It's over already!

Tomorrow night I get on a plane to return to the States.  I have been here for a month now, but it really doesn't seem that long.  I haven't done much since my last post, on Saturday we went back to the Central Park where all of the shopkeepers had their crafts and things out for sale, and today wen went down to see some boats that are permanantly docked and have been made into musems.  There is nothing on the agenda to do now until I go to the airport tomorrow.  Although this trip went by very fast, I am actually anxious for school to start again, and I am looking forward to visiting all of you again. 

Planned Parenthood T-Shirts

I was reading the news today, and I couldn't resist looking at a link to the Planned Parenthood website. It seems that as an addition to their 'fashion line' they have made a new shirt that simply says "I Had An Abortion".  It comes as no surprise that the co-sponsor of this fashion statement is none other than Yahoo, who being one of the largest supporters of internet pornography (both adult and child) is not exactly known for supporting morality. 

It is sad to think that there are people out there who will actually buy and wear this shirt.  Since The decision of Roe Vs. Wade there have been over 1.8 million abortions, while the number of live births is about 4 million (according to abortionfacts.com) which means that one out of every three children conceived in America has been killed.  Think about that, for every two people that you see who are 32 or younger (Roe v. Wade was in 1972) there is one who never got to see life.

I find it hard to believe that these shirts will be popular among the majority of the women who have fallen for the lies of people like Planned Parenthood who say that they can have a guilt free procedure that will rid them of an inconvenience.  In fact, statistics show that most women who have had an abortion suffer greatly because of it (see "The Psychological Effects of Abortion" on abortionfacts.com). 

On a more ironic note, the same page where you can find your fashionable "I had an abortion" shirt, you can also find a special shirt for children.  This shirt reads "Every Child a Wanted Child."  If our friends at Planned Parenthood would look at the number of people in this country who are trying everything they can to adopt a child (some are forced to adopt from a foreign country), they might have to change their propaganda about a child feeling wanted.  A more accurate slogan for a Planned Parenthood shirt for kids could be "I am one of the 58% who made it!"

Locked In and Walked Out

Last time I posted was Saturday, I didn't realize it had been that long. Thanks John!

Sunday night we had a lock-in at the church with the youth. I played 'Acquire' with the adults twice, and beat some of the youth at Monopoly before 5:00am. As is characteristic of lock-ins, we didn't sleep a wink. None of the youth here had ever done anything like that before, so they were pretty excited.

Monday was pretty much...non-existent. We got home from the lock-in at about 9:00 and I was crashing in bed by 10. By the time I got up it was dark, and I forced myself to go to bed at a regular time. A good day of rest!

Tuesday we went to the park. It was very different from what I saw on Saturday because all of the shopkeepers and stands were gone. They only set up for Saturday and Sunday, and through the week it is just open. All of the kids are on Winter break right now, so the park was full of people playing soccer and kids riding bikes. We got out the baseball gloves and bats and played catch and stuff for a while. It was kind of funny watching the Argentines looks because not very many people here play baseball.

Wednesday Miles and I went downtown. I had to go to the Federal Exchange, and we went to see some of the sites of the city. We saw the Casa Rosa (Pink House) which is the main Federal building (Like the White House is to the States). There were barricades around the main drive and police around with riot shields and stuff. There are people here who constantly protest just for the sake of protesting. Most of them are poor people who do this until the government pays them to stop, and then do it again. The president here has given in to them before, so they keep doing it which upsets the middle-class people, who pay all the taxes.

Thursday we were back downtown again, but this time it was an activity with the Youth. The group was split into two teams and the same list was given to each. Each group had an assigned starting point and a disposable camera. The scavenger hunt lasted about 3 hours and then we met back at the church. Tonight (Friday) everyone saw the pictures (My team won). When Miles and I were communicating before I left, one thing he said was "Bring comfortable walking shoes because we don't have a car." I took that lightly and took my boots and flip-flops, but the last two days have given me blisters and sore legs (4-5 hours of solid walking with people who are used to it and walk alot faster than I).

Today I stayed here at the house all day. There have been some problems with the computer freezing when they open Internet Explorer, so I installed a few SpyWare programs and spent most of the day running those over and over again until everything was clear (there were about 800 files to clear off after running each one 4 or 5 times) and then setting them up to run on a regularly scheduled basis. There was a movie night at the church with the youth but I didn't go. The two movies that they were watching were dubbed in spanish with no subtitles, and I was still working on the computer, so I stayed here and finished that, and watched Galaxy Quest.

