"Summer" "Vacation"

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder... We Hope

Yes, it HAS been WAY too long since we posted something on this blog. Months, and months. The images above give you a clue as to what has kept us occupied - really, really occupied - since August 3rd.

No Crying or Detention

We returned home after the first day of classes with no detention, no crying, and I even want to go back again today :-) (If you don't know what I'm talking about read our previous post)

Please, Oh Please, Don't Make Me Cry

When my mom asked me how my first day of elementary school was, I replied:

It was okay but... I don't think I'll go back.

Then there was my first day of junior high school when my mom didn't even have to ask. I returned home crying, drenched and with blue stains on my khakis from where my 3-ring binder had bled onto them in the rain and a detention notice because I missed athletics due to the fact I couldn't open the silly combination lock on my gym locker.

Tomorrow is another first day of classes... the youth ministry institute is finally starting. I sure hope it goes better this time :-)

Thanks to so many of you who have supported us over the last 18 months of preparation. Your prayers, encouragement and financial support have kept us going.

First Journal Entry Upon Arriving Home

We drove through the empty streets of Buenos Aires under a bright grey sky along street lined with grey-brown tree trunks with grey light coming down through brown leaves onto the pavement. There is a paleness to the city in winter. It's not unpleasant o unattractive, just somehow muted and reminding me of bones (structure without life).

[Note: I think I want more color on our apartment walls]

I was still zoned when we got off the plane. I had my eyes half-closed on the ride from the airport. I walked into the house, crawled under the covers and slept for 5 hours. Now I'm here in the stillness before life gets going again - the place in between the trip and the start of the institutes in 13 days. And life here is good - peaceful knowing that God has been so faithful to Raíces - doing more than we could ask or imagine through it - and confident that the institutes don't depend on us.

Thank you, Father, for all that and please help me live in this knowledge.

How to Invest in Latin America

We just got back from Costa Rica where we spent 9 days helping lead Raíces III training program for Spanish speaking youth leaders. Level one is basic principles for youth work; level two is how to train others in those principles and level three combines a look at "new challenges in youth work" with personalized mentoring for people who have proven faithful with the first two levels.

The invited leaders were from 11 countries and amazed us with the creativity and faithfulness with which they have applied, disseminated and improved on what we taught them.

For example, Raul and his wife Elcy have trained 800+ people in their home country of Colombia. His life is a tremendous return on the investment made by a couple who sponsored him through Compassion International during his childhood.

The event was a rich time for us to re-connect with old friends and make new ones with people who work with youth in the Spanish-speaking world but more importantly it allowed us to give fresh insight and encouragment to help them keep going. One of our friends who grew up in rural Mexico in a house with a dirt floor and a cardboard-roof and is now a professor and administrator at a seminary, a church planter, a youth director in both California and Mexico and a youth ministry trainer, said, “Sometimes I wonder about my call to this work. I ask myself if this is really what I’m supposed to be doing or if I’m just filling a spot someone else should be in, but through [my time here] I see that God has been guiding me to this work my whole life. I think I came to Raíces III so I could see that.”

When life get's tough, that's the kind of clarity that keeps you going and we're grateful to have been able to be a part of that process.

Quick Update on...

Life here is good...the pace keeps picking up as we have 60 days before classes start and the amount of work to do before then is... yikes.

The school finally has an administrative assistant, which helps a TON. We're finishing up the first round of interviews of prospective students and are moving on to meeting with their supervisors, which is a logistical nightmare, because they are all crazy-busy. But we're determined to have them in the loop, so we appreciate your prayers for that step of the process.

I'm in the thick of trying to help the professors produce their course materials which will break out of the talk, talk talk mold. And we're trying to get logistics of project based education hammered out and communicated. But the feedback from prospective students and other leaders we've been able to contact so far has been very encouraging. I think we are all sensing that the institutes are the right thing at the right time.

One More Beautiful Year

On June 4th, 19?? Annette was born. Today many people are happier and wiser because of that auspicious occasion. I know I am! Happy birthday, Beautiful.

Wool in June

I've coined a new term: seasonal dissonance--the uncomfortable feeling caused by the lack of agreement between the season I'm experiencing and the season I associate with this month.

June was always one of my favorite times of year. The school year was over and the long, sunny, days of summer stretched out in front of me.

Today it's drizzling and in the 40's. The sun rose at 8 am and set before 6 pm. Not too bad for the end of November, but odd for the end of May.

Yesterday we listened to Vince Guaraldi's music from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Perfect for the weather but Christmas isn't just around the corner. In fact C.S. Lewis might have had Argentina in mind when he wrote about a land where it was "always winter and never Christmas."

It's going to be disconcerting to wear wool in June, but I look forward to pulling out my flip-flops in November.

Stampede

In the first 3 weeks since we opened registration, 352 youth leaders have already applied to attend the youth workers institute, and we receive more each day. Classes begin in August.

After more than 2 years of working with the team that will be opening campuses in Argentina and Guatemala, it feels good to receive such a enthusiastic response from Latin American youth leaders. Classes don't begin until August and every day we receive new applications. Each campus only has space for 50 to 80 students, so as part of the selection process every potential student must be interviewed personally.

Annette and I have 100 people to interview over the next 30 days... and if the 6 people we interviewed on Thursday are representative, it will be tough to select only 1 out of every 2.5 of them.

Time Lapse

Earlier this week we returned from a trip to the US which included our twice annual meeting with our OC team, the IMT (International Ministries Team), time with family and visits with individuals and a church who give to our work here in Argentina.

The trip was chock full of great things* but the most helpful was being with so many people who see our life in terms of years, not days. Each morning I have my list of things I want to accomplish and throughout the day I am frequently frustrated by how slowly I can check them off. For example, email feel like Hydra’s head: I finish off one and three more arrive in its place.

However when we gave our ministry report to our team, who hold us accountable for our goals and objectives, I saw that a lot has happened since we saw them last. Besides the web site, which continues to go strong, and personal mentoring, the EJ Institute for youth leaders has a director, a location, professors, a web site, on-line registration and we’re deep in the process of selecting our first group of students.

And over lunch at Bonita Springs Presbyterian Church, Paul Fahenstock reminded us that a few short years ago we didn’t know what we should do after finishing our project in Mexico.

It does feel like we’ve come a long way.