Board meeting Friday night

Above are Stan Rowland, the founder of the CHE strategy, and his interpreter for the evening, Don ____. This photo was taken at last night´s first-ever board meeting for Comunidades Vivas, or Living Communities. The participants have varying skills, from doctors and veterinarians to a kindergarten teacher and a businessman.

Above are Silvia and Nora. Silvia is the OB/gyn physician with whom I hung out at her maternity hospital my first full day here.

I ended up not going to the meeting of the palliative care/hospice group. There was too much to get ready and pack for the urban training, and Marcelo also decided that I should be there for the entire board meeting. This was great because as people arrived, Stan (ever the teacher) related the exciting things going on with new urban CHE programs in the Phoenix area. Also, during the meeting I interpreted for Stan from Spanish to English.

LifeWind

Yippee -- e-mail access at the Kennedy´s! I will use it to tell you that on the bus ride I noted how ¨tall¨I am in Argentina. (I´m tall and blonde, by the way -- tee-hee!) Okay, I´m 5´7¨, but it seems the ¨semi-beds¨on the bus are made for shorter people. Ow, my aching back!

Thankfully, Annie wanted a nap this morning and even now is taking a siesta. I think I´ll join her. Over lunch we discussed the great importance of the siesta in a country where meetings start at 9 pm and supper is after that. She also shared with me what´s been going on at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association the last few years. I worked there with her and her husband from 1993 to 1995, and hadn´t really stayed in touch. Bill still works for them. Last year they moved back from the Philippines, and Bill is in Mexico right now. I will get to have lunch with him at the airport next Saturday -- he arrives the day I leave. What a precious couple! How delightful to be back in touch.

One more thing -- check out LifeWind International´s new site, http://www.lifewind.org/. They are my sending agency, and I just looked at their website and they really changed it up.

Travel

The below photo is the government building in the city of Tucuman. We stayed overnight in that city on our way to Burela, Salta. It has nothing to do with the post, but I thought it was pretty.

Tonight there is a meeting of a group of volunteers from the church Iglesia Jesucristo Rey that have been going to hospitals to talk with people on hospice. They already had a meeting scheduled for tonight but changed the time so that I could join them. They plan to each share what they have been doing in the hospital, and then want me to give them advice!

Now, those who know me know I love teaching and advice-giving :) but it is difficult to adequately do so with such limited information as I have about the hospital system here. For example, some members of the group already mentioned to me that some of the patients don´t have any family members to bring them food -- that is a problem that doesn´t occur in the US where the meals are part of the hospital bill. I had the opportunity on my first full day here to be with an OB/gyn physician at a maternity hospital -- very different.

After the church meeting I will come back to the Lopez´house briefly for the end of the first meeting of the newly formed/forming board of directors for ¨Comunidades Vivas,¨ or Living Communities, which is what LifeWind will be called in Argentina. Marcelo is in the process of getting official non-profit status for Living Communities in this country. The name was officially approved by the government this week. He is now working on getting tax-deductible status for all donations. Stan Rowland, the founder of the CHE concept, just arrived in Cordoba this afternoon and will be speaking to the board.

Tonight my bus for Buenos Aires leaves at 11:15 pm. The Urban Training of Trainers (TOT) will be Monday - Friday next week, and I fly back to Phoenix overnight on Saturday. I´m excited for the training as my supervisor, Bibiana, will be there in addition to Stan Rowland. I´m sure I will have great learning opportunities next week! After nearly 24 hours of traveling, Stan arrived in time for tea. Over tea he taught me so much about urban CHE, the relationship LifeWind has with Food for the Hungry and Harvest International both in Bolivia and Phoenix -- he´s a born teacher.

I arrive in Phoenix Sunday morning, 9/30, and some super-great friends will have brought my car to the airport so I can drive to San Diego that day for continuing medical education. Jenny and her family will be there for the conference and I will stay with my stepsister Karina.

I may not have e-mail access until October 5 or so.

Spring

Above is a photo of new leaves on a grapevine at the Lopez´house. Spring (remember, this is the southern hemisphere) has definitely come to Cordoba. Although it´s a big city with lots of pavement, there are trees which are budding beautifully all around. What a sight!

