If I try to write about everything that happened and how it has affected me, this will become a novel that nobody will want to spend the time reading…so I will try to capture just the high points, and as much as I have processed them.  Anyone who has spent time on a mission trip will know that it will be a very long time, if ever, before I can fully capture internally this trip, as I am still “running into” my last trip to Africa from time to time.

The biggest, by far, take away from this trip is my relationship with God.  I will confess that I never felt God as forcefully or personally as I did during and since the trip.  I am in awe of His presence, constantly, in my life now.  Having spent concentrated time with God for a week, my conversations with Him have changed into, well, real conversations.  True he does not “speak” to me in a conventional sense, but MY end of the conversation has certainly changed and I speak to God   more conversationally now.  It FEELS like a two way conversation, and it is.  His responses may not be audible or immediate, but they are responses I can see or hear or feel now.  I suspect they were always like that, and it is me who has changed, certainly not God.  Finally, my prayers don’t feel like such a duty these days as they do a desire.  It is like talking to my oldest dearest friend.

Less spiritually, but marginally so, are my views on several topics I had thought had been determined.  For one, the concept of “working poor” has changed.  Prior to this trip, I would have said that term was an oxymoron.  If you are working, how can you be poor? And if you are, work harder!  What I saw in La Plata were people working as hard as they could, and still not making ends meet; People who, if only they could FIND steady work,  would work very hard for long hours.  Certainly there are people who also simply refuse to work and rely on others to support them, but how do you know when you see someone who is struggling?  Is that true here at home as well?  Since my experience tells me that once you strip away language and cultural differences we are all the same, children of God created in His image, the answer is yes.  Consequently, for me, I find I look at people differently.  I find I can no longer assume someone in need simply needs to work harder and stop being lazy.  I have not finished thinking through this issue, and recognize some discernment is required, if not to decide who to help at least to decide how to help.  I suspect I’ll be working on this one for a LONG time.

Illegal immigration is another topic I thought I understood but am changing views on.  Nate pointed out to me what, while it should have been glaringly obvious, is a point I had never before considered.  His question to me was, “What would it take to make me  leave my country permanently settle somewhere else?”  Of course, I wouldn’t!  I am an American!  I love America!  I would have to be totally desperate to move!  Well, here is the epiphany, IMMIGRANTS LOVE THEIR COUNTRY TOO!  Where I saw people wanting to come here to take advantage of the U.S, I now see desperate people who risk coming here illegally just to survive. This is another topic I am still working on, and I have not come to conclusion but I certainly have a new perspective to work from.  I do believe it is wrong to come here illegally.  It IS illegal after all.  Perhaps we need a new Ellis Island, or something, but it is (my new conviction is) our responsibility to address the issue of desperation in other countries while still making sure that our solution does not result in a collapse of our economy and the blind acceptance of everyone including dangerous criminals. As I said, I have not come to a complete conclusion on this one.

Lastly (for this post anyway) is my idea of evangelism.  I previously believed evangelism was something you “did”.  I am realizing now that evangelism is something you LIVE.  Another glaringly obvious point Nate helped me with that I was previously blind to is the idea that you had to leave the US to have cross-cultural evangelism.  The truth is that ANY Christian being an example to and speaking about Christ with a non-believer is participating in cross-cultural evangelism!  Believers have a culture of Christianity, and a non-believer does not.  Even though we may be speaking the same “language” we speak from a perspective of a different culture just as much as if we lived half a planet apart.  ALL EVANGELISM IS CROSS-CULTURAL!

This was an amazing trip for me personally.  It was much more “difficult” than what I expected.  I thought that doing something physical like digging ditches or building buildings would be more difficult, but to get and stay emotionally engaged and invested with God and our group for a week was EXHAUSTING.  Doing something physical, while physically challenging, in my mind would be easier than a week of serious emotional investment.  Not to discourage anyone.  If you have an opportunity to do something like this, I URGE you to take it!  While exhausting it is also eye-opening and completely rewarding!

The whole team!

