Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A deep breath

Brace yourselves, readers. I am actually ahead on school work. Now when I say ahead I mean done before 9:00. If you know me then you know that is a pretty great achievement. It gives me a chance to get another blog entry done so that I can say I've gotten better at keeping up with this thing.

Tonight we had a Halloween party. Yes, we do know that it's not Halloween yet. We are all about to head our separate ways for free-travel week. Two of the three groups are leaving tomorrow. My group is sticking around for a couple of days then heading out. Anyway, we all got dressed up and had crepes and candy. I dressed up as Wimon, the program director and my professor for three classes. There will be pictures tagged on facebook soon, I'm sure (not that you will enjoy them as much not knowing him, but still). Mom, we had quite a bit of fun with those vampire teeth and skeletons that you sent.

We figured out that after we get back from out free-travel week we will only have four and a half weeks left in Montevideo. I can't believe how quickly this semester has flown by. I know that after I get back next Saturday it will speed up even more. Well, there isn't all that much to report right now. I just wanted to post a little something for your enjoyment and so I could say I've posted more.

Until next time, may God grant you peace in a land of worry, unity in a sea of individualism, and love in a world that desperately needs it. I love and miss you all.

Blessings,
Matt

Friday, October 23, 2009

Not much better

The title once again refers to my ability to actually keep up with a blog. I have decided that I am simply not capable of doing so. Although, it would probably be much easier if I weren't in another country where I have a million other things I could be doing most of the time. Don't get me wrong, dear readers, I love each and every one of you very much. However, empanadas and ridiculously good ice cream are sometimes more enticing. I hope I have not offended you with this information.

We went to Brazil! It was such an amazing trip. We went to Iguazu Falls (now the spell-checker wants me to spell it Iguassu, but that is dumb...I like it the Spanish way so that's how it is) and I cannot even describe the impact they had on my life. I'm going to include a few pictures and I hope that they come close to capturing some of the beauty and power displayed by those falls. Our God is an amazing artist.




These pictures look better on my computer, but they are good enough to give a little taste. Anyway, the falls really made me stop and think about how truly awesome our God is. We had a devo the night after we saw the falls for the first time and we talked about the falls and what we felt about God in relation to them. As many of you know I am a fan of strange analogies, so of course I formed one about the falls. The falls are like the macaroni pictures that children make. The point was never the macaroni picture itself. The point was to show it to Mommy and Daddy so that they would give some sort of recognition in return. Now, I'm not saying that God is five years old or that we are his parents. What I am saying is that the falls were never meant to be about the falls. If I were a supreme being with the power of creation at my fingertips, I would definitely create waterfalls like those. The difference between the two is that I would create them simply to look on them and say I had done it. God creates such wonders so that WE can look on them and say, "My God alone is capable of such things and He is worthy of praise." The point of such awe inspiring creations is that we would see them and long even more for a relationship with the Creator.

While in Brazil I felt a discomfort that I hadn't felt in a very long time. We had been immersed in Spanish speaking culture for about two months and suddenly we were in a country that speaks Portuguese. I had forgotten what it was like to know that I could not communicate effectively with those around me if I needed to (of course, I realize that many know enough Spanish that we could have worked it out, but the anxiety was still present). By the end of the trip I was ready to get back to Montevideo to be surrounded by a language that I know. This was the first time this semester that I thought of Montevideo as home. I haven't been very homesick compared others in the group and I've never been a very homesick person to begin with. It was nice to be able to associate such comfort with the place that I am living. It also brought a new aspect to my learning of the Spanish language: it is a place of comfort. When I began to learn Spanish I loved the language and would jump at chances to speak it. The further I got in my studies, the more concerned I became with getting everything right and speaking became much harder because of this preoccupation with being correct. Now I feel that I can speak easier because it isn't someone else's language so much as it is now one of my languages. I still have a long way to go in learning Spanish, but I truly love and enjoy it as if it were my own language.

