Thanksgiving

Well, I nearly forgot it was Thanksgiving what with the temperatures warming up and all! Thankfully my cell group from last year remembered and we decided to have dinner at my house again, this time with husbands included. I suggested we all bring season-appropriate food, but you can see that Beba (above) made another delicious turkey! (Her first turkey was last year's, since it's not a common food here or in her native Uruguay.) And yes, those are strips of some sort of bacon/ham on the turkey!

Here is her niece and my friend Gaby getting out the pate (very Argentine) and the hearts of palm. Yum!

And here we are eating away! I made the salads, does that shock anyone?

And just the ladies....

Visit from my coordinator

My coordinator, Bibiana, came for a site visit a few weeks ago. What a wonderful opportunity to learn from her! Above you see three Brazilians from a group working in Berisso expanding on their vision of community transformation and where they see CHE fitting in with that. One of the challenges of this bright, dedicated group is that almost all of them are studying at university and/or employed, leaving them less time for ministry in the community.

Bibiana is my "coordinator" rather than my "supervisor" since LifeWind has a non-hierarchical organizational structure. In turn I "coordinate" CHE ministry in Argentina, working alongside of (not over) local teams. Here we are listening to Horacio describe his vision and passion for Baradero. A great discussion followed about how CHE and church-planting/growth can actually be one thing (not two) if a vision for holistic transformation, multiplication, and development -- rather than relief -- is adopted by the church. Very exciting!

Above you see Bibiana with the Baradero team: Silvia and Horacio, Nora, Marisa and Alejandro.

La Pampa

What a welcome to La Pampa Province! I went there last month with my friends Annie and Bill (pictured) and we were greeted with mate on arrival (in one of the oh-so-interesting cow hoof mugs, yum!) by Annie and Bill's daughter Virginia, son-in-law Marcelo, and their seven children. Pictured here are Paula and Santiago.

What do you feed a family of nine? A great Argentine dessert is a mild cheese paired with an equal part of either quince jam or sweet potato. I've never seen the ingredients this big before, though.

This picture looks so much like Arizona, I just had to post it. Marcelo and Virginia have a dairy farm that has been seriously affected by the drought this year. Despite feeding the cows what they can at each milking they lost over 60 this year and had to sell off hundreds more.

Here are some bones seen along my running route.

Here I am along the road to their house. I got in some great runs out here! On one of those runs I was accompanied by a poodle the whole way (well, he took some detours to chase birds in the fields, but kept coming back to me).

I went to La Pampa because of the possibility of Virginia's church being interested in CHE. I met with her pastor and found that they are desperately interested in any training! This is a sparsely populated province and the pastor noted that most of the pastors he works with have received very little training. Several have recently started a correspondence course and he was very grateful for this opportunity.

He is planning to talk with other pastors of his denomination and hopefully in a few months I will do vision seminars throughout the province as a precursor to a Training of Trainers (TOT1).

This is symbolic of our life in Christ to me today: a beautiful Siamese kitten. We took several to Buenos Aires to sell for Virginia, and I was hoping to keep two. Annie had offered to watch them while I travel (which is quite frequent, the reason I thought I could not have cats before). However, it was not to be, as my landlord does not allow cats.

Why is this symbolic of life in Christ? We begin to really live as we "trust God and not our own understanding," and yet this new life also involves a lot of "dying." I have died to my own desires: moving away -- many times -- from friends and family, a difficult profession, staying single, not getting to have cuddly house pets to keep me company at home. And yet along with all of those things I have received: the excitement of making a difference in people's lives, the joy of having friends all over the world, a heart that is more and more open to others, purpose and opportunities to serve, and passion and peace and comfort and joy along with the tears.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, not in that order

Check this out! I was so impressed with my new bug bites and foot swelling that you get three pictures. I have no reaction at all to mosquitoes in the States, and perhaps was a bit too smug about this for too long? I got bitten pretty badly two weeks earlier in Misiones and last year in Salta, but this was the worst so far.

Here you can see some of the foot swelling. I used a lot of bug repellent with DEET but they tell me that the mbarigüí (local small insects) are not as impressed with that. A friend who is a retired nurse and worked for years in Misiones Province tells me that a lot of the bites are also from "chicken bugs." The family did allow chickens to run freely through the home and she says the bed I slept in was probably filled with these bugs -- which makes sense since upon lying down the night I slept in the country my legs started itching!

I had the worst time sleeping that night, what with the itching and the bizarro bed and the crazy dogs barking (there was a full moon that night and apparently they see much more to bark at on those nights). So I spent a lot of the night praying, asking for alertness the next morning for my training and being thankful that I don't normally sleep places like this, as some missionaries -- and lots and lots of poor people -- do.

A close-up of a particularly itchy area several days on.