Thank you to Nate and Deb, Rich and Jill and Brian and Tara for hosting us.  It was a pleasure to meet you and your families, it was inspiring to watch you and get to know you and I for one look forward to returning to La Plata soon!  God bless you all, we will continue to pray for you and the people of La Plata and Argentina!

This morning we did part one of our tour of Brian and Tara’s neighborhood.    Brian led us through the neighborhood, pointing out several shrines that have been erected in the area.  Interestingly, these shrines have a christian (small c intentional) overtone.  Many of these shrines are set to worship the virgin Mary, who is exalted in this culture.  Brian explained that the view of Jesus here is either as a baby, dead on the cross, or dead in Mary’s arms. In short, it is Mary who gives Jesus life, and who supports and carries Jesus, even in death. Visiting the cathedral both here in La Plata and in Buenos Aries reinforced this view, as both places surely do depict Jesus as either small and weak (a baby) still on the cross or dead and in Mary’s arms.  As a matter of fact (we did not get to see this, but Nate told us about it, the stations of the cross in the cathedral in BA stop at the tomb; it is as though Jesus were still in there!

While it is somewhat sickening to see how Mary is idolized over Jesus, at least Mary is a biblical figure of some importance, and one can at least understand the mistake. There is, however, an even worse example of Satan perverting Christianity here.  A very popular spiritual figure here is known as Gauchito Gil.  The pictures of the red items below are examples of shrines to this person.

Gauchito Gil is a possible historical, possible mythical figure on Argentina’s history.  Supposedly he is a “Robin hood” type figure who it is said had fallen in love with the girlfriend or wife of a local political figure (a mayor or sheriff).  Knowing he could not be with his love, he went off to war and became a hero, only upon returning the local political figure captured him and took him out to hang him.  Just before hanging him, Gauchito told him that his son was deathly ill and if he would spare Guachito, he would heal his son.  The mayor (we’ll call him) hung him anyway, only to find upon his return home that his sone was in fact deathly ill.

Pagan Shrine to Gauchito Gil

He quickly returned to the site of the hanging to give Gauchito a decent burial and honor him.  Lo and behold, his son was healed and the legend is no that if you pray to Gauchito he will “bless: you, the only catch is if he does bless you, you must have a celebration to tell everyone how Gauchito gave you what you wanted, and then erect and maintain a shrine in thanks.  Gaucho, although supposedly hung, is depicted standing before a cross!

It is clear that Satan has done a good job of deceiving the Argentine’s here since this pagan worship is simply whitewashed with Christian symbols.  It is likely, even probable that these shrines and the worship to idols produces some spiritual “rewards”, but that is the way Satan and his demons work. It appears you are being blessed, when in actuality you are being cursed. All the celebration is designed to bring more followers to the demon (idol) and AWAY from Jesus.

There is a lot of background reasoning behind why and how the people here are deceived by this, but there is not enough room in the blog to explain it…if you are interested in more info see the following links:

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN0847553020080108

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauchito_Gil

This is a horrible perversion of spiritual worship, and could use some very focused prayer, particularly since our team is on the front lines of this battle, and it is clear the enemy is fully engaged.

After walking with Brian, we had ANOTHER wonderful lunch of “baked fried chicken”,

Us and our chefs

(our group with our wonderful chef’s seen here) a short siesta and then out on our scavenger hunt!  We began by leaving hte house, with a “shadow” of course to make sure we didn’t end up in Chile somehow, and headed to the bus stop.  We were to take the bus toward the center of La Plata and had several tasks to complete once we debarked.  Of course, the FIRST task was to find the right bus, and after a couple false starts (we were originally on the side of the street headed AWAY from the center of La Plata) we were able to get instructions of where to stand and which bus to catch.  We made it ti Plaza Passo, missing the CORRECT stop by only one block.  Thankfully there is a bus stop on every corner here!

We managed to get a bottle of water, find the ice cream parlor (although ti was closed so we couldn’t buy ice cream), have a cup of coffee at an outdoor cafe’ along with a pastry, call Deb on the phone, buy candy and cookies, a newspaper and finally arrive at the cathedral int he square.  The cathedral (see the picture below) is the largest Gothic church constructed in the 20th century.  It is a beautifully ornate structure, which dominates the center of the city.  Directly across from the cathedral is the Mayor’s office which is dwarfed by the size of the cathedral.  It is interesting that the Cathedral is the central building in the city, catolicism is the state recognized religion (you must be catholic to be president of Argentina) yet the worship among the common people is pagan.

