This Maranatha missions team is ministering in Argentina from July 28 to August 18, 2010.
May 5, 2008
Note from Mr. Trainer
Thank you so much for your prayers and support. We will update the blog as often as possible, but our busy schedule will limit the amount of information that we are able to communicate daily.
Online Photo Gallery
Family & Friends,
We will be uploading some photos as time allows. You will be able to view these at the following address:
http://picasaweb.google.com/teamargentina2008
- Jacob
We will be uploading some photos as time allows. You will be able to view these at the following address:
http://picasaweb.google.com/teamargentina2008
- Jacob
From Emily S.
Correction: This post was originally posted as being from Emily D.; it is actually from Emily Sieger.
Dear Dad, Mom, and Family,
Hi dear ones. I can't believe I'm writing you from Argentina! It's amazing here. I love it already! The people are wonderful, the food is amazing… they feed us very well… the country is beautiful and I love it here. I am so thankful that the Lord allowed me to be part of this team. God is doing great things and I look forward to watching him do more. I love you all and miss you tons and pray for you too.
Love always, Emily
Alex: I miss you and think about you often. You're in my prayers.
Dear Dad, Mom, and Family,
Hi dear ones. I can't believe I'm writing you from Argentina! It's amazing here. I love it already! The people are wonderful, the food is amazing… they feed us very well… the country is beautiful and I love it here. I am so thankful that the Lord allowed me to be part of this team. God is doing great things and I look forward to watching him do more. I love you all and miss you tons and pray for you too.
Love always, Emily
Alex: I miss you and think about you often. You're in my prayers.
From Jessica & Emily D.
¡Hola a todos!
We've only been in Argentina for a short time, but it has already been an amazing experience. Our hearts have been overwhelmed and it is clear that God has been at work. Thank you all so much for your prayers. Church last with fellow believers was a huge blessing! At church we met the pediatric surgeon, and we will be observing several hours of surgery on Wednesday. He has an amazing testimony and is excited about the witnessing opportunity he will have because we will be there. Please keep us in prayer. We can't wait to share with you how God works.
Miss you all.
--Jessica and Emily Dow
P.S. The food is so good here that they can even make cow intestine taste… ok :)
We've only been in Argentina for a short time, but it has already been an amazing experience. Our hearts have been overwhelmed and it is clear that God has been at work. Thank you all so much for your prayers. Church last with fellow believers was a huge blessing! At church we met the pediatric surgeon, and we will be observing several hours of surgery on Wednesday. He has an amazing testimony and is excited about the witnessing opportunity he will have because we will be there. Please keep us in prayer. We can't wait to share with you how God works.
Miss you all.
--Jessica and Emily Dow
P.S. The food is so good here that they can even make cow intestine taste… ok :)
From Tiff
Buen día, Mom, Dad, and Tim,
You told me not to get lost while I'm down here, but it's a possibility I might get "lost" on my back to the States! We are having a wonderful time so far getting to know the culture and people. The food is amazing. Dad and Tim, you would love the meat they have here. The only thing that you might not have liked was the cow intestines… I tried it though! I love you and miss you all and can't wait to tell you everything in person.
Love, Tiff
You told me not to get lost while I'm down here, but it's a possibility I might get "lost" on my back to the States! We are having a wonderful time so far getting to know the culture and people. The food is amazing. Dad and Tim, you would love the meat they have here. The only thing that you might not have liked was the cow intestines… I tried it though! I love you and miss you all and can't wait to tell you everything in person.
Love, Tiff
¡El viaje y parte del primer día!
From Jacob Job
Translation: The trip and part of the first day!
I was first able to travel via the airlines when my senior class headed out to San Diego nearly two years ago. Boarding that aircraft (I think it was a 727) was a exhilarating experience, considering the first and last time I had flown had been at least six years prior, and that was in a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor. I've also taken a couple of other trips in the last couple of years by way of the airlines, and had yet to experience anything go wrong.
Well, this would be the trip that things just weren't intended to go as smoothly as one might hope with the airlines, but thankfully for us there would not be any serious implications involved a couple of delayed flights. On Saturday, my dad and stepmom drove Chris Jochum and I to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to meet up with the rest of the team. (Chris will be driving back to Maryland upon our return, so things work out best for him if he leaves his car at our place.) The timing of our arrival at O'Hare was pretty cool. We were the first to pull up to the curb outside of Delta's check-in, and within ten minutes, everyone else had arrived as well.