Anyway, this entry has been kind of strange and introspective, so I hope you have not been bored by it and I hope that I have not come across as self-cenetered or whatever. I'm still working on getting better at this blogging business. Thanks for bearing with me.

Until next time, may the Creator open your eyes to the wonder and majesty that surrounds you. May you embrace His wonders and praise Him for His mighty works. May you realize that, above all, we are the height of His creation and that God longs for an ever growing, ever intensifying relationship with you.

Blessings,
Matt

Friday, October 2, 2009

Been a while

Well, my blog readers, I have been negligent. I haven't been updating my blog enough nor have I been writing anything down outside of the blog. This entry will probably be long, or short and disjointed. Regardless, you will know more about what I have been doing.

I'll mention a few things that I forgot last entry about our trip to the ranch:
The ranch is a touristy place so they have some demonstrations and such. One of the things they have there is a model of the old train system that used to be in Montevideo. It made me think of Grandpa Rod (for those of you who didn't know him, he collected model trains and had a model train system set up).
On the way back from the ranch our bus blew out a tire. Now, I've seen flat tires, but this tire was dead. It was in shreds. Now, let's move on.

The main thing that has happened is our trip to Buenos Aires. We spent the afternoon in Colonia, Uruguay, but we stopped at a random farm on the way to Colonia. The owner of this farm is a collector. Of what? You name it. Keychains, pencils, calling cards, ash trays, perfume bottles, and other odd things. He holds several world records (some of which have since been broken). They also make jam. They had most of the normal flavors (strawberry, peach, yadda yadda) and some not so normal (tomato, red pepper, and onion). The onion one was nasty. We spent about an hour there and then we were off to Colonia.

Colonia is the oldest city in Uruguay (?, I'm pretty sure but let's be safe). We drove past an old bullfighting arena that was built in the early 1900s right before bullfighting was outlawed. Now, I'm not going to say that there were signs that said not to enter and we did anyway, but...

Other than that we just explored the town and relaxed for the afternoon. We walked up on an old section of the city wall and sat down by the water for a bit. Then we headed to the Buquebus (the ferry between Uruguay and Argentina). The ferry ride was okay on the way over, but on the way back the water was rougher so we were all feeling a bit queesy on the second trip. When we got to Buenos Aires we went to our hotel and then grabbed some dinner at an Italian place down the block. It was great. The next day we went on a tour of the city that took us by the president's office building (the Pink House), several monuments, both the richest and poorest neighborhoods, and the cemetary. Now, when I say cemetary you have the wrong picture in your mind right away. Think of a city with buildings that are very close together. Now shrink the buildings a little. Now I'll just show you.

This is one of the "streets" in the cemetary. The place is HUGE. There were tons of different statues and types of tombs and such. I came back to the cemetary the next day to take pictures and wander around some more.

We spent some time in La Boca which was one of the poorest neighborhoods when immigrants were pouring into the Americas from Europe. The whole neighborhood is made up of random building materials (scrap metal, mismatched windows, etc.) and painted bright colors. The story goes that an artist decided to paint all the buildings because he didn't think they had to be sad just because they were poor. We also came back there the next day and ate at an open air restaurant with a free tango show.

We went to another tango show with the whole group that was pretty good. The food was really good. I got a steak (because even though beef is supposed to be a staple food in Uruguay our cooks don't cook it for us much) which was delicious. Also I finally got some awesome coffee. My addiction was satisfied for a short time. Some of us saw a few other musical performances: a jazz band and a weird hippie band. They were both pretty good, but not the greatest thing ever. But at least we had some adventures.

Sunday we went to the church that Hannah was with when she stayed in Argentina. We were supposed to go to a market near the church after service but it was raining so we stayed and played foosball and ping pong and ate pizza. The people there were a lot of fun and we had a blast.

I know I'm forgetting things but I'm tired of typing and I'm sure you're getting tired of reading so we'll call it quits for now and I'll try to be better about updating. I love you all. May God put a fire in your heart that you cannot help but be His light to those around you.

Blessings,
Matt