La Plata Cathedral

It is a bittersweet day as we are beginning our preparations for leaving,  We still have one more worship session, another prayer walk and lunch together, but it feels lke things are coming to a close today.  Everyone is running around packing and gathering their things to ensure nothing is forgotten and we leave as little a “mark” on the place for our hosts to take care of after we leave as possible.  As much as we missed our homes and families while we were here, we will miss our family here in Argentina when we are gone.

Hopefully we will return soon!

And there is the rub…I must be having quiet time with Him, or I am going to miss much of what God has to say to me.

We have been here for a week today – 7 days. By the time we leave we will have been her for eight days, but one of those was our shopping overload day yesterday – so 7 days of prayer.

(Has anyone else caught the significance of 7 people coming here to pray for 7 days? – I am sure I remember that number having significance)

We have spent a lot of time praying and speaking to God, listening and watching for answers to our prayers.  And He HAS answered prayers since we have been here.  If I had to guess, I would say HE LIKES HAVING US TO HIMSELF FOR A WEEK!

Anyway, I am rambling a bit, but here is what compelled me to write this morning, what I would call an “extra” blog post.  When I have time and I remember (of course) I do a daily devotional from Our Daily Bread.  Many of you reading this may be familiar.  Today’s devotional is about the distractions that take us away from our fellowship with God. Our busy lives and work getting in the way of our relationship with Him. The passage for the day is:

Luke 10:38-42 -

At the Home of Martha and Mary

³⁸As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

⁴¹“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴²but only one thing is needed.^[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

So I say to myself…why this passage and why today?

We are leaving tomorrow evening to return home to our busy lives.  After spending a week concentrating on fellowship with God and my Christian family, is God sad that I will be returning to the things that distract me from Him?  I believe I hear Him this morning, and He is saying don’t go.  Not don’t go home, but don’t go back to having “life” get in the way of our relationship with Him.

We all began to prepare for our worship time (I think we are looking forward to it now) and were just sitting around waiting for 9AM to happen.  Suddenly, the Cumby (van) was here and it was time to leave!  None of us were really ready, since we thought we were going to have praise and worship!  Woops!

After what appeared to be something out of a three stooges movie, we all managed to get it together and get into the van for the trip to Buenos Aries.  Our first stop for the day was at the “Recoleta” (cemetary) where many famous people are interred.  Below is a picture of the final resting place of Eva Perone (Evita – yes, she was real). She was quite a popular public figure with the people, particularly the poor.  The best parallel with today would be Pricess Grace (if she had been the wife of the King of England), but at least that type of popularity and humble beginnings.  We did not stay there long, but instead headed down to the Hard Rock Cafe where we got Kellie a couple pins, and we each got a a T-shirt.

Next we headed to the Presidents Palace, called Casa Rosa (the Pink House..!). Of course it is named this because, you guessed it, it is painted pink! Interestingly there are baby bonnets painted on the plaza outside the pink house, representing some mothers and grandmothers who have protested to the government to have their children/grandchildren returned.  Apparently in the mid 1970′s, a group of student dissidents were rounded up and were never seen or heard from again. There were pregnant women in the grou, and it is said that their babies were taken and sold to rich families, and then they were all killed.  It seems that right here in La Plata a mass grave has been discovered believed to be from that period.  Of course, the dictator who was at that time in power, has been overthrown and is now a constitutional democracy, but this event is a sad part of this nation’s history.

After the palace, we headed to the national cathedral.  We could not stay long or see much, because a mass was being performed, but it was pretty plain to see that some of the folks were praying to Mary and other Saints (and some “saints”).  One man made it a point to come over and tell us that the statue of Jesus we were looking at had healed his son. It is scary, and I am grateful that team La Plata is here so that they can sow the seeds of truth among the Argentine people!

