanish. It was  a lot easier to take the Spanish idea and turn it into English than the other way around. The other thing about translating that I realized is the responsibility to do it correctly, to get across exactly what someone wants to say. You are influencing one person's perception of another based on what they say. This is crazy to think about. It inspires me to want to improve my Spanish even more. Besides this, it was also sweet to be able to see the love and respect that both sets of parents had for each other without really saying it. My parents left a little more assured that I was in a good place and my host parents got to know a huge part of my life at home.

 

The whole idea of this thing we call FAMILY is actually pretty special. Nothing is perfect but I am SO thankful for what I have.