This week, we were not looking forward
to an-even-quieter compound. Carlos & Robin Radi and their 3
girls left on Monday for their 3-month Home Assignment. And Sarah, on
Tuesday, started to distribute the things she would not be taking
home; she’s going back to Ohio to stay. While we wish she was
sticking around, we benefited greatly with additional baking dishes
and foodstuffs. Wednesday, she added more things for us to use and
some to store for the next missionary… She has been here for 4
years, this stint, and has been a wealth of information about living
here in Pilar! It will be so strange not having her next door and
available to ask advice… she’s nuts about Argentina!
Dan and Thea have been working on a
project to gather accurate address information to send Christmas
cards from the Regional Director to General and Regional leaders,
friends (in both South America and the US) and district
superintendents around the SAM Region. Friday was a particularly
crazy day for them as they fought with the data, formatting issues
and lots of other details. Only God held things together!
Earlier Friday afternoon, Patricia had
asked if we’d be home in the evening. (She and her husband German
are filling in for Carlos and Noemi, the facilities managers who
are spending Christmas vacation with their family in the States.)
Patricia and her family were going out for the evening and a
gentleman from the church we attend was scheduled to deliver 50
chickens to the compound for the church’s Cena de Navidad
(Christmas banquet – next Friday)! She and I had walked around the
compound in the afternoon, inspecting which freezers we might use (in
places not being rented or lived in just now), so I was ready with a
list and some keys! The guard at the gatehouse was instructed to
direct the man to our A-frame house and, with windows open anyway, we
heard the car outside around 10:00 pm. I introduced them to mi
esposo (my husband) and we started off to fill the first freezer!
It was funny how we managed to communicate with our limited Spanish,
as we helped unload 50 fresh chickens (in plastic bags, ready to
bake) from the back of their small car into 3 different freezers! We
had fun, though, with Señor Coehlo, his esposa(wife)
and little nieto
(grandson). As they were ready to leave, we all washed our hands and
I gave them some cookies for their ride home. It’s little
experiences like this that bring us some new friends!
Saturday, Dan continued to work on the
Christmas card data, finally getting it to a point where we called
Thea to come over and take a look at it. She came over and visited
for a couple of hours. She’s been here 2 weeks longer than we have
and has much more experience with Spanish. It’s good to compare
notes! She’s involved in a Bible study here and she spends time on
her computer in conversation with her parents and with her boyfriend
back in the States. We’ve always got each other, but it’s easy to
forget that she might get lonely here.
This week is the first of several
Sundays during the summer break from school and, therefore, Sunday
School as well. So there’s nothing until evening… weird Sunday!
But this is Promotion Sunday, so the service will have lots of extra
music and fun. In the meantime, we puttered around the house; Dan
put up his new (from Sarah) hammock and we spent some time in the sun
in the back yard.
Inside, when Dan was working on his computer, he
didn’t even notice that I made empanadas for lunch – until he
started smelling the dough baking! A little after 6:30, we walked
out to the bus stop with Thea and watched as a red bus stopped just
past where we were waiting (we usually get on a blue public bus). It
was our church bus!! We ran to get on and continued the rest of the
route through a nearby neighborhood to pick up more people. (Thea had
just said she wasn’t sure if she had enough change to pay for the
bus ride home, and then we got a free ride!) The Bus Ministry kids’
parents have been invited to this service too. The church filled up
quickly and Dan went up to the balcony to take some photos. Lots of
church workers were honored and there was cake for everyone at the
end of the service! We were really hungry for dinner by then, though,
so we skipped the cake and caught a public bus for home!
No comments:
Post a Comment