I could have told you this would happen

To the three people out there who actually follow this blog, I am sorry for the absence, but like the title of this post reads, "I could have told you this would happen."  In fact, I think I did mention it in one of my earlier posts.  It's not that I don't have interesting things to say or time to say them, it's just that the idea of putting my thoughts and/or experiences into words on the internet doesn't thrill me in the slightest.  But nonetheless, here is another post (or brief summary) of what has gone on in the past few months.

STAFF RETREAT

A staff retreat for all of the Campus Crusade staff in Argentina was held in Cordoba for a week, beginning on the 27th of December.  It was truly a great time to get to know "the others" (any Lost fans out there?) and learn about the other movements around the country.  During this week the staff all took a brief seminary course...in spanish obviously.  I can't say that I understood all of this, but I did understand some of it.  But I don't know that I would've understood all of it even if it had been in English honestly.  It was a great week and very encouraging to meet leaders in Christ from around the country.

SUMMER CAMP

The following week (Jan 3 - Jan 9) we held our annual camp.  It was at the same place that the retreat was so that was very convenient.  This is a camp for believers in the universities (and there is a high school part too) to come together and learn more about how to have an impact in their area of influence.  This was such a great time!   I met so many people from around Argentina and other countries that are passionate about sharing their faith and being soldiers for Christ.  There were about 300 students there in total.  In the middle of the week, we put our desires into practice and went out into the communities and did door to door evangelism.  Over 120 people accepted Christ the day we did that!  This camp was such a blessing for me.  To compare it to something in the States, I would have to say it is like a mini CCC Christmas conference, but a week long.

MAPUCHE PROJECT

Proyecto Mapuche is something that Vida Estudiantil Argentina has been doing the last few years in which we send people to different communities of Mapuche Indians to live there for 2 weeks and spread the gospel.  I got placed on a team of 8 in Lago Rosario.  This was my favorite thing  that I have done down here so far!  The community that we stayed in was such a gorgeous place; a lake, at the foot of the Patagonia Andes mountains, where lived solely the Mapuche Indian people.   This was great for me not only in the fact of bringing the gospel to people who needed to hear it, but to be out of the city and in nature really recharged me.  The city definitely takes its toll on me daily and this was something that I really needed.  Not to mention the fact that my team was amazing!

VACATION

After being in intense environments for the month of January, we had a much needed vacation.  We (myself, Tiffany, Katie, Garrett) took this time to travel to the south of Argentina.  We went to the cities of Calafate and Ushuaia.  I can't begin to put into words the beauty that these places beheld, you would just have to google search them yourself, or look on my facebook album.  This vacation was truly extraordinary.  What made the vacation even more special was the fact that one of my friends, Glenn, got to come with us.  He had some vacation time and money saved up from his job and decided to spend it down here with me.  It was great!

PLANNING AND PARENTS

After vacation was over we were back planning for the school year to come.  We would be in the headquarters 4 days a week looking at strategies, planning events, pursuing contacts, etc.  This was kind of a flexible time however, so my parents got to come visit me!  My boss Charly was kind enough to let me skip out on some of the "less necessary" meetings and spend time with them and it was such a blessing to have them here and show them my life down here.  I think they enjoyed it just as much as I did!

CAMPUS

Campus time has started back up now and it is great to be back.  I really love going to the agronomy campus and have made a lot of contacts there.  We are blessed to be in good standing with the administration and the main political party on campus.  Sometime it is hard for us to have a time of prayer before we begin our day because people we know always want to come talk to us, but I think this is a good problem to have.  We are praying for a few things on the agronomy campus this year that we would like to see:

-that the student Christians that we know would step up and start sharing their faith with us
-that God would raise up 7 student Christian leaders on campus this year to sustain the movement
-that someone in the political group "Nuevo Espacio" would come to Christ (they have a lot of influence on campus)
-that an administrator (Tano, Damien, or Esteban) would come to know Christ

If yall could pray for these things as well, that would be awesome.  I hope these things happen this year as it would be great to see fruit, but I know that as long as I keep sewing the seed that is all I can do.




Well that is a brief (very brief) summary of what has been going on down here in the southern hemisphere.  I hope all is well in the States.

Until next time (who knows when that will be!),
JM