I was chatting with an acquaintance online and he asked me "So what's up with you all?" Since I made the effort to type out the answer, i figured why not publish it here so our mothers can find out what were up to too.

Click here for the text of the brief chat between Rob and myself.

Those of your keeping up with our stories, will remember that we got just got back from Argentina and that - while there - we'd written two from the field updates. (For a refresher here is story one and story two.)

Here is the third and final update from our fantastic time in Buenos Aires. It's got quite a few photos and might take a minute or so to download if you've got a slow Internet connection, but Annette typed her finger to the bone to bring you the whole story :-)

Yea... a day off! This morning we were laying in bed and I asked Annette, "What do you want to do today?"

"What about driving over to Tlapujahua? We can check out the new Christmas ornaments and the cosmos are still in bloom."

I'd had that same idea, so we jumped in the car and headed off on the "scenic route" to the old mining town of Tlapujahua, Michoacan. It took about 2� hours to get there and the scenery was 100% Mexiquense (that means "of the state of Mexico" as opposed to "Mexicano" which means "of the country of Mexico"). We passed rural, indigenous women washing clothing in cold mountain creeks...we dodged burros, sheep, cows and potholes in the road...we ooh'ed and aah'ed at the acres and acres of purple and yellow cosmos flowers scattered among the corn fields...we passed thru pine forest and around lakes where families or solitary men fished...and we even picked up a candy and nuts vendor who was walking along the side of the road carry a big basket full of his mechandise. It had just started to pour down rain and he was running but there was no shelter nearby. He gladly accepted our offer of a ride and during our short time together, Salvador told us that after 8 children and 25 years together he and his "mujer" finally got married. He said he felt "so much love" when they finally got married. All in all it was a great day off.

Click on the little photo collage to see a bigger version

Click here to read our September letter with photos and quick stats from our life and work. You can choose to view it in two flavors: Word or Adobe PDF
(be forewarned, the PDF version looks snappy, but it's a 600 kbs)

Annette and I publish photos on this stock photo site - www.sxc.hu It's based out of Hungary and offers over 100,000 photos for free. A few times per week we receive emails from people asking for permission to use one of the over 400 photos which Annette and I have uploaded. They use the photos for whatever kind of design project they are doing... magazine illustrations, advertising, textbooks, etc.

We were in Argentina last week and received an email from someone asking to use a Mexican party photo for the front an invitation for some political event in Mexico. I wrote saying, "Sure! You may you use our photo," and I mentioned that I live in Mexico and am familiar with their political organization (it's the national electoral institute). Yesterday I got an email back saying:

The world sure is small... i just looked you up online and recognized your photo. We are neighbors. I live in the house across the street, the one with the palm tree.

Can you believe that?! He gets a photo from a hungarian stock photo site, and the one he chooses happens to be from his across-the-street neighbor who he doesn't really even know (we had only waved, said "buenos dias" and stuff like that). I was pulling the car in last night and saw this neighbor. We'd never actually met, but since the email included his name, I ventured "Isaac....?"

He turned, we both smiled and we walked to the middle of the street, and for the first time in the 8.5 years that I've lived here, we shook hands and laughed at our amazing "small world" story.

Click here for a photo of the two of us, Isaac and myself, holding the party invitation on which he used our photo.

The last few days have been a bit more relaxed... at least compared to breakneck lifestyle of the first week in Buenos Aires. We've been able to make some significant progress on projects with Gerardo (our friend and colleague here.) He and his wife, Adriana took us down to the coast Sunday afternoon and we spent the night at her sister's beach apartment. That all sounds great except you have to remember it is still winter here. i don't know when my poor nose has ever been so cold, even when we were camping in Yellowstone in early September i don't know that it was as cold as the night we spent at the beach in southern Argentina. The beach house was a 4 hour drive from Buenos Aires so we took advantage of the uninterrupted time in the car to get some in-depth work done, especially on Gerardo's chapters of the youth leadership manual that I'm editing.

Back in Buenos Aires we did a bit more work and i'm really pleased with what we've accomplished. I know the finished product will be much better as a result of our work here.

Today and tomorrow we have several appointments with people, mostly social but we hope of transcendent value too. Then Friday morning our friend, Vernon arrives from Northland (www.Northlandcc.net) in Orlando. The main reason Vernon is coming down is network with key youth workers and trainers in Latin America.

But for now, Tim and I are off to lunch in downtown in the financial district then to the opera tonight where we'll see a show put on by St. Andrew's Scot's school. Oh, the rough life :-)

Greetings from the land down under (Argentina is as under as Australia from what I can tell)

We�ve finished phase #1 of Argentina '04. Daryl Heald and two of his girls, Hallie and Francis, left Sunday night. We had an action packed time and I think it went very well, both from his point of view and in terms of the work here.

I spent most of my time with the girls --- we went to a foster home the church runs, served food in the street to the homeless, hung out, shopped, rode the coastal tourist train, etc --- while Tim, Daryl, and Gerardo (the pastor of the church) were in meetings. The funny thing is I probably would have preferred the meetings and Tim the more social activities :-) but it ended up being good for both of us.

It seems like Daryl was a real asset in many ways, for example some people who do fundraising for the school here said they learned more during the lunch with him than in most seminars on the subject. And he spoke at a men's breakfast on generosity and it seems that the right people were excited about what he said and the right people were squirming in their seats ;-)

We also got to do some really great things, like sailing down the river (click for photo) and eating lunch at the Yacht Club of Argentina, the oldest and most prestigious club in the country, and on a different day, going up into the delta by motorboat and lunching in a club hidden away among the islands. And the people here are so amazingly warm.

Tonight we spoke briefly at a meeting at the San - Olivos church, and the rest of the week is pretty laid back, though I think we'll have plenty to do.

Yesterday we finally got to do something we�ve never had time for... walking around Buenos Aires alone going where we want when we want. We spent most of our time in the San Telmo district, which is famous for its antiques.

More Later, till then, as they say here.... ciao, ciao

Annette