From the cathedral we headed to the “Palacio de la papa frita” or french fry palace.  Done’ let the name fool you, while they have some great fries, they ALSO had a huge honkin pice of steak!  YUMMY!  This is really a beef eating country, and man is it some great beef!  Whew…I am going to need to detox when I get home!

After eating we spent several hours wandering the shopping district.  We bought some great souvenirs (too much to write about) and then headed over to Boca in an area called Caminito.  A very cool, colorful area full of artisans.  There is a pic of that area below too. Of course, more shopping!

Returning home, left overs for dinner (Mmmm, the spaghetti was as good today as it was last week!) and THEN…WAL-MART!  Woo-Hoo!

OK, so another really great day and we will be bringing home some great reminders of our time here.  One more full day here and then our departure day.  I’ll be glad to be home, but I will miss La Plata too.

Our assignment was to first read Psalm 105 and 106, then WRITE our own Psalm recalling the blessings God had given us.  At first this seemed very difficult….but then once I got to writing, it was pretty easy.  I whipped it out in just under an hour.

So, after singing some praise to God, we pulled out our Psalms, and each of us read one verse of ours, working our way around the room.  The first thing that struck me was there was barely a dry eye in the room.  The emotion was a physical thing – apparently WRITING down your blessings is fairly benign, but READING THEM OUT LOUD TO THE GROUP is a bit more powerful.  The second thing that struck me was how a random group of people, writing random blessings about themselves, WITHOUT comparing notes could, reading them one at a time, write a passage that seemed as though it were written by one person with intention.  SO, I will confess: I believe that our Psalm was “God breathed”, that is was in fact written by one being with intention…I would compile it, write it down and share it, but I seriously doubt it would be as meaningful to anyone but those of us sitting in the room when it was read.  I believe we were being directly and purposefully shown the spirit of God among us, and it was truly a blessing.  Praise God!

Afterward, we departed for a church service at the meeting place in Berazetegui (yes, I can hardly say it either).  There is a picture below of me standing in front of the building.  The sign above the door says “Iglesias de la Esparanza”.  Service here is slightly different, and far more interactive.  One interesting note, the leader does not instruct us to “Greet 2 people you haven’t spoken to” as we are leaving.  The simple reason for that is because it would be a waste of breath…everyone has greeted (with a kiss) everyone else before the service began!  There is NO ONE in the building that each person has not spoken to.  It seems a little hectic to the untrained observer, but after spending some time thinking about it, it seems quite beautiful.  The service lasted about two hours (and the service did NOT go over).  I would relate something about the message, but it was in Spanish, and of course I had no clue. Actually, Nate gave the message, and I know it was about why we pray, since he spoke of that with us several days ago (in English).  Part of the service was to seperate into small groups of between 4 and 10, and to pray for one another.  It was quite interesting, and moving as we were each on a group of people speaking Spanish. While I could not understand their prayers, I could feel the spirit of God moving among us.  Oh, and interestingly some people shared Mate DURING the service…how cool!

Afterward, we headed over to Steve Bailey’s house for Asado. Steve and his wife WIlma were excellent hosts, and the Asado was AMAZING.  (There are two pics of the grill below…YUM) We spent several hours there between eating and sitting around visiting and it was just a great time. I must say it was really great to meet Steve and his family as well as Gary McCaman and his wife Linda.  What a great group of people, I pray I will have an opportunity to return and visit them again.

In the evening we attended another service near Steve’s home (again, no need to “greet two people…”) Butch and I spoke briefly about our trip, our connection to the La Plata team and what we had been doing since arrival.  There was another very interactive service which lasted abut 2 hours.  The speaker was visiting from another church, and had been brought to Christ by a visiting Missionary.  It seemed to be a touching service, and to illustrate what we could not understand verbally, the speaker tore up a newspaper throughout the service.  I believe he was talking about our sinfulness, and the brokenness of our hearts while he did so.  He told the congregation that Jesus (I am paraphrasing based o the body language since I really know very little Spanish) will not only mend our hearts, but make them WHOLE again.  He then unfolded the torn up newspaper to present a whole newspaper with several pages intact.  Pretty great illustration.

