Carnaval and Artilleros Photos

I am putting up some pictures from Carnaval. This is celebrated throughout the month of February.

This is the parade of Las Llamadas (The Calls) Slavery existed here as well and the owners let the slaves get together occasionally and they would play drums and dress up on the same street where the parade is today.

The costumes are a little more intricate now than they were back then.

My favorite part of the night was seeing this guy in a WVU hat... I am sure he had no idea how awesome his hat is (I see lots of University shirts here but no one knows cares what team or university it is) or why I was taking his picture.


Saturday I went to Artilleros with a few people from the young adult group in the Waldensian church. It is a town on the river plate that is very small and relaxing.

Maria Noel, Karin (Pastor Wilma's daughter) and Me on the beach in Artilleros.

Right after sunset

Marcos, me, Maria Noel, Karin, Sara and Victor

A beautiful moon right before we returned to Montevideo

Loving your neighbor

One of the members in the congregation shared with us a Bible study a couple weeks ago and the questions at the end of the Bible study were simple, but they caused me to reflect, so I thought I would share them with you all.

What does it mean to love my neighbor AS MYSELF?
Am I doing enough to love my neighbor?
Have I chosen the neighbors I want to love and forgotten about the rest?

Living a life of faithful Christian service...

Living in Uruguay has taught me a lot, but do I think that to live a life of faithful Christian service a person needs to leave the country or even city where they live? Absolutely not.

I often find myself getting caught up in tasks and trying to make myself useful by DOING these things that I think will help someone. I have come to realize that this attitude has probably prevented more than one conversation that would have been worth more than anything I could DO. It is not easy to admit that I have not taken advantage of every opportunity that God has presented me with to engage with the people I have encountered. Being more proficient in Spanish also helps with engaging, and I have found it easier to have conversations beyond my ability level in 2008. I look forward to what God has in store for me in the last four months here. I have made a promise to myself to put the people I encounter in front the task that is before me. I have a lot to learn from the people I encounter and pray that I will make more opportunities to do just that.

Just an Update

Things in La Obra are picking up with the end of summer vacation. Students who did not pass exams the first time around have a second chance in February to take them. We are currently preparing these students like crazy in la Obra Ecumenica. I have been tutoring lots of Math and English for the past week and a half to students who are still on summer vacation. It is not any easier to teach students in Uruguay in the summer than it would be to pull a child from a swimming pool in the United States and put them at a table to study. I have found myself being able to communicate a lot better now than when I left la Obra in December.

In Nuestro Salvador, we have moved the office to open up a space for student housing. There are currently four students living in the church now. I am excited to see more activity here. I am friends with a few of the people living here and we have eaten together a couple times and spent some free time just hanging out and talking. The congregation of Nuestro Salvador is sending six members to Minnesota in May to visit their sister church, Good Shepherd. They are preparing now a bit of history and information to take to share with the congregation there. I am excited for this opportunity for them. It is great to share faith with new people in a different context and I think that the members going will have a great experience that will strengthen their faith and I am excited for them to come back and share with us what they learned and experienced.

February also begins a month-long celebration of Carnaval. There are parades and murgas and tambores. To see more about Carnaval, follow this link: http://www.carnaval.com/uruguay/

Uruguay vs. Argentina

Summer is in full swing here and while things seem to be slowing down in the city, I feel like I have more to do inside and outside of my "assignment." A pastor who works Buenos Aires, but is originally from Montevideo is on vacation here with his family. I got to spend last night with them and Wilma and Alvaro. They also have two boys (9 and 4 years old) who asked me if I knew how to play poker, and when I said yes, I had friends for the rest of the night. We also played soccer, hide and seek and tag. While I was not being a child, I took part in an interesting conversation with the three pastors and Pastor Gustavio's wife, Sandra. They were talking about the difference in being a Christian in Argentina and being a Christian in Uruguay. I was amazed that countries so close geographically had such a different response to Christianity in the community.
When Gustavio was attending school in Montevideo, they were prohibited to wear anything that symbolized Christianity. If they were wearing a cross necklace, for example, they would be asked to wear it under their shirt. There is also a hymn in Uruguay that talks about Artigas (national hero) almost like he is like a god. They were saying that they had to sing it in school. Some of the words include "Our Father, Artigas, Lord of our land..." Uruguay is now seeing more acceptance of Christianity. The President of Uruguay now meets with the pastors of churches to work cooperatively to assist the citizens of Uruguay, where before churches were not recognized on a national level. Uruguay has changed a lot since Gustavio was in school. Christianity is more accepted now, but still not like it is in Argentina.