BUT, this is what I woke up to the next day: I stayed at my nurse-friend's home in Misiones before and after going to the rural area. Actually, the night before this was beautiful, complete with a hot shower, calamine and antishistamine lotion, and clean sheets! Above is where I sat during my devotional in the morning, complete with mate.

And this is the scene the following day at the start of a three-night, all-expenses-paid stay at a hotel in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil! This is the view from my hammock! More pictures are forthcoming.

Trip to Misiones -- Travel part Deux

Ah, tereré! How refreshing when one is boiling hot to drink cold water (or juice, or water with flavored herbs) over mate. I had this picture taken because I remembered being here in May drinking mate (in the same outfit!). After lunch and the vision seminar we came back to Emilia and Ricardo's to await a ride back to town: no one ventures out at siesta time so we had a few hours to kill.

Here we are hitching. Ricardo and Emilia know how to do this, so I just hung back.

I wish I had a picture of this truck that offered us a ride -- it was huge! Thankfully there was a ladder on the side for us to climb up on. Emilia tried to sit at first, with her egg basket. However, the swirling red dirt made that impossible and we took up the typical position you'll have seen in everyone's third-world photos: standing facing forward holding on to the cab.

You can't tell it here, but we were getting covered in red dirt. Covered.

Stunning views of the countryside from high up on the truck! Can you spot Ricardo on his motorbike?

Trip to Misiones - Training and Eating

The church where the vision seminar was held on Sunday morning. We had been planning on doing it the night before but the pastor was busy all evening putting back together the bridge you see that was destroyed by recent heavy rains.

Here's a close-up of the church. We had participants from three different denominations but segregated the small groups by gender due to the hosting pastor's preference. Gender and faith issues have been coming up a lot recently. I won't get into a lot here, but I will just note that women preach in this Pentecostal church, although men and women sit on different sides of the aisle -- or different sides of the circle, with the set-up we use in our trainings -- and all women have to wear skirts (I have now added one to my travel list, I had to borrow one this visit).

In several Brethren churches I have been to here women are not permitted to preach or teach adult men and they often wear head coverings. However they do sit mixed together with the men!

Ah, an idyllic scene. While I've grown accustomed to chickens entering buildings where we were doing trainings, on this day one of these cows tried to come in the front door! Thankfully one of the participants got up and shooed her away.

Here's most of the group that came to the seminar. In addition to talking about what is involved in starting a CHE program we discussed "The Great Commandment and the Great Commission," or God's plan for us to love God with all our being and love our neighbor. I also gave a lesson on relief vs. development.

Yum! They invited me to stay for lunch afterwards: chicken with pasta -- in the big bowl -- and a funky side dish from Misiones, flour mixed with grease (I swear those are the two ingredients I remember! I'll update this when I can think of the name)

Trip to Misiones --Travel

This is the first in a series of picture-dense postings about my trip last week to Misiones Province (Argentina) and Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.

I stayed in Puerto Esperanza some of the nights and this is a restaurant I passed on my walk to the bus station. I want to know if that DiscoChef can dance?


This is my bus arriving to take me to the nearby town of Wanda, where my contact Ricardo lives during the week. He had scheduled a meeting with some people from his church who were interested in CHE.

I'm really glad the windows are open, it's HOT!

Above is the bus terminal in Wanda.

It's Saturday morning and we're ready to go to Colonia Lanusse, a rural area, so that I can give a vision seminar to people interested in CHE. This is Carlitos' truck. He drove really quickly on the dirt roads that were heavily rutted by the recent rains. I'm glad I didn't come back with him that day: he opened up the oil tank (?) on his car and they had to walk a ways and hitch a ride back to town.


We pulled over to the side of the road to let this truck go by. In this picture you can sort of see how rutted the road is, since at this point the cab is leaning one way and the trailer another. Pine trees are not native to the area but have become a big crop in the past few years.

How beautiful is this?


Carlitos, Ricardo, and Emilia sharing tereré on the porch of Ricardo and Emilia's country home.

Above is Emilia's wood-fired stove. She'd made a yummy soup for lunch, which (of course) included manioc/cassava, very popular in this part of the country.

Iguazu Falls and my Mom

My Mom was in town for two weeks, lots of fun! I've been a bit busy what with work and visiting and now prepping for a trip tomorrow, so I haven't been updating my blog.

Above is Nora Rodriguez with me at the "Garganta del Diablo", probably the most impressive fall at Iguazu. It's been a life-long dream of Nora's to see the falls, and here she is! She came with me not just for the sightseeing, but also to help me with two trainings that we had scheduled. One was reduced to a meeting and the other canceled entirely due to torrential rains that prevented travel to the rural villages even by tractor!