All in all it was a glorious (long) day.  It is so wonderful, and such a privilege to be hee worshiping with our church family in Argentina.  It is very easy to SAY we know God is everywhere, but it is another thing to be here and to see how God is working answering the prayers of our church family in Chesapeake Beach.  It struck me the other day…just in a very real way…the God we pray to here is the SAME God we pray to at home.  ANd hte same God our brothers in Argentina pray too as well.  God is awesome, and powerful and loving and EVERYWHERE, all the time.

Sorry for the late post, but we did not get home last night till midnight, and we were in Buenos Aries all day today.  By the time you finish reading this, I will most likely have published todays post!

OK, so, some background:  Our planning for today was minimal.  OK, an understatement, it was ALMOST planned.  Honestly here was the plan (in total)…three of us would dress up like clowns, we would go out to a neighborhood in the morning and another in the afternoon and the clowns would try to attract children.  Once we got as many as we could get together in one place,  two Argentine nationals (we were asked not to post names) who will work with the team during Hora Feliz would spend about 30 minutes playing games, singing songs and talking with the kids about Jesus.  If we were lucky, a parent or two might be nearby.  We had fairly low expectations and anticipated 8-10 kids for each. All but two of us would go, and those two would stay behind and pray.  A different two would stay behind in the afternoon.

This morning we began in the Villa (I wrote about this yesterday).  The three of us walked up and down the streets waving to everyone and handing candy out to some kids. There were a LOT of kids.  Very quickly the kids began to follow us (and as kids do, kept trying to get us to give them extra candy).  Since the three of us were separate (and each had a Spanish speaking member of the team along to tell them about the show) it was hard to tell how it was going.  Once we all got to the central location it was AMAZING, beyond our best expectations!  There were 50 plus kids and LOADS of parents (even a father or two!).  Everyone seemed happy that we were there and some of the parents (remember, the Villa is the poorest of poor neighborhoods) brought out Mate (a tea used for social situations), water and soda for us to drink.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, in this culture bringing drink out has MAJOR significance in this culture.  It indicates trust, and a desire to be hospitable.  Several conversations were had, the team was told they were welcome to return, and Deb actually suggested she bring her kids to play there some time, and one (or more?) of the mom’s said she should do that!  So, from an expectation of 10 or so kids and one or two parents we had at least 50 kids and lots of parents!  Praise God for answered prayer!

This afternoon, we worked our way through a different neighborhood to a fairly large park area.  Our expectations were actually lower for this neighborhood, and we knew it was possible that we could really have only one or two kids, depending on how many happened to be out when we went through the neighborhood.  Same team would be going out except for the prayer team from the AM would be going to photograph the event, and the AM photographers would become the prayer team.  Things were originally looking like our expectations were set about right, but as we all arrived at the park, it seemed many more kids began to arrive.  Although not as many people a this morning, there were a good 25-30 kids this afternoon and they seemed to really have a ball!  The kids this afternoon were much more physically engaged, hugging the clowns, having pictures taken with them even kissing us good bye when we left. The cool thing is there were a number of adults as well, and one of the moms actually came over to say goodbye and kiss our cheeks before we left too!  Even better though, one couple had a really great conversation with the Elledges, asking for their number and indicating they wanted to continue getting to know one another.  The woman actually told Jill to call if she had questions about vaccinations or anything else.  Again…PRAISE GOD FOR ANSWERED PRAYER!

Oh, and we spent TWO HOURS at each site!

Of course, Anna and Norma fed us well again today…spaghetti for lunch, and Lasan’a (lasagna) for dinner.  These ladies have been absolutely wonderful to us, and it is such a blessing to have them preparing our meals each day. They are phenomenal cooks!  Please pray that they will find the tome to write down all their recipes so we can share some of them when we return.

It is a real blessing to know that so many of you back home are following us on this blog, and praying for the work that is going on here.  It is evident, as it is clear that God is blessing us, at least to this point.  I pray that He will continue to bless us on the second half of our trip, and bless the permanent team for the rest of their tenure here in La Plata.