So we checked in, some of us said our goodbyes, and through security we went to wait for a couple of hours at the gate. Of course we had to grab some food (two McDonald's double cheeseburgers for me). We played some cards and talked for awhile while awaiting our flight to Atlanta.
I went to China last year with the team from Maranatha, and it's apparent that the dynamics of this team are vastly different. Last year, I walked up to the Midwest Express check-in and began talking to my fellow team members that I barely even knew. This team, it seems, already knows each other fairly decently, which probably has a lot to do with the preparation that has gone into the trip (specifically working as a team in regard to singing, but also even with ESL and basketball).
Our flight out of Chicago didn't depart for around an hour after the scheduled time. That was fine; we knew that we would have a decent layover in Atlanta, and actually ended up having an even longer one than expected.
It seems as though I can only sit in a seat at the gate for so long. I need to be standing or moving or something. Well, Atlanta's a big airport with, I think, six concourses. The concourses run parallel to each other with planes parked all around. Several of us (Ryan, Matthew H., Betsy, Leanna, and myself) eventually got to the point to where we had to do some moving, so we started hopping the underground trams that run between the concourses. Our flight would leave out of a gate at Concourse E, so from there we headed all the way back to A and checked out some of the restaurants and stores. We worked our way back somewhat slowly, sometimes taking the tram and sometimes taking the moving walkway until we finally arrived back at gate E-4.
Well, we definitely wouldn't be leaving from E-4. I'm still a little confused in regard to all of the details, but it seemed as though there was a plane sitting at the gate that probably wasn't supposed to be. There were a lot of people trying to leave for a flight to Zurich from the same gate, and they weren't having much success with that venture (it sounded as thought they'd been waiting way past their departure time). Eventually we were moved down the concourse to another gate where another airplane was sitting. That airplane had to be removed, ours transported from the hangar to the gate, and then prepped by the pilots and flight attendants along with being loaded with food and baggage and probably fuel.
Our scheduled departure was 8:40, but I think we left the ground somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 EST. The pilot said over the intercom that they arranged it so that our flight would be quicker that originally planned (we'd be flying at mach .81!). The flight attendants brought out the in-flight meals after close to an hour into the flight. Chris gambled on the pasta while I played safe with the roast chicken (Chris lost by the way).
I watched city after city of lights from my window seat on the left side. Oh, we were flying in a 767 in case anyone would be curious. We flew an MD-90 to Atlanta. Can't forget those important details! Soon enough, on came the in-flight movie. I watched the first few minutes and then opted to put on some headphones with my own media instead. A couple hours later I was definitely ready for some sleep.
I woke up enough once in the early morning to catch a glimpse of the beginning of the sunrise over the great Atlantic. Then I drifted back off to sleep and awoke again probably twenty minutes later to behold a more fully developed sunrise. Matthew Huggins got some pretty good shots of the sunrise.
That window seat definitely paid off though as we flew over the Argentine topography north of Buenos Aires. The sun had continued to rise as the local time was now close to 9:00 a.m. (Buenos Aires time is one more hour ahead of EST). All across the landscape lay scattered blankets of fog, with the edges of some parts wisped away by the wind. One patch surrounded a river and had crept underneath a bridge that spanned across it. Seeing the fog from the skies was a completely new sight for me.
Finally we came in near Buenos Aires, overflying some of the surrounding areas. The buildings just stretch on and on. The taller buildings rose toward the sky some way off to the east. Soon enough we came into Los Aeropuertos Argentina and put down on Runway 11.
It is very late as I'm writing this, and I really want (and, yes, probably need) to grab some decent sleep before tomorrow. The place that we're staying at though is great. There will be some photos available on our web albums.
Translation: The trip and part of the first day!
I was first able to travel via the airlines when my senior class headed out to San Diego nearly two years ago. Boarding that aircraft (I think it was a 727) was a exhilarating experience, considering the first and last time I had flown had been at least six years prior, and that was in a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor. I've also taken a couple of other trips in the last couple of years by way of the airlines, and had yet to experience anything go wrong.