Any of you who have lived in another country know the mix of emotions. The cultural differences that are exciting one moment are frustrating the next: ¨What a great idea, buying yummy fresh bread every day, ¨ then ¨What a waste of time, going to the bakery every day.¨ That has been happening to me a lot lately. I thought I would have been over this by now, having moved so much. But now I seem to recall that it was still happening when I moved to Arizona three years ago. It takes awhile to adjust, and it is even more difficult when you don´t have your own apartment and you don´t have anyone to whom you can express your frustration.

Above is a picture of us eating arroz con pollo that Estela made -¡Qué rico! It is delightful to fellowship together. However, we have all been in this house together for a week now. I have been praying a lot through Psalm 133:

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!

It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes!

It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion!

For there the LORD has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.

What a seemingly exaggerated importance the psalmist gives to unity: precious oil, dew on the mountains of Zion. But really, how can we do what Psalm 135 suggests when our minds are at odds with our brothers and sisters?

Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing to his name, for it is pleasant!

Psalm 135:3

Please pray for Gabriel

Wow! Talk about moving fast! Irma and Bruno, a young couple from the village of Apolinario Savaria (near Burela, where the training occurred), built a Lorena oven this week! As I posted earlier, the remote village of Manantial is planning to use the oven as a seed project. Well, Irma and Bruno, even though they are from a different village, decided to try to make the first model just to see how it worked.

I got the above photo and the news about the oven from Gabriel, the pastor in Burela. He came to Cordoba today with his family, and will speak at Iglesia Jesucristo Rey´s missions conference this weekend. The other reason he came to town is that he has a significant heart problem and needed to see a cardiologist. He has no insurance. Today he went to see a Christian cardiologist who examined him for free. However, he needs an echocardiogram and this might cost a lot. He might need further studies or surgery after that. Please pray for his health. Tomorrow the Lopez family will help him seek an electrocardiogram.

In my earlier posts, I mentioned that Gabriel is the key contact in the area of Salta where things are really starting to move. He is the one who has contacts with three villages there and has also worked with the Wichi for years.

Youth

Cultural fact: at Iglesia Jesucristo Rey, one is part of the ¨youth group¨ from the age of 18 until married! This means that, at 36 years-old, I went to a youth group meeting today as a participant. I wonder -- since I am considered a youth, does this means my gray hairs will go away? Tee-hee! Below is a photo of me at least looking tall, if not particularly youthful.

Develt spoke to the youth group today about the church´s call to work with the poor, beginning in our own communities. As seems to be usual, we started gathering at 9:00 pm, had mate and pastries, started the meeting, finished at 10:30, talked for an hour, etc. -- suffice it to say it´s 1:00 am and I´m going to bed!

Cuarteto

Cultural fact: cuarteto is a traditional music of Córdoba, like the tango is for Buenos Aires. There is a wacky artist from Córdoba that writes only cuartetos, and is super-popular here -- La Mona Jiménez.

Well, last weekend was Felipe´s 17th birthday (Felipe Lopez, son of the couple that is hosting me here this month). He wanted to go to a La Mona concert. I decided to tag along for the cultural experience. The concert started at 2:00 am! It lasted until 4:30 am, but we left at the intermission since there is a history of violence outside the concerts. La Mona has photographers that go around and take pictures of people and then they are posted on the website. See below for the link to our photo. The guy in the middle of the picture is Felipe, with his sister Luz and some of his classmates around him. I am standing off to the right of the picture -- my face is covered by the title of the photo.

http://www.cmj.com.ar/elbaile/baile284/galeria06/foto_cmj_29.html

It was mostly a positive experience. I danced one of the cuartetos with Luz, and got to see a bit of nightlife that I don´t miss!

Awe

Wow -- I was praying today and I am beginning to realize how beautiful this new chapter in my life is. I was thinking about my responsibilities these past few weeks: to learn, encourage, pray, establish relationships here and grow in my current relationships. In the future I will also need to discern possibilities for new areas of ministry and follow them. This new chapter has so much of the unknown, including adapting to a new culture (several new sub-cultures, really), finding an apartment, figuring out how to travel here, and more. However, I feel like the past 20 years have prepared me for this time -- living in Italy for a year (which on the surface feels similar to this culture), learning Spanish, having a variety of jobs in and out of ministry, moving to a different state every few years, etc.

My friend Erin gave me a CD as she dropped me off at the airport earlier this month, and the first song is ¨Amazing Love¨ by the Newsboys. The chorus is:

Amazing love, how can it be that you, my king, should die for me?

Amazing love, I know it´s true that´s it´s my joy to honor you.

Truly, this life is full of wonder.

