God´s creation is BEAUTIFUL!

12-13-08 Day 15 the towns and places we went to will be appreviated to anninimity sake
Early this morning we left for our trip. We drove from our apartment at 7am and headed south for 13.5 hours (approx. 900 kilometers) and arrived in C.R. It was a long trek and very tiring with lots and lots of desert land. We ate supper at 1030pm and I went to bed at 1215am with out Nathan. The girls slept at a house, 2 houses down from the church and the guys slept in the church building. After a long day of driving it was hard to go to bed without Nathan. My highlight tonight was talking more to Juan about the SIMP vision adn what it means to take up the cross and follow Jesus. Also about the bondage that some church bodies have fallen into of just doing church and ministerial professionalism-making God´s work a profession instead of a calling.
12-14-08 Day 16
This morning us girls ate facturas and hot, hot tea with the host family we stayed at. We then went to the church building and met the guys there. At 10am we had a time of worship. We sang songs, Juan had a time of preaching from Matthew 7:13-14. At the end L and A confessed their sins before the congregation. They want to do ministry work in the congregation but because of sin issues have been prevented from doing so. Juan and Rafael married them (in God´s way) right then and there. It was amazing to see their brokeness and contrite heart and the good work that God was doing in their lives. A has been divorced before and L and A are living with each other and are expecting their first child together (she already has two adorable boys from her previous marriage). They confessed their sins before the congregation and then were married. They wanted to get things in order according to God´s standards. We then ate lunch empandas, potatoe chips, and gaseosa. After that we packed up and drove one hour south to C.O. The most wonderful thing was about 40 min. of our trip there we road right along the ocean. It was so amazingly beautiful. When we arrived here we dropped our things and went straight to the beach. There we saw at least 2 dozen sea lions sunning themselves by the waters edge. It´s the closest I have ever been to such an animal. It was incredible and Nathan got some great video footage of them up close. This evening at 7pm we had a reunion (prayer meeting). Again we ate supper at 1030pm. I was so hungry and tired by then I ate and went to bed.
12-15-08 Day 17
Today we left C.O. and drove all morning and arrived in S about 12pm. Again this morning we drove past the ocean for about 40 min.-AMAZING! In S we ate lunch with the family who runs the mission center there. The pastor is blind but still preaches the word of God. We ate lunch with them-(like a soft shell taco with spinach inside and meat sauce on top with meat balls-I can´t remember what it was called). We left there at 145pm but had a little bit of a set back. There was no petro (gasoline) in any of the gas stations in the whole town. We ended up siphening gas from a trucker with his permission. Then off we went. We got halfway to our destination and again we were running out of gas when we were in the middle of now where. We pulled off and there happened to be a truck stopped there as well. He happened to be a Christian and gave us some gas for FREE. An answer to prayer (for us and for him, they were able to encourage him to get back into fellowship with a body of believers). We continued on and arrived in Es about 930pm because of our gasoline delays. There the believers meet in a school because they have no church building at the moment. We introduced ourselves adn then all of us split up and went to different people´s houses to sleep for the night. Nathan and I went with a younger couple who had two kids (ages 8,5 I think). We ate pizza for supper about 11pm, took a shower, and went to bed. It was great to be with a family adn have to try to communicate with them. They were very gracious to us. We even had an air matress to sleep on. It was the best 6 hours of sleep we´ve gotten since being in Argentina.
12-16-08 Day 18
Today we left from Es at 730am. This morning the little girl (5 yrs old) was singing to us in Spanish as we ate breakfast. Most people just have hot tea or mate for breakfast but they gave us bread and crackers as well. We again drove all morning and took many pictures on our way to our next destination. The mountains with snow were spectacular to say the least. When we arrived in B we had lunch with a family of believers who are starting a good work in this town. We ate in their cabin-like house that was practically hanging from a mountain. The view was so amazing, Nathan and I could harldy believe we were there beholding such beauty. The view from the front window was many snow capped mountains. It was a picture that you only see in magazines. What an awesome God we serve! We left there about 330pm and traveled for another 10 hours and 45 min when we arrived back at home at 215am.
12-17-08 Day 19
Today we slept in from being exhausted from our trip. I got Delbert and Frieda´s house key from Rafael´s wife and talked to my mom on the phone for only a few short minutues. I haven´t quite figured out how to use the callontime card I got for her, UGH. This afternoon we went to Juan´s house. We were going to walk there (a 40 min trek), but just as we were leaving our apartment he pulled up, so he took us to his house. We cleaned out the van from all the trash that accumulated from our trip this past weekend. We helped a little more with their pool and talked some with Juan. We then went with him to the West zone reunion (prayer meeting). The kids had a Christmas skit and some ladies sang some Christmas songs. We then walked home from the west zone church building. We had supper-provided to us by Rafael´s wife-left over pizza from the central zone reunion. Isn´t it amazing how God provides for our needs-even in so many details of our lives. We are learning more and more from God by being here and it´s hard exactly to convey in words the kind of learning that we are experiencing. It´s very humbling to accept so many things from people of the church without adequately sharing our thanks with them (our Spanish is very minimal). God will reward them!!!