I have another chance, though: The Christian Hospitality Network has given me a gift of four days at a hotel on the Brazilian side of the border, Foz do Iguaçu, starting next Monday. So I'm heading up early (tomorrow night, an overnight bus trip) and stopping in Wanda. We'll have another meeting in Wanda Friday night and hopefully a vision seminar in the small village on Saturday with participants from the surrounding area. The rains stopped yesterday and the forecast is for sun, so they are starting to invite people (in an area without cell phone signals and few landlines, not so easy).
Here I am our second day at the falls after it rained all night, changing the scenery remarkably. This fall was now touchable. And yes, the poncho was necessary -- I got pretty wet even so. Do you like the shape the backpack gives? :-)

Actually, the torrential rains up there are starting to lead to flooding down here. I read in the newspaper today that they are having to move nearly one million head of cattle due to flooding of the pasture lands.

Above you see Mom and Nora waiting at the Puerto Esperanza bus station to go back to Puerto Iguazu for our flight back the next morning. Oh, and our trip back was on Mother's Day! It's celebrated in October in Argentina, and it was nice to actually be with my Mom on the day!

Mom and me at the airport just before she left. Sigh.

A morning in the life of...

A morning in the life of Liz. Actually, my pastor has asked me to film "A Day in the Life of", but the really good days are when I'm traveling and I'm still unsure of how to do that with a videocamera, since everyone here says I will get knifed for it, at least in the city. I'll come up with a safe way to do it, though, and if you go to Epic you'll see the results some day!

Anyway, my mornings start out with a caffeinated beverage, either mate cocido (tea bags of mate) or coffee. Most Argentines heat milk for coffee (not for tea) and so above you see me pouring the milk into my pot on the stove. You can also see a box of matches on the back of the stove -- no pilot lights on the stoves here.

Looking down my stairs to see the mail that came in this morning. It's a bill. Many companies pay workers to distribute the bills rather than send them through the mail, you can see that this one doesn't have an envelope.

The wonderful rocking chair I got in Nicaragua, where I read the Bible and pray in the mornings. With coffee and breakfast, of course. And a blanket since it's still chilly!

Trees outside my window. The one in the foreground is a Chinaberry tree which is very common here. The berries are now falling off and you can see them on my balcony below. The flowering tree seen above is my neighbor's, isn't it stunning?

And, last but not least: since I agree with the philosopher D. Zoolander that there is more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking, below are my feet in my freaky-looking Vibrams! Off for a run!

I haven't taken pictures of the train station yet. It's conveniently located only six blocks from my apartment, and drops me off just one block from my church. They've been kind enough to let me use an office at church, which is very helpful for days I'm not traveling. I find it's much easier to concentrate away from home.
Today I'm working on a presentation I'll be giving on Saturday. I've been invited to speak about my ministry at the 33rd anniversary celebration of the Brethren Church's Women's Missionary Committee (CoMFe). Now, I'm neither Argentine nor Brethren, but my supervisor is and last year I met some CoMFe members with her. The work I do in Argentina is ecumenical and I do work with some Brethren missionaries. Actually, the church I attend here in Buenos Aires, although now independent, has Brethren roots.

A day in the life of Argentina

Silvia (in the brown coat) with her friends in Baradero.

To give a glimpse of a day in the life of Argentina, here are selections from September second's El Clarín newspaper:

• Only 3% of monies hidden outside the country have been declared [since the president called for all Argentines to declare any monies they may have sent outside the country for safe-keeping]
• A woman has been released from prison four years after receiving a life sentence for the death of her five-month-old twins. She was originally accused of having killed them in an Umbanda ritual [a cult]: the girls’ father was an Umbanda priest and their house was used as a temple. The case was reopened and it was decided that the girls’ death may have been accidental.
• The police detained an Argentine Olympic cycling champion who claims he was beaten by police while training with 70 other cyclists on a highway. It is illegal to cycle on the highway but he states that they have no other alternative, “We can’t ride on the frontage roads because our bikes will get stolen. Plus, we have to ride at 50 km/hr.”
• Food and beverages have seen the most inflation according to private sources [INDEC, the official keeper of statistics, has lost all credibility]. The price of vegetables has increased 12.4% in the past month. [The government fixed the price of bread two months ago.]
• Lots of articles about the proposed new media law, which would require radio stations to renew licensure every two years. Clarín states that this law is an attempt on the part of the president to restrain free speech and control the media in a Chavez-like fashion; also that it is directed primarily at media sources that oppose the government and particularly against The Clarín Group.
• Several articles about the tax on agricultural products, the farm protests and strikes that have been taking place on and off for the past year and a half, and the drought.
• England has announced a new governor for the Falkland Islands [which Argentina claims and calls “Las Malvinas”].
• A deficit in the Buenos Aires Province jeopardizes 10,000 feeding centers and school lunch programs for children.
• Argentina has the most expensive technology in all of Latin America: Argentines pay 48% more than Mexicans, 28% more than Peruvians, and 22% more than Chileans for the same products.
• .Lots and lots of articles about soccer!

Kids playing with machetes in Baradero. This house is a half-block from an Umbanda temple.