Below is one of the many photos from this afternoon. It is heartwarming to watch these children enjoy themselves, and to know that children everywhere are so similar…laughing and playing.  It was a blessing to be one of the clowns and to have an opportunity to interact personally with some of the kids.  Again, I believe I got more out of the day than any of the kids did…isn’t our God FANTASTIC!?

Good night for now…Day 5 will be late tomorrow, since we are out and about for two church services, an Asado (BBQ) for lunch and dinner out (evening service ends about 9:30…maybe later since we are here and everyone will want to “chat” afterward).  I may or may not post tomorrow night, but if not then I will post Monday morning.

Tomorrow we will be returning to the villa we visited today in order to kick off the team’s Hora Feliz (Happy hour) where we will be attempting to help the team attract children to a short period of singing and games.  I get to dress up like a clown, and maybe provide a few balloon animals too.  I have actually been somewhat anxious about this day, not really certain what was to be expected of a clown in Argentina.  After our planning meeting this evening though, the anxiety just dropped away, and amazingly (particularly considering I have been anxious about this since several weeks before departing the states) tonight I am looking somewhat forward to tomorrow!  Praise God!

This afternoon we had a unique opportunity to travel with Rich about 45 minutes closer to Buenos Aries in order to give our cooks a ride home.  We actually took them to the church we will be attending Sunday morning and had a chance to go in and see the church.  It is interesting that the wall of the church displayed several American missionaries who clearly had influenced the church in that area, and some of the folks actually looked familiar.  Even more interesting was the display of the Argentine missionaries this church had sentoi Chad and who, you guessed it, are on the team with Kirk and Kay Carver!  Small world!

Also, the ladies gave us a tour of the new sections of the church which had just been built by another American team.  The wonderful news is the church is growing and expanding.  They are adding a library, nursery and classrooms, as well as two restrooms and will soon be expanding the kitchen facilities (they feed quite a few of the local people on Wednesday evenings).

Argentines apparently love to joke, so while we were preparing to leave and chatting for a moment with Anna and Norma (our WONDERFUL cooks), Anna mentioned that they would not be preparing our food on Wednesday (they are the cooks at the church for the food ministry on Wednesdays in their neighborhood).  Of course after telling her how wonderful her food has been (I am trying to convince her to write the “Argentina I-Go Team Cookbook”), I indicated how sad it will be that we will by necessity miss her cooking on Wednesday.  I am not positive, since my Spanish is not great and my Italian does not translate perfectly, but I am pretty sure she was teasing me and telling me it was OK cuz I could stand to miss a meal! Too funny.  It is a true blessing to have Anna and Norma available to prepare our meals.  They are wonderfully kind, sweet ladies, and Anna also gives fantastic hugs!

Finally, this evening we all had a walk up the street to the ice cream parlor, wow do they make good ice cream here! And I am coming to the realization that it is my custom to experience a country through my mouth (the food)…I will be gratefully blessed if I return home not weighing far more than I did when I arrived here.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

P.S. The meals are a little different here…no breakfast to speak of, nice big lunch and then at about 4 or 5 we have “Merienda” which amounts to a light snack late in the afternoon to hold you over till dinner which is at or after 8PM.  The picture today is of today’s Merienda.

Mmmmmmmmerienda!

After returning to our apartment, we shared some praise and worship together and learned some more about culture, and how our culture might affect the way we view or judge other cultures (for example the culture here).  One interesting this we talked about was how ALL evangelistic work is cross cultural, since we as Christians are citizens of Heaven, and unbelievers are citizens of the world. We must be aware that when we speak the language of our Christian culture un-believers do not really understand.

Of course, we than had a really wonderful lunch, Anna and Norma are great cooks and we are blessed to have them taking care of our meals.  Praise God for them!  Of course, they also prepared our dinner so that all we had to do was warm it up.  They were sort of like giant empanadas, with different fillings inside a pastry crust….WOW, the food here is really wonderful.  I’ll be blessed if I do not gain weight while we are here!

This afternoon we walked around this neighborhood again, but this time we spent some time talking and praying about some of the ongoing issues here.  It is amazing how some of these issues tie together, and much of the problems here trace back to broken homes.  We definitely prayed that God would strengthen the nuclear family so that the children will grow