Trip to Buenos Aires

Image from www.argentina.gov.ar

Cultural fact: buses are apparently a very comfortable way to travel, and the seats even fold back like beds! I will have the opportunity to check this out on my way to Buenos Aires Friday night. I will arrive in Buenos Aires on Saturday morning and will meet Annie, a woman that I first met when I worked with her husband at the Billy Graham Evanglistic Association in 1993. It was through them that I first started receiving correspondence from the mission field, from Bibiana who is now my supervisor! They knew that I was interested both in medicine (that was before I had even taken the pre-requisite courses for medical school) and missions, and showed me her letters from Haiti.

Great opportunity: Bibiana arrives in Buenos Aires on Sunday morning, and has a meeting that morning with the Asociación Cristiana Uruguaya de Profesionales de Salud (ACUPS). I get to join in on the meeting, which is great since there may be opportunities in the future for work in both Uruguay and Chile. Uruguay borders Argentina to the northeast, and Chile extends along Argentina´s western border, separated by the Andes.

The village people are ready

As we share the stories of what is happening in Burela, Salta (yesterday there was a meeting of the missions team at Iglesia Jesucristo Rey among other opportunities), I contine to be amazed at how God is bringing things about. The people of the village of Burela are ready and excited about the work ahead.

Marcelo and others spoke with the ¨agentes sanitarios¨ in Burela, who are (I think) nurses paid by the government to go house to house and perform some public health work. What they told Marcelo was, ¨We need to do more than vaccinate. The majority of pregnancies we now see are among 14 - 15 year-olds!¨ They are ready to learn how to work in a more holistic way, even within a government framework. They have invited Marcelo to be a part of their semi-annual training which next occurs in December. Please pray for this opportunity.

Cultural fact: most programs in schools and churches stop for the summer, which is December through March. The new trainers in Burela are planning a ¨seed project¨for December 8, to coincide with the end of Sunday School and other programs. They are thinking of incorporating some teaching on combatting teenage drinking and domestic violence. Please pray for these plans and for the resources to carry them out.

The village of Manantial sent two people to the training last week. They took a five-hour tractor ride to come from this remote area! They are planning a seed project with the Lorena oven, a way for the villagers to use less firewood and keep the fire contained so that it does not cause burns. Please pray that they will learn how to make the oven and that they will be well-received within their village.

Please pray that a path will open to enter the different Wichi communites. Gabriel has formed a lot of relationships, but there are many obstacles. The Wichi that live in the town of Burela no longer speak Wichi and there is animosity between them and those who live in the forest. The other villagers look down on the Wichi. The Wichi look down on themselves and have been pushed down so long by others.

Speaking engagement

Very cool -- yesterday I was asked to speak at the Lopez´church. They wanted me to give my ¨testimony,¨which to them meant how I was called to missions. This was an amazing opportunity -- this church, Iglesia Jesucristo Rey (http://www.jesucristorey.org/), is 25 years old and has not yet sent out a missionary (they have given some support to one missionary over the years).

Last year, something wonderful happened -- both pastors and the church itself awoke to the idea of missions and the needs around them. They met Gabriel, the pastor in Burela, and sought ways to support his work. Next weekend they have a missions conference with several speakers from LifeWind. Yesterday I was able to give a preview: I spoke at the morning service and the evening service and spoke about holistic ministry throughout, since that is really my call. With my varied background of medicine, youth ministry, volunteering in homeless shelters and healing prayer teams, I was instantly attracted to the way that LifeWind operates.

Iglesia Jesucristo Rey seems like a great church. Marcelo asked if I thought I would start going there, and I think I will -- I didn´t want to ¨church shop,¨ and what I was looking for was basically just a church with sound doctrine. I have now been there twice and have really enjoyed both the teaching and the fellowship.

Fun fact: Argentines, at least the evangelicals in Cordoba, go to church on Sunday night, not Sunday morning. Iglesia Jesucristo Rey´s service starts at 7:30 pm and ends around 9:30. I did also speak at the morning service (10:30), but there weren´t very many people there. This is good because at the morning service I had pictures and an outline to work with, and I discovered that I cannot speak extemporaneously in Spanish! When I get lost it takes me several sentences to recover. So, I wrote out the entire talk for the evening service.

