a day and a half to go.

where to start... well i´ll just give some highlights over the past few days. Saturday night a friend that we met at the english school, lorena, invited us over for asado. basically just grilled meat that is really good, but here they eat most parts of the cow and i got to sample some intestine... (chris b. you would have loved it) it was a great night just to hang out with some locals and eat. we started cooking dinner around 1030 and started eating about 1230 or 1 we finished around 4. on the way home we ran into our friend lichi, who just moved into a new apartment and wanted to show us. we went to bed about 5...

sunday we went to rincon church again which was good (at least the parts i could understand). afterwards we ate at a mexican restaurant, which was not a whole lot like mexican food, with some church members.

my contact with nicolas has been minimal this week, which stinks. hopefully i will see him in a couple of hours. i bought him a spanish bible for him and his girlfriend to study because they expressed interest in doing so. please pray that he would remain in contact with scott and david after i leave ánd that God would continue to soften his heart and show nic his need for Christ.

yesterday i had a great conversation with a guy, javier. we started asking me about kharma and we talked for about an hour on harboring anger in our hearts and learning to forgive others and i shared with him some of my struggles with anger. he says he believes in God and the bible but it´s difficult to see how that works out in his life. tonight he will be coming to the first study and he´s definitely curious.

last night some friends from church cooked for us (diego and andrea). diego is awesome. and he told me if i ever came back that he wanted me to stay with him. yes!

God has really been challenging me and opening my eyes to inconsistencies in my life and causing me to truly search my motives. and just thinking more deeply about my actions and words. there have been a lot of interesting discussions on law, legalism and learning to discern and make decisions and live in freedom. can explain more later.

i will be home this weekend and it´s much too soon... i love the argentines.

please pray for the study tonight and that i would finish strong and seek to glorify God with the final day and a half and would not go on ´cruise control´.

ome photos.

love you all.

myj

photo 1
men and the meat... at the asado cookout. javier is on the left.

photo 2
nicolas and me in the plaza san martin (if you know spanish, it may humor you to read the sign)

photo 3
dinner with the argetine´s at diego´s casa

well, i think it's been just 2 days since my last update, but I have some time tonight since it's only 2 am. here people go to bed usually around 5 or 6 am on the weekends. in fact it's very loud outside right now...

yesterday we took a day to travel and went to la cumbrecita which is in the sierras. It was about a 3 hour very bumpy and half-dirt, small & dingy, rattling bus trip to the south. but the scenery was amazing. the town is a small german town in the middle of argentina where we just walked around and enjoyed the relaxed village and checked out the artesenas...

we stopped in bellagrano on the way back into town and did more of the same. it was a nice day but i found myself missing the interaction with our new friends in cordoba.

today i spent the morning with our friend fernanda who was leaving tonight for home and just did random things around the city. then in the afternoon i met up with nic as usual at 3 pm. he took me to his apartment to meet his girlfriend and we took some mate... she was great but spoke no english. we had a great conversation about the catholic church and just had some really good conversation.

she left and nic and i ended up hanging out until 1 am. we talked much about our God and life and our girlfriends. his friend leo met us up and attended our evening bible study. they got a very straight forward presentation of the gospel and salvation and how the catholic church has distorted salvation into a series of rules of behavior and traditions. blake and leo and nic and i sat out on the cold balcony and talked for a long time and i shared my complete testimony with them as did blake. it was really a great opportunity. God really planned every detail of this day. they were very attentive and they're great guys and i feel like nic and i have been friends for years.

I can't begin to share how much i have grown and how much i have seen God's handiwork on this trip. i am so humbled by the support I received for this opportunity and the sacrifice that was made to allow me to serve God here. i am sad and thrilled to have 1 week left...

love you all
shannon

myj!

hola, como esta?
(this will be in all lowercase because the keyboards here are funky. sorry for the incorrect english.)

after a long layover and a somewhat freaky flight, i arrived in cordoba, argentina on saturday morning. i immediately met up with the group and we went to plaza espagna to evangelize in the park. what an experience! for those who don´t know, everyone drinks mate (ma-tay) here. i mean everyone. it is a tea that is shared... basically we would walk around to people and ask them if we could take mate with them, then sit down and they would pour us some and we pass it around and all drink from the same bombilla (like a straw). it´s incredible, i could imagine people welcoming anyone to drink from the same cup as them! i love the relationships here! we had some great conversations.

the best thing is no one here really watches tv or movies much nor do they play board games to be able to hang out. they simply conversate, even when i can´t do it back!

that night we played some futbol with some guys that the group had met before and that was awesome. i just realized i need to make this update more brief because i don´t have much time!

it´s been great. i´ve met some awesome people and built some strong relationships and had deeper conversations with people here than people more than folks ive known for months in the state. this is a testament to the relationships here and also conviction of the shallowness of my relationships in the states.

i have too much to tell, but i will soon... please pray for nico, lorena, carolina, nic and jose luis (folks i´ve built relationships with). pray for me too and the group and the leaders.

we´ve shared the good news with many folks here and many are thirsty and are seeking something deeper, for truth. i hope and pray that we can glorify christ with this trip and this church that david and scott are starting. pray for the relationships we build would continue when our team is gone and that our words and actions are not in vain.

sorry this email is so random, too much to write and not enough time to organize thoughts.

i love all of you much.
jenni i miss you.
forza italia, beat france!

photo 1 - meeting some argentines in the park on the first day i was here. the guy playing the guitar is nico who is the picture four days later with me!

photo 2 - argentines taking mate in the park

photo 3 - our empanada coookout with the locals! thanks to fernanda the maestra...

photo 4 - nico and me before he went home from school