Project 365, Week 22

I've missed a couple of weeks with Project 365. On May 16th I spent the day praying and keeping vigil from 6,000 miles away as one of my best friends lost her oldest son after he was declared brain dead. He'd been in a terrible bicycling accident on May 14th. That was a hard week, my friends. Then last Sunday we were in Sta. Rosa for what we called the Bicentennial Retreat for the folks in our fledgling church plant.

But this week I'm back. I'll be honest, I missed taking pictures a lot of days over the past three weeks, so you're not going to have to suffer through 21 photos. And I'll keep my commentary brief :-)

We really like to sing at our church! Several of the kids are learning to play guitar so they can accompany us. Since some of them went to summer camp in February and learned new choruses, they've been teaching the rest of us. Not perfect by any means, but definitely a "joyful noise unto the Lord"!

Getting out of the house for a picnic on one of our warmer fall days, we headed to the river on the other side of town. We were the only ones on this stretch of park by the river. Very peaceful place.

We've gotten to know different missionaries serving in the area and had the pleasure of hosting one family for dinner a couple weeks ago. Their kids are too cute! They'd been in a conference all day and the kids had to be tired, but were still in good spirits. Their youngest is a typical little girl who loves to giggle!

Youth group tends to get a bit rowdy, as you might expect when you get a group of teens in a small place and attempt to play games. This particular night one of the games was charades and we were doing movie titles. I cannot remember what Ivan and Charley were acting out, but Charley was really hamming it up!

Another fine fall afternoon found us stopping for passion fruit sorbet at our favorite ice cream place. This is the view from their outdoor veranda, looking down the costanera.

This coming week I'll be sharing the latest in the what-it-takes-to-get-a-package-out-of-customs saga. For now, suffice it to say we spent quite a bit of time in this building one day.

The Bicentennial Retreat warrants the most photos this week (and you can see even more on that post!). I know it was only five days but I'm sharing eight photos. I couldn't narrow it down any farther! Considering we took over 400, I think that's pretty good.

Loading up on Friday...

One of the games on Saturday. Can you guess the objective?

The girls and ladies do a skit.

Timber! One of the dead cottonwoods comes down nicely between two trees we wanted to keep.

Group photo on the way to Embalse.

Ivan cleaned out the drainage pipe from the kitchen. No more sluggish sink!

Lots of hugs after Circle Time on Monday night.

Tuesday was our last day of the retreat AND the bicentennial of Argentina!  We celebrated by singing the national anthem and the kids put on a really funny skit, incorporating bits of Argentine culture and history. We also had a traditional asado (of course). All in all, a great way to end the retreat!