Cultural fact: pastors are not paid by the congregation. They tend to have full-time jobs and are pastors on the side. Apparently there is some bad history in this country of pastors using the congregation´s donations to enrich themselves, so it seems they have seriously responded the other way. The two pastors of Iglesia Jesucristo Rey are both doctors! There are a lot of professionals in the church, and it is really exciting to see them being mobilized to help their community and those around them.

Why

Above is a photo of a Wichi child in the community of Ebenezer. The Wichi recently lost most of their land to a national park. In the land now owned by the park they are not allowed to cut down trees to use for cooking fires, which in practice means that they cannot live there. Meanwhile, vast areas of forest are being cut down and burned for companies to use the land to plant crops.

Please pray for Gabriel, the pastor of the church in Burela. In addition to his pastoral function in two villages, he has worked with the Wichi for over ten years, doing what was needed at the moment -- legal representation, starting a school, even taking children into his home (upon request by their mother for a week of childcare while she went to a city -- she returned a year later without any communication in between). Sadly, most of the projects have been frustrated by various agencies. He is very excited about the LifeWind training. When we spoke with Donato, the cacique (leader) of the Ebenezer community, he invited us to come and start a project there. We are hoping to do a screening project in the community in February or March. Please pray that the community will be freed from their negative self-image, and be empowered to seek change. Pray for Donato, who is a Christian, that he will allow us into his community, and continue to see Gabriel and now LifeWind as being different than so many others who came in offering help only to abandon the community and leave them in worse conditions.

During the training of trainers held last week in the nearby village of Burela, a few of the participants mentioned the indigenous people in the area as being part of the community. This step is huge as there is an enormous divide between the indigenous people and the ¨criollos,¨or mixed Argentineans. This divide exists even in the church. Please pray for the Christians in Burela and the nearby village of Apolinario Saravia, for their hearts to be broken by the condition of the indigenous people, and to recognize them as their brothers and sisters.

Above is a photo of a community within Apolinario Saravia, the village near Burela. This community was formerly mostly Wichi, but is now nearly entirely made up of Bolivian immigrants. The majority of people in Bolivia are indigenous, primarily Aymara and Quechua.

Training of Trainers

This past week we held a ¨training of trainers¨in the village of Burela, Salta Province, which is in the north of Argentina. A few months ago a ¨vision seminar¨was held there which showed a lot of interest in community change. A ¨seed project¨was completed last month which brought a lot of community issues to light. They elected to have a psychologist come in to their community to do some teaching and see patients. This one-day event exposed the severity of some problems that were known to the community but not recognized before as so wide-spread: abuse within families, school drop-outs, sexual abuse, and excessive alcohol use among young people.

Above you see Rosa, a 17 year-old girl who became a Christian a few months ago. I love this photo, because it shows how much fun the training was. The participants, or ¨trainers,¨will be equipped to be a team to train workers in holistic transformation for their community. They will also facilitate the village choosing a committee of respected leaders who will choose the community workers (CHEs) and select what projects they will pursue.
In this photo you see Don José, the owner of a grocery store in the neighboring village. He just learned how to do a project (making a paper airplane!) and is teaching this to others then teach others. The training is very practical and participatory. This way, when the trainers train the CHEs, who usually have less education than the trainers, they will be prepared to teach them in a way that works well for adult learners.
Above is hot water, which was kept ready all day long outside the training site for those who want to make mate. As those in the Outer Limit at Epic know, mate is the green tea drunk in a communal cup in Argentina (and southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay). Several guide books call it ´´an acquired taste.¨ The good news for me is that in this part of the country they add sugar to it, which really improves the taste!
This is a photo taken during one of the sessions. Don José is passing some crackers (made with lard, yum!), Irma is nursing her baby, Gabriela is drinking mate, Daniel looks forward to the crackers, and the daughter of one of the participants slipped in for a peek.
Above is a photo of one of the training´s facilitators, Estela, discussing one group´s project. Each group had several slips of paper with characteristics written on them. They then placed them in the categories of what would be a good, bad, or neutral characteristic of a community worker. This not only helps the group to realize what they know, it also helps them to learn to discuss their rationale and work together.

Estela is from Costa Rica, but is currently working with her Haitian husband Develt in Bolivia. Develt is also in the photo above. They each worked in their home countries for years, then together in Haiti until they moved to Bolivia six months ago. When they moved there they were outfitted with an oxygen tank to get used to the altitude!