It's about 3 in the morning now (They go to bed late here and sleep in, lunch is usually around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and dinner between 8 and 10) and I am going to bed. Tomorrow we are going back to the park, and I'm not sure what else is in store for the remaining week. I leave on Wednesday night, so I will post again probably on Tuesday.

God Bless!

Work Work Work

Not much new has happened since we returned from Bahia Blanca.  All this week I have been painting and cleaning getting ready for tonight.  Yesterday was the last day of school before winter break, and tonight the youth meeting was held at the house and right now just about everyone from the church is here to watch the Argentina/Peru soccer game.  All of the painting and stuff that Miles put on my to-do list for my stay here is done, and it looks like that is a good thing because the next week will be spent doing things with the youth from the church.  I will write more when there's more to write about.
 
God Bless!

Aids in Uganda

This is off the topic of my trip in Argentina, but I read an article (I had to change the link because the drudge article is gone now) today on the Drudge Report that I thought was interesting.

The article had to do with a controversy that broke out at a global AIDS conference. Yoweri Museveni is the newest president of that country, and the effect that he has had on the country is amazing. One of the first things that Museveni did after he was elected was to pray to God and ask him to forgive their nation of its sins.  Museveni is a huge proponent of abstinence education and says that promoting condoms is not the answer.  The other people at the AIDS conference didn't seem to agree much with him, but the drop in the infection rate among the citizens of his country show that he is worth listening to.  Isn't it interesting how someone who seeks to live by and teach God's standards can lead a nation to such an improvement?  Sin's effects on a society can be great if it's not dealt with.

Bahia Blanca

I just walked in the door, getting back from a weekend trip with Miles.

Bahia Blanca is an eight hour bus ride south of Capitol Federal (it is still in the state of Buenos Aires). The missionary couple that was in Bahia Blanca has retired and gone home. UME (the local denomination who's name translates "Gospel Missionary Union") asked Miles and Bob, one of the other missionaries in this region, to go to Bahia Blanca and see how the church was doing and what their needs are.

What we saw when we got there was pretty awesome. The church had waited a while for another missionary to be sent, but one never was, and they decided that they needed to go on with their vision on their own. The church has outreaches for children in three different neighborhoods. On Saturday we were able to see one of these, there were about 20 kids there who sung songs, heard a Bible lesson and ate something (Most families are used to the school feeding the kids breakfast and lunch, so on the weekends the kids only get one meal per day). The pastor of the church was telling us that in some of these neighborhoods, at age thirteen, the girls either have to get married or become prostitutes. The church is also leading a couple of women's studies in different neighborhoods, and has church every 2 weeks in two different neighborhoods. In all, they are reaching about 200 people every week, 120 of them being children.

Last night I sat in the kitchen of Rene's house (Rene is the unofficial pastor of the church) and watched as Miles and Bob met with the elders and other leaders of the church. It was hard for me to tell what was going on, because three people were crying and others were laughing, and it was all in Spanish.

The people were asking Miles and Bob how they could do more. The crying that I saw was part of the reaction that they had when Bob and Miles told them that they were already doing more than any other church in the denomination. They went to Rene's house last night expecting some kind of gold nugget leadership (they all had their Bibles and paper out with a 'what do ya got for us' look on their face) and they were asked if they would help some of the other churches improve their outreach programs. It had to be a great encouragement to these people to come wanting to know why they weren't doing enough, and to find out that they are doing a great job. There were a few things that Miles and Bob suggested, the church has about 4 men in it because most of the outreach focuses on children, which draws women, but it just goes to show that even when we have no idea what we are doing, God will still build his church, and the power of the gospel won't ever die.

I'm going to go to sleep now (It's 7:30 in the morning but I haven't slept well all weekend), the rest of this week will consist of finishing the bathrooms at the church, painting the entryway of the house and probably scrubbing the tile floors (to get all of the paint off). Next week the kids start their winter break and there will be alot of activities with the youth, so I am trying to get most of my work done this week.

