Mapuche Project

I shower very regularly. Every morning. Sometimes more than once a day if I've been running or working out. I didn't shower for 5 days during the project. Why am I telling you this? Well I'm hoping to set the stage for my post by contrasting my norm with  what the 10 days on the Mapuche Project were like!

The 80 students, staff, and professionals from Buenos Aires boarded a bus Monday morning, January 10 (yeah, I'm a little late posting about this). We had to be at the meeting point at 8 and many of us arrived from camp at 4:00 AM earlier that morning. Hence we had enough time for a very very brief nap. We boarded the bus and headed East to the province of Neuquen. The trip was great for seeing countryside....we got to see a lot of it in the 24 hour period that we were on the bus together! And we got close. Mere strangers got to know what I smell like after sitting on bus for 24 hours without air in the middle of an Argentine summer! We finally arrived in a town called Piedra del Aguila (which translates to Eagle Rock). We stayed there a night, met together for some vision casting for the week and then headed off to Mapuche communities throughout Neuquen.

One of my favorite pictures that I've taken :-)

The building where we stayed in Piedra del Aguila. Piedra = rock. Makes sense, eh?

Myself and the new roommates, John Mark (left) and Ben (right)

We took a quick Saturday trip to a nearby lake!

I greatly enjoy cliff jumping on any and all continents.

I went spent a few another couple of days in Piedra del Aguila and then went to a Mapuche community called Aucapan. Our all-star team resided in one of the local schools where we slept in mattresses on floors in the classrooms. Thankfully the school had a cafeteria and we were granted full access to use the kitchen for our meals. I mentioned not showering earlier. It was alarmingly cold there for most of our time, so showering meant emerging wet from the commode/shower combo stall into the blasting wind... so it didn't happen much in my case. Yet our living conditions were so much higher than the people we went to visit. They lived in homes with concrete floors, no running water, and few had electricity. It was as if the whole community of Aucapan (with the exception of the school which had some modern conveniences) was as it was in the 19th century.

While in Aucapan, we did several things. We helped plan recess times for the kids at the school in an effort to help out some of the teachers and give them a little extra time. But mostly we spent our time visiting people in their homes or showing the Jesus Film. 

Here's a video to try and give you an idea of the place where we were. I sincerely apologize for the abundance of wind noise... It was always windy. We would walk along this network of dirt homes until we found a house and then would ask if we could come in and visit for a while.  Most of the time the men of the home were out tending to the sheep, cows, horses, etc. But we got to talk to a lot of women who were home and were happy to have guests.

We had some really amazing spiritual conversations with people in their homes. We gave away a bible, got to encourage a woman who was a believer but lived with an alcoholic husband and father and was just discouraged about life, got to share about who Jesus was and what He has done for us with a bunch of families. It was incredible.

Here are some more pictures of our time:

The Aucapan team with a kind gentleman who drove us back to civilization.

My friend Cynthia and I with one of the families that we spent the most time with.

Lili, myself, and Cynthia with a lady who prayed to receive Christ with us!

Me riding one of their horses!

The boys of the family and I on their horse. (Sorry it's difficult to see)