by Pastor Patrick

Friday, July 12, 2013

The team was happy to sleep in this morning since our transport didn’t arrive until 10:00 am. We got to spend most of the day together with the Ahualle family at their home. As usual, Norma prepared a delicious late breakfast and lunch for us, and we all had as much asado (gloriously fatty beef rib meat) as we could handle. We were joined by Beto and Liliana Barrionuevo and their family. Beto serves as one of the leaders of the church. I was thankful for some wonderful conversations with Pastor Jorge and Liliana about ministry in general. It was a great time of mutual encouragement.

After lunch, we spent the siesta (afternoon break) back at the hotel where we could rest up for the long evening. We headed back to the church around 6:30pm for the first of two general sessions together. After Eugene Park introduced some new songs to the church, Roger Alcaraz gave the first of the sermons from 1 Peter 3:13-16 entitled “A Living Testimony that Speaks.” We took about a twenty minute intermission with coffee and facturas (pastries), and met again for the second session. There was more singing and then I was able to preach from 2 Corinthians 3:18 about “Making God Big.”

After the evening sessions, we cleared out the room and got it set up for dinner. Dinner was served around 11:00pm. This has been typical for times in Argentina. It’s amazing how late people stay up (and the kids, too!), but it was a great time of fellowship together. For dessert, the servers from the kitchen brought out oranges. Immediately, Eugene Park suspected we would engage in our traditional orange peel fight, and of course we did. We enjoyed a wonderful and long day of ministry, encouragement, and fellowship with our brothers and sisters here in Tucuman. Praise the Lord!