Wedding in Uruguay

I have been "adopted" by my friend, Analia's parents. They live about a 2.5 hour bus ride from Montevideo, but I have stayed with them three times. Every time they receive me like I am their third daughter. I love the town they live in. It is a lot more laid back than Montevideo, and almost everyone in town heads to the beach every evening to spend a few hours drinking mate and watching the sunset before heading home for supper.
I just returned from this town, Colonia del Sacramento, Sunday evening. I was there for six days helping prepare for Ivana's wedding. Ivana is Analia's older sister. Saturday was the wedding and it was hotter than any day I have experienced in Uruguay. It was in the 100's all day and impossible to think about putting on more clothes than a bathing suit. The wedding started at 9:00pm, but unlike the United States, the time on the invitation was the time people started arriving. Uruguay is in the middle of a horrible drought, all of the farms are suffering horribly from the lack of rain, and of course at 8:55 the skies opened up and it rained harder than I have seen since I have been down here. No one could complain about the rain though, because it is so terribly needed here and it cooled off significantly. There were more smiles than grumbles about the rain. When the rain let up around 9:45, we went outside for the ceremony and it was a gorgeous starry sky backdrop to have a wedding. The ceremony was not much different from that in the United States. After the ceremony, we went inside to the reception.
The reception went a bit like this... appetizers, everyone dancing, more appetizers, more dancing, asado, dancing, pasta, dancing, dessert, dancing, bride and groom putting on big hats and bringing out whistles and masks for everyone and spraying foam everywhere, dancing, all of the single girls pulling rings out of the cake (the one who pulled the gold ring is the next to get married), cutting cake, eating cake, dancing, dancing... and leaving when the sun was coming up at 6:30 in the morning! I was told they were supposed to serve coffee and breakfast, but they ran out of time. I now understand why we took time out on the wedding day to take a nap!

Long Overdue

It has been way too long since I have shared what has been happening in Uruguay. I am happy and sad to say that I have been staying very busy and have not had much time to spend on the Internet. As far as WHAT I have been doing, I can say A LOT. It is summer here, so everything is pretty much closed down in the city, La Obra Ecumenica included. I was told to get out of Montevideo after Christmas or I would find myself with nothing to do. That was easy since I had visitors coming to Buenos Aires on December 26 and 27. I spent from December 26- January 4 with Laura, Anne, Josh and Megan. I got to show them a little bit of Montevideo and we explored Buenos Aires. I was very excited that they got to share with me probably the best asado I have had here at the house of one of the members of Nuestro Salvador. I introduced them to some of my friends in Montevideo, and it was great to see them interacting... with me sometimes acting as translator. I was sad to see them go after a wonderful time we had here.
I stayed in Buenos Aires until January 6 when I took my GRE then left directly for the bus station to take me to Parana, Argentina for a camp with the young adults of the Waldensian church in Argentina and Uruguay. There were 110 of us total camping in tents for a week. It was a nice getaway with friends and it reminded me of Camp Luther only for old people like me. I really enjoyed listening to them sing camp songs (even though I couldn't join in, because I did not know the songs they were singing.) I get overjoyed to see people praising God and his work in another part of the World.
With the arrival of my visitors from the US, came an overwhelming amount of school supplies for La Obra Ecumenica. Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to deliver the supplies to the director since we are on summer vacation, but I just wanted to say thank you to those who collected and donated.
I also requested quite a few things for myself including salad dressing, maple syrup and some clothes that I decided I missed from home. I got spoiled for Christmas a couple days late. :)

I have reached the halfway point of my adventure in Uruguay. While I get excited to think about returning home to see all of my loved ones and give everyone big hugs, I know it will be hard to leave my life in Uruguay. Halfway through this journey, I know God still has a lot to teach me through this whole experience. It is hard to keep my eyes open and take in all of the new experiences and reflect on what I am learning through it all. It has been a whirlwind five months, and I hope I can take time to find the words to share with everyone my thoughts and feelings on this whole experience. I thank God for the continuous support I receive from everyone at home. It is so encouraging to receive the e-mails, letters and cards from everyone.