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.

Cold trip to Salta

Two months ago I went up north to the province of Salta. As usual, I stayed with Sulma and her delightful family in the small town of Apolinario Saravia. Because I was there during winter vacation, several of Sulma's family members were in town, including her adorable niece you see in the above picture.
Above you see Doña Lidia, Sulma's mom, making the dough for empanadas. The filling is in the pot in the foreground. They have a gas stovetop but their only oven is wood-fired.

Sulma is an elementary school teacher and has received extensive training in CHE -- she even completed the internship in Nicaragua last year. Sadly, a local group of CHE trainers has not been able to form yet. Her sister Lucrecia and brother-in-law Gabriel have also been trained, but they moved to a different province last year due to an illness in the family. Gabriel had been the pastor of the church plant in Burela, where the CHE program was started. He and his family were also in town for the winter vacation and we discussed their plans which don't currently involve moving back to Saravia. While a group from the province of Cordoba (the Jesucristo Rey church) is still interested in helping them, without a local team CHE can't continue.

CHE consists of three basic elements: a local team of trainers, community health evangelists (CHEs), who go house-to-house to teach their neighbors, and a committee made up of locally-recognized leaders that plans big projects for the community and also selects the CHEs . The team of trainers, as the name implies, train the committee and the CHEs.

I'm not much of a baker but this year I've been making lemon bars. The wood-fired oven was a little too hot and the egg in the lemon portion did not cook evenly. They tasted good, though!

On my last day there I took a walk with Sulma and her mom. Sulma's Dad, Don Alfredo, joined us on his motorbike.

Above you see Sulma as we wait for my bus a few blocks from her house. I don't know when I'll go back there. Neither Sulma, nor the group in Cordoba, nor I have given up hope that we might be able to establish a program in Burela, but for now things are on hold.

I had a few layovers on my trip back to Buenos Aires, and spent hours at a bus station in Metan. Above you see the room I waited in -- there are shrines to the Virgin Mary at most bus and train stations. The poster in orange is informing passengers about swine flu.

Salta is a northern province, which in the southern hemisphere means that it's warmer than the rest of the country. This week was unusually cold, and it had actually snowed in several parts of the province! The Metan station is not enclosed on all sides, and since I was waiting at night -- my bus arrived around midnight-- it was really chilly. After whining to my friends in text messages, I got out my IPod and listened to some great sermons from Rob Bell.

Yesterday's Trip

I went to Berisso yesterday, a city of 80,000 on the outskirts of the capital city of the province of Buenos Aires, La Plata. Above you see Paulinho, Aryany, and Reberson, three Brazilians who have intentionally moved to a slum in Berisso, seeking its transformation. Here they are in Reberson and Aryany's house. We were going over the map they'd made of the community and discussing how they can continue to get to know the people in the neighborhood, especially the adults. They already know most of the children, that's a lot easier!

Reberson is planning to start medical school next year (here they do a combination of undergrad with medical school, so it would be the start of university for him). You can see on the table the $10 otoscope that he bought at a market, we were trying to see how it worked.

Well, Aryany went off to school and Reberson "made lunch." (Meaning, he went down the street and bought pizza and baked it in the oven.) Here you see the way Brazilians eat pizza, which Reberson told me he thought was American! Paulinho is adding ketchup...

And Reberson is adding mayonnaise. Actually, he ended up adding mayo, ketchup, and mustard to his pizza.

It's kind of chilly in their house so we kept our coats on. Aryany just moved to Argentina in December after marrying Reberson, and it's been difficult for her to adjust to the cold. Her poor fingers are swollen and red from being too chilled. But they are both 1) young and 2) filled with love for the people there. They have such a hope for the people in that community. I love this part of my job, where I get to meet with people who share this vision of the Kingdom of God, and I get to encourage them, help them define the vision they have for their communities, and teach them tools to hopefully achieve that vision.

This is a house that Mision Puente was renting until the owners came back. It's right next door to Reberson and Aryany's place. "El Quincho" means the type of building you see below, and is the name of their church.

This is the church, built behind the house you saw above. They started construction nearly two years ago, and short-term teams from Brazil come frequently to add to it.

What a pretty house! Reberson and Aryany were supposed to live in the house next door, and had done some pretty major renovations to it. Thankfully they've now finished most of the inside work on their current house (read: plumbing and gas) and in the last few weeks they painted and added the window boxes!
Reberson standing in his front yard, with the neighborhood behind him. You can see some of the drainage issues they are facing -- last year they tried to get the neighbors involved in working on this issue since it affects them all. It didn't work so well. Next year hopefully they will have a committee of locally-recognized leaders and perhaps they will have success?

Waiting in line for the bus that you see pulling in at the La Plata terminal. I got a seat this time!

Baradero

Above you see Silvia, Nora, and me heading across the tracks into the neighborhoods we're working in. I'm going out to Baradero about every other week now, meeting with Horacio and Silvia, the team leaders. On the day this picture was taken we were working on our "spiritual map" of the neighborhoods. We map the houses plus any altars, brothels, and corners where drugs are bought and sold. This map will be used so that the Baradero team can come up with specific prayer strategies.

Above is an altar to "Gauchito Gil," one of the most popular idols in Argentina. This is in the backyard of a family's house.

Here's a typical house in that part of town. There's a lot of trash around since most of the families don't have trash cans inside or bins out front. In the future, when we have "transformational change agents" improving their own houses and teaching their neighbors, having good trash disposal will be one of the points for a "healthy home."

Above, Silvia is knocking on the door of the house of someone known to be a Christian. We were going to ask her for help with our map, but she was bathing the kids. Late afternoon seems to be the time for washing up, so we usually head to the barrios in the mornings.

I love this picture: kumquats in Horacio and Silvia's yard. All of the above pictures were taken by Bonnie Hudlet, a missionary photographer with whom I became friends when she hosted me on a trip I took to Cordoba. She was in Buenos Aires for some other ministry commitments and accompanied Nora and me on our trip to Baradero, graciously taking these photos for our use.

An answer to prayer: opportunity at my local church

Last Saturday night I had the immense privilege of facilitating a training with the youth at my local church. It was lots of fun! I didn't know a lot of the youth since at church they tend to sit upstairs in a balcony, so I don't even see them. It was also a huge privilege to have as my co-facilitators my good friends Nora and Monica.

A small group discussing how Paul knew so much about the Athenians, and what information he learned about their social and spiritual life.

Yay for Nora! She has been helping me at lots of trainings, and it was so great to have her at this one since she also works with the youth. Above her is a list of some of the ideas the youth had on how to strategically pray for the areas they are going to work in.

Here is the river crossing sketch we use frequently. Here the young woman desperately wants to cross the raging river to go to "El Dot." What, you may ask, is that? Well, while many people dramatize this story by needing to cross the river to be near their dying grandmother, Ana needs to go to the newest Buenos Aires mall! On the right of the photo you can see my friend Monica. She attends this church also and offered to come to pray during the training. However, since she's also taking our training in La Plata, she ended up helping one of the small groups with their tricky, worldview-changing assignment: thinking about relief, individual development, and community development.

Here is another small group. I am so blessed to have had this opportunity, and hope that we can repeat it. Many of the youth said that they want more trainings in these areas, and I also personally want to get to know them better since they are such a vibrant force at our church.

I don't usually use a microphone, but since there were about 50 participants it was necessary.

Florencia, our photographer for the evening -- she even took this picture! She's the daughter of Horacio and Silvia, of the Baradero team.