One week ago we finished up our classes, thus ending the theory part of our Discipleship Training School. Now it is time to start the Practical part of our training. It had been decided that we would stay in Pichilemu to do the outreach. We were hooked up with a local pastor to work with him and the church in whatever way they need us to. Before getting to work, however, there was one small detail that needed to be taken care of. Our three month visa for Chile had expired and had to be renewed. We looked into renewing it at the City Hall, and were disappointed to find out that the only way to renew was by paying $100 per person. Since we are such a big family, that was an expensive option. The other choice was to leave the country and then come back in, thus getting a new three month stay. With the help of our directors, we decided that this might be the best option for us since it could actually be a little cheaper than paying the fee (not to mention we would get a weekend getaway in Argentina). This decision was setting us up for a very crazy week that we could not have imagined.
On Saturday we left Pichilemu to Santiago, and caught a bus to Argentina. The nice thing about Chile being such a skinny country is that traveling to Argentina only takes a few hours. Unfortunately, about an hour out of Santiago, the bus was turned around because it was snowing in the Andes mountains that separates the two countries so the road was closed. When we arrived back in Santiago, we had no idea where to go. But we got in touch with the family of one of our fellow students. We had never met them, but they invited our family over when they heard that we were their daughter's friends. I think they were a bit shocked when we showed up at their front door and they found out that our family had 5 kids (I think they were expecting 2 or 3). Never the less, they were so hospitable and friendly. They welcomed us warmly and made us feel like we were part of their family.
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| Our friend Claudia and her dad (on the left) showed us some of the sights of Santiago. |
After two days of waiting for the weather to clear up and the pass to open, we decided to head back to Pichilemu. Our visa had already expired, and we were given a 10 day extension to get out of the country. At this point we were very discouraged. We didn't know if the pass would clear up in time for us to get to Argentina, or if we should just head back to Peru to stay. After praying about it (and after God cleared up the weather when the meteorologists predicted that the storm was going to be around much longer), we were able to make it to Argentina on Thursday. We were so relieved to get out of Chile before we had any more problems with our visa.
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| This is the winding road up over the pass. There are about 27 curves in this section of switchbacks. It is pretty cool. The pass is about 12,000 feet in altitude and gets a lot of snow in the winter (which is just starting here in Chile). |
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| Here is another shot of the Andes mountains as we were driving along in the bus. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful trip. I love the Andes mountains because they are so big and majestic. |
We thank the Lord for helping us to get the Visa situation settled, and for placing us in Pichilemu for the outreach time. We pray that God will use us there in the church and in whatever else He has planned for us. We look forward to seeing what is going to happen. We also thank the Lord for helping us through the first half of our school. He provided the financial support that we needed for those three months. Now we ask him to provide for the costs that we will have during this second half of our school. The $4,200 that we had raised up until now covered the costs of the room, board and school for the past three months. Now we need about that same amount for these next three months. We are going to keep renting our small house that we have been living in (unless we can find one that has a fireplace and is about the same price). We are also going to start cooking for ourselves, instead of eating all of our meals in the dining hall. That should be fun, but also a new experience. I haven't cooked in six months, so I hope I can remember how. Plus cooking in another country is a bit different, since you can't find all of the same ingredients. So we'll see how it goes.
We thank you all for your prayers and for caring enough about us to keep up to date on what is happening in our lives. God bless each one of you.
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