I am getting to know them well since they drove back with us to Cordoba yesterday and are also staying with the Lopez´until the urban training of trainers in Buenos Aires next week.
Yowza! Above are the 220 empanadas (and a pizza) made by the pastor´s wife´s mother with ingredients gathered from several participants. Empanadas are made throughout Argentina, and they have different ingredients depending on the province. These are salteñas, meaning they have beef, potatoes, herbs, and raisins. They were made over a wood oven, which is the only oven currently used in the small villages. The pastor actually had to leave the conference a few times to tend the fire when his mother-in-law was unable to. A lot of foreign companies are coming into the area. One of the positive benefits of this is that one of the companies is having pipelines placed to bring gas for its factory. The villagers will then be able to tap into this line and convert their wood-burning ovens to gas.

Basket weaving

The above is a photo of the Wichi community known as Ebenezer. They live a few miles from the village of Burela, where our training was held this past week. You can see one of their houses, the open pit fire which is used for all of their cooking, and the close proximity of their dogs and cats. On the above right are some drying fibers taken from the chagua plant (below). Doña Marta, the wife of the cacique (community leader), plucked and stripped one of the leaves to show us how they extract the fiber. Below she is showing what it looks like before and after braiding.
Donato, the cacique, shows us the way the fiber is colored. The orange color comes from bark that is boiled in the pot below. The black color comes from the seed pod of the guayacán tree.

I now have a lovely purse and decorative box made from this fiber, for which a ridiculously low price was asked. As you can see, there is a lot of labor involved. Perhaps with some micro-enterprise training the Wichi will be able to request a more appropriate price that reflects the time-consuming process!

Project MedSend

Many of you have asked about funding. Medical school is very expensive, and I graduated with $70,000 in debt and owing three years of work in an underserved area. Over the past six years I have paid $1000 per month to pay off the debt and completed three years as the only physician at an immigration detention center in Arizona. I still have over $22,000 in debt.

This is where Project MedSend steps in -- an organization formed at the request of the Christian Medical Association, they pay off loans for people serving long-term on the mission field as long as the work is in health care and has a community health aspect to it (for sustainability). I applied over a year ago, received a grant from them, and they made the first loan payment this month.

What this means: instead of waiting until 2010-ish to serve the poor in Argentina, I am here now! It also means that instead of getting used to a large physician salary and lifestyle and finding it even more difficult to leave the country and live on support, I can go while I am still used to a ¨student¨budget.

Check out their site, www.medsend.org for neat stories on health care workers released to work without a huge burden of debt.

Yum!

The grill in the back of the Lopez´house.
My first bite (ever) of carne asada.
This is the second (!) helping brought off the grill. Silvia and Marcelo are picture here.

Meat

Well, I´ve been in Argentina less than 48 hours and I´ve already eaten two pastries made with lard and five bites of chicken. My host is buying a special roast to grill today. That may seem yummy to some, not a big deal to others, but for someone who hasn´t eaten any of the above for 21 years it´s a little crazy! I´ve had in mind not only the terribly deep spirituality involved in sharing meals with others but also my friend Mike´s saying of being a ¨scavenge-tarian¨ instead of a ¨vegetarian.¨ Tee-hee!

I am so excited to be here! The Lopez family, with whom I am staying and who will start my on-the-job training, are lovely and very welcoming. Marcelo and Silvia are the parents and their children are Luz (18) and Felipe (16). When not working in micro-enterprise and development, Marcelo works in accounting and teaches economics at the university. Silvia is very gifted artistically and has taken courses on indigneous Argentinean art.

On Monday, 9/10, we will start our travel to the village of Burela, in Salta province. We stay overnight in Tucuman, and then arrive in Burela on Tuesday. We will meet a couple who currently work with LifeWind in Bolivia, Develt and Estela. They will be facilitating the majority of the training there. After reading Isaiah 61 & 62 this morning, Marcelo, Silvia, and I were praying for the Wichi Indians (who live in Salta Province) and the training. Apparently some of the problems with the Wichi include a lack of clean water, issues of abuse and violence, and extreme poverty. Many politicians have come in to the area with small gifts and promises of development but no follow-through. However, the Wichi are hungry for teaching, training, and change. One of the pastors there, Don Sixto, has been praying for justice for his people.