Well, this would be the trip that things just weren't intended to go as smoothly as one might hope with the airlines, but thankfully for us there would not be any serious implications involved a couple of delayed flights. On Saturday, my dad and stepmom drove Chris Jochum and I to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to meet up with the rest of the team. (Chris will be driving back to Maryland upon our return, so things work out best for him if he leaves his car at our place.) The timing of our arrival at O'Hare was pretty cool. We were the first to pull up to the curb outside of Delta's check-in, and within ten minutes, everyone else had arrived as well.
So we checked in, some of us said our goodbyes, and through security we went to wait for a couple of hours at the gate. Of course we had to grab some food (two McDonald's double cheeseburgers for me). We played some cards and talked for awhile while awaiting our flight to Atlanta.
I went to China last year with the team from Maranatha, and it's apparent that the dynamics of this team are vastly different. Last year, I walked up to the Midwest Express check-in and began talking to my fellow team members that I barely even knew. This team, it seems, already knows each other fairly decently, which probably has a lot to do with the preparation that has gone into the trip (specifically working as a team in regard to singing, but also even with ESL and basketball).
Our flight out of Chicago didn't depart for around an hour after the scheduled time. That was fine; we knew that we would have a decent layover in Atlanta, and actually ended up having an even longer one than expected.
It seems as though I can only sit in a seat at the gate for so long. I need to be standing or moving or something. Well, Atlanta's a big airport with, I think, six concourses. The concourses run parallel to each other with planes parked all around. Several of us (Ryan, Matthew H., Betsy, Leanna, and myself) eventually got to the point to where we had to do some moving, so we started hopping the underground trams that run between the concourses. Our flight would leave out of a gate at Concourse E, so from there we headed all the way back to A and checked out some of the restaurants and stores. We worked our way back somewhat slowly, sometimes taking the tram and sometimes taking the moving walkway until we finally arrived back at gate E-4.
Well, we definitely wouldn't be leaving from E-4. I'm still a little confused in regard to all of the details, but it seemed as though there was a plane sitting at the gate that probably wasn't supposed to be. There were a lot of people trying to leave for a flight to Zurich from the same gate, and they weren't having much success with that venture (it sounded as thought they'd been waiting way past their departure time). Eventually we were moved down the concourse to another gate where another airplane was sitting. That airplane had to be removed, ours transported from the hangar to the gate, and then prepped by the pilots and flight attendants along with being loaded with food and baggage and probably fuel.
Our scheduled departure was 8:40, but I think we left the ground somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 EST. The pilot said over the intercom that they arranged it so that our flight would be quicker that originally planned (we'd be flying at mach .81!). The flight attendants brought out the in-flight meals after close to an hour into the flight. Chris gambled on the pasta while I played safe with the roast chicken (Chris lost by the way).
I watched city after city of lights from my window seat on the left side. Oh, we were flying in a 767 in case anyone would be curious. We flew an MD-90 to Atlanta. Can't forget those important details! Soon enough, on came the in-flight movie. I watched the first few minutes and then opted to put on some headphones with my own media instead. A couple hours later I was definitely ready for some sleep.
I woke up enough once in the early morning to catch a glimpse of the beginning of the sunrise over the great Atlantic. Then I drifted back off to sleep and awoke again probably twenty minutes later to behold a more fully developed sunrise. Matthew Huggins got some pretty good shots of the sunrise.
That window seat definitely paid off though as we flew over the Argentine topography north of Buenos Aires. The sun had continued to rise as the local time was now close to 9:00 a.m. (Buenos Aires time is one more hour ahead of EST). All across the landscape lay scattered blankets of fog, with the edges of some parts wisped away by the wind. One patch surrounded a river and had crept underneath a bridge that spanned across it. Seeing the fog from the skies was a completely new sight for me.
Finally we came in near Buenos Aires, overflying some of the surrounding areas. The buildings just stretch on and on. The taller buildings rose toward the sky some way off to the east. Soon enough we came into Los Aeropuertos Argentina and put down on Runway 11.
It is very late as I'm writing this, and I really want (and, yes, probably need) to grab some decent sleep before tomorrow. The place that we're staying at though is great. There will be some photos available on our web albums.
Safe Arrival!
We've made it to Argentina! We will post more when we have a chance. We were two hours late, but everyone is safe. We enjoyed a great steak lunch and are resting this afternmoon. We will be singing and preaching in the evening service. --Brian
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