Argentina: Days 3-4

I have a better idea now of what I will be doing for the duration of my trip. There are a lot of walls in this house that need to be sealed and painted, and some repairs that need to be done at the church. The church is about three blocks away from the house, and there are two major jobs that need to be done there. Most of the construction here is concrete and rock, and if it isn't sealed right, the humidity gets into the concrete and ruins the paint (The humidity here is high in the winter time, yesterday it was like 90%). In the bathrooms at the church this has happened, one of my jobs will be to scrape the walls in the bathrooms, seal them, and repaint them. There are also some windows that need repairing. I will be taking them apart and replacing the plastic that is in them.
I wish I could post pictures of what I am doing here, I thought that blogger would let me, but I have to have my own webspace to host the pictures, and everything that I tried to get wouldn't let me post files that big.
On Thursday I started pulling stuff out of the storage room on the patio. Because the house is in the city, the patio is actually part of the second story of the house (It sits on top of the living room). I painted some iron posts where Miles had built a small roof over part of the patio (to keep the metal from rusting) and I sealed and painted the inside of the storage room and painted the metal door. Yesterday (Friday) I spent all day cutting a pallet to fit in the storage room and putting some barrels of stuff on it (barrels that they pack their belongings in), and then I sealed and painted the whole patio.
Most of what I will be doing for the rest of my time here will involve painting in the house. We will build shelves in the storage room to store stuff in, but that will be done by Monday. Miles told me that he spent two months working on this house every day to get it to the point it is at now, and then he got swamped with stuff to do at church, so the rest of the work has not been able to get done. The stuff that I am doing is stuff that he would have done eventually, but my being here and working by myself frees up time for him to focus on the church and family things more.
In about an hour we're going to the mall to do an activity with the youth, I will post again in a day or two.

Argentina Trip - My First Post

Well, I made it to Argentina. I have been planning this trip since November of last year, and I am finally here. I am staying with a missionary family in Capitol Federal (Buenos Aires). Miles and Carla Gleaton have five children: Aaron, Matthew, Kira, Leah and Annika.
The plane trip here wasn’t too bad. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t get to my plane in Miami in time, but I did. Customs was a little easier here than it was when I went to Brazil last year, I actually got a man who spoke English to help me. I didn’t get to have as much conversation on the way here because I kept getting sat next to people who weren’t interested in talking.
When I got here yesterday morning (Tuesday), the kids were all at school. The schools here are within walking distance of their home which is right in the middle of the city. There are businesses right on the other side of the street and beside the house and stuff, it’s like we live right in the middle of the downtown area, but it’s not the central downtown area of Buenos Aires. I got along with the kids almost instantly. Leah is a clinger, and was trying to sit on my lap after about a half hour. The girls (Leah, Kira and Annika) keep fighting over who gets to sit next to me or play on my team when we do board games and stuff. This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually had girls fight over me ;-).
Today I got up around noon (Argentine time is two hours ahead of Kansas right now). I hadn’t slept on the plane at all and we were up until about 1:30 in the morning last night playing “Acquire.” As soon as I was ready, Miles and I went down to the subway and went downtown. The downtown area is very crowded, wall to wall people. There are 14,000,000 people living in this city which Miles said is about 45km from one side to the other. We went to the foreign exchange place to get pesos, ate lunch at Burger King (very very different atmosphere than any Burger King in America), and went shopping for a few things that Miles needed. After this we came home on the subway and in a bit he will be taking me to show me the church.
It sounds like we will be starting to actually work either tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday. The Gleatons just moved into a new home and there is a lot of work that needs to be done here that will involve building shelves, painting and some other basic remodeling stuff. There is also some work at the church that will need to be done, but I am not sure what it will be like yet. It is about time for the kids here to start their winter break (The seasons are opposite here) and then we will be doing a lot of stuff with the youth group from the church.
It is kind of interesting that this is winter time, because the day doesn’t feel any cooler than a cool rainy day in the fall. When we were downtown today, all of the shopkeepers were trying to sell me jackets because I was walking around in a T-Shirt while everyone else was bundled up. At one point I had four people asking me if I was cold and wanted to buy a coat from them, but I haven’t been cold at all.
I will post here regularly during my stay (Maybe not daily, but I will try to post every two or three days) so if anyone asks how I’m doing you can send them to this url. God Bless!