The training next week is called, ¨Training of Trainers 1,¨and the purpose is to teach those who will be teaching the individual ¨CHEs.¨ The CHEs will go house to house in their villages, teaching their neighbors about health promotion, disease prevention, small business opportunities, and the love of God. The training will go from Tuesday night, 9/11, to Saturday, 9/15. The sessions are on such topics as: the resources within the community, learning techniques, development, how to experience the love and forgiveness of God, and the role of the training team. I will teach a session on the Holy Spirit on Thursday morning. I´m glad that my session isn´t until later in the week, as I want to experience more of the learner-centered, participatory style Lifewind uses.

Thanks

P.S. And a big shout out to:

• Erin, now my power of attorney for my house (of which the sale is in flux).
• My community group, especially Rachelle, for all of the help at the big garage sale.
• Valerie, for endlessly going through boxes.
  
• Bruce and Peachy, for being such great neighbors through it all.
• Melissa and Adam, for making a good home for Oreo and Pepa (my kitties).
  
• Joe and Nicole, for taking care of my yard while I'm gone.
• Jeff, for keeping my pool from going green while I'm gone.

I know I'll think of more people soon, so stay tuned! It is really remarkable how God chooses to work through all of us, and uses so many "senders" for the one person who "goes." We are truly a family.

“I love you, O Lord, my strength.” Psalm 18:1

I have recently been meditating on the above thought. My desire is to love God, and for everything I do to be done out of an ever-growing love for God – not to prove myself to other people, not to worry about my path in life, but rather to rest in God. This week I have been moving out of my house, and God provided strength in the heat (over 110 degrees), trust and faith to give up my possessions, and lots of generous people to help:

• My sister Lorena and brother-in-law Gregor (above) came to visit for over a week of assistance: Lorena was phenomenally helpful at going through boxes of things, letting me tell their story and then encouraging me as I let them go. Gregor brought computer accessories and did some intense work on my computer. He also brought the movie “Strictly Ballroom”!
  

• Chrissy and Jeff held a garage sale for me at their house and invited people to sell things there and give the proceeds to my missions fund. Chrissy tirelessly priced, greeted, hauled, and advised for over a week in preparation.

• The Rodgers’ community group is cleaning my house after I have moved out.

• Nadia is letting me stay at her house whenever I am in town (which includes much of October through December) and has a lot of room for me to store things.
  

Schedule

September 5 – 30 I will be in Argentina to assist with two trainings, look for housing, and get to know the Lopez family who will be providing on-the-job training for me next year. Then I return to the U.S. for a few months of support raising and other preparation before moving to Argentina in early January. Some highlights of the next few weeks are:

September 5 – 6

Nearly 24 hours of travel to get to Cordoba, Argentina -- I leave Queen Creek at 10:00 am on Wednesday and arrive in Cordoba at 7:30 am on Thursday (MST)! I will stay with Marcelo and Silva Lopez and their children Luz (18) and Felipe (16). Marcelo has been working with LifeWind International for some time and I look forward to learning from him.

September 11 – 14

“Training of Trainers 1” in the village of Burela, province of Salta. The Wichi Indians had a “Vision Seminar” a few months ago and are now ready to receive training to become trainers of community health evangelists (CHEs). The CHEs will go from home to home teaching their neighbors about basic healthcare, micro-enterprise, and the gospel.

The Wichi Indians are an indigenous people group in northern Argentina and Bolivia. The possession of their land has been disputed by the national government and much of it has been sold and de-forested. Portions of the Bible were recently translated into their language.

September 20

Bibiana MacLeod, Regional Coordinator for the Caribbean and South America, flies in to Buenos Aires to facilitate the next week’s training. She will be my supervisor while I am in South America, and I am looking forward to seeing her again in person – I last saw her in 2004 in the Dominican Republic.

September 24 – 28

“Urban Training of Trainers 1” near Buenos Aires. This training is specially designed for those working in inner city slums to discover local connections and help people work together for the community’s good: spiritually, emotionally, physically, and vocationally.

September 29 – 30

Only 17 hours travel from Buenos Aires to Phoenix, then I hop directly in my car to drive to San Diego.

September 30 – October 4

Continuing medical education conference in San Diego. I will stay with my stepsister Karina, attend the conference with my friend Jenny, and hang out with Jenny, her husband Ken, and her daughters Grace and Kate. Grace is my god-daughter, and while I think it’s a good example to her to follow God to the mission field, it is difficult to move further away from her.

October 5 – 9-ish

I will stay in San Diego, initially alone, to start to digest the previous month’s work and to pray. My stepsister Karina will then return from a conference and we hope to gather some of her friends together so that I can share my heart and vision for holistic ministry.