Ellen in Paraguay

I don’t want to spend too long writing, because Peter and my new friend Kim are waiting for me outside by the pool. It’s a beautiful day in Villa Carlos Paz, in the argentine province of Cordoba. One week ago from today we were just arriving in Buenos Aries to meet up with Nate and Annette. For lunch we went to a place called Sabot, chosen purely because its name is only one letter off from our last name. As soon as we sat down, a man sidled up to us with a secret: "Usually this restaurant only serves little goat on Thursdays, but the people at the next table over ordered it. I advise that you take advantage of the chance to eat the best goat in all of Buenos Aries." It was very low-stress for me because he did all the ordering, and it turned out he was with the food and wine critic from the Buenos Aires Herald, and a man who produces fine wines in Mendoza, another province in Argentina. They shared champagne with us and the food and wine critic even gave us a free copy of his book on Argentine food and wines, which served us very well for the rest of the trip. My favourite page was the illustration of a cross section of an empanada.

Tuesday I didn’t have such luck with other people ordering for us, and I had to turn into tour guide. Remember how in May I wrote about wanting to become a storyteller? Well, my new dream is to become some kind of tour guide. I see it as a cross between a storyteller, a teacher and an entertainer, all things I like to do. We went to Recoleta cemetery where a whole bunch of rich and famous Argentines are buried, including Evita Peron, and we had a very dynamic tour guide who managed to make the cemetery a very interesting, not to mention educational, experience.

Wednesday we took the train to Mar del Plata. The train was less than half the price of a bus ticket, plus I was told later that tourists almost never take the train. The good thing is that the beach was not very crowded. The bad part was that it couldn’t even begin to compare to the beaches on the west coast of North America, and it was pretty cold while we were there.

The morning of American thanksgiving I woke up for a sunrise service (since I had never see the sunrise over the ocean, just watched it go down). It was very easy to me to be thankful, waking up in a comfortable bed, going down for a buffet breakfast and then going out to sit on the beach and read. It was a complete contrast to that evening, which we spent playing Connect Four in the mall until the security guard kicked us out, then walking in the rain and sleeping in the cold and somewhat uncomfortable train (but it cost less than $5 for a 6 hour train ride!). I chose as my Thanksgiving passage these words from Paul in Philippians: "I have learned to be content (and thankful) in whatever state I am. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Right now I am definitely in abundance here at the house of Omar and Stella Gava, at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by kind and interesting people. Yesterday they asked me to share in church about my experiences of the last year, and I was able to do it in Spanish and didn’t even look at my notes once. Then we spent until the late afternoon at a place for missionaries in training and enjoyed sweet fellowship with a dynamic group, including a Cuban couple and some folks from Chile. They were in the middle of an intensive six-week English course, and were begging us to stay and keep speaking with them.

In summary, I feel that the last week has been very helpful as I get ready to say goodbye to my friends in Paraguay and then go back home. I am super-excited about different cultures, languages, and especially about missions.

# posted by Ellen @ 12:17 PM