Another mission trip & anniversary celebration!

12-18-08 Day 20
Today we walked to Juan´s house (Nate, Jacob, Elizabeth and myself) at 930am (a 40 min trek). We hung out and worked on the computer some. We had lunch with them and then at 3pm we had another SIMP meeting. We talked of our trip this past weekend, more on ministerial professionalism and some about congregations feeling the need for a church building before anything gets started. Nathan and I walked home about 6pm or so, on our way home we ran into the couple and two boys that went with us on the trip this past weekend. They are spending a few days here in town with some of their family. They were headed down to the river to swim. We ate supper, and did some laundry then and Nathan was able to talk on the phone with a friend from home. What an absolutely beautiful night to sit outside and watch the stars!
12-19-08 Day 21
It´s very hot today. We took it easy today-did some laundry (a constant thing here), went to the bank, grocery store, and tried to figure out if we were going to be able to go on the trip this weekend-it depends if there will be enough space in the van for us.
12-20-08 Day 22
We woke up at 430am and left for our trip at 515am. Much earlier than I have ever gotten up since being here. Nathan and I went with another 9 people who all only speak spanish. We figured out that we were going on this trip about 1030pm last night. We arrived here at Pa.(name annonymous) about noon after stopping in a town along the way to worship and drop off half of the people that came with us. We then stopped at elderly people´s house to say hi, before we arrived in Pa. The elderly man whose house we stopped at was a gaucho (like a rancher). Once we got to Pa. our first job (Nathan and me) was to clean the bathroom and toilet with a small broom and a rag. After that I was thankful for the small things (big to me) like soap and running water to clean my hands. We ate lunch (pasta noodles, potatoes, & meat still on the bone and very chewy and bread that was made by the neighbors from their brick oven outside, and soda). Then we took a siesta. The guys of our group went somewhere with the van to visit other people in the town and us girls and Nathan went to the neighbors house to visit them for awhile. These people were older but still managing to take care of their house and such (they were worried about not having enough clean water for the town). This town seems like its in the middle of no where-we had to travel 45min. on a very very bumpy dirt road and we arrived at some place called Pa, which pretty much looks like a very remote step-back-in-time kind of a place. Just when Nathan and I get somewhat comfortable with one thing here the Lord challenges us to try again something new-most of the time way out of our comfort zones. We waited around for quite awhile until the guys got back. They started cooking supper at about 1030pm at the neighbors house. Nathan and I came to the conclusion that these neighbors (a man and his three children) aren´t believers but graciously let us use their things while we were there. I believe it´s a relationship that they´ve had from past trips here. Nathan and I sat there and listened mostly. Nathan also made paper airplanes for the little boy that lived there. We ate supper at about 1130pm (lamb still on the bone and very chewy, potatoes, salad, bread and soda). Nathan and I ate off the only plates they owned. The rest of the group just ate on the table. It was very humbling to be recieving food on a plate when no one else was. I was also very thankful for this gift because for everyone else it was a free for all. People eating out of each bowl and then going to the next. I´m definently not used to the kind of germ sharing that goes on here. After supper we went to bed. We cling to II Corinthians 4:13-18
12-21-08 Day 23
We both slept so good. The mattress we had was even better than we have in our apartment and considering we slept basically in a barn like building with spiders and such, it was really great sleep. Today at 10am they had a worship service in this building. We had three older persons come other than our group. We then headed home, picked up the rest of the group we had dropped off in the town over and arrived back home in time for the central reunion at 7pm. Jacob and Elizabeth sang What Child Is This? in English tonight it was really great.

12-22-08 Day 24 HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY NATE AND JEN
Today in the morning we did laundry and were over at Delbert and Frieda´s house watering their flowers. This afternoon we packed a sack lunch and headed down to the river. Nathan and I ate lunch together adn then swam in the river in the afternoon. This evening we got dressed up and walked to a nice restaurant at about 9pm. They were just opening so we decided to walk to the park first and take some pictures and then walk back to the restaurant. The sun was just setting as we were walking. It was really fun. Then at the restaurant we ordered (not exactly knowing what we ordered). They brought out some kind of curry chicken for me and a wrapped chicken thing with bacon for Nathan. I also ordered french fries and Nathan had a salad. It was a wonderful one year anniversary supper. That took us until about 11pm and shops and people all around the town were hopping. It was one of the first times that we had been out around the town so late and Nathan and I were both amazed at the night life. We walked home, watched the stars for awhile (you can see stars here that you can´t in the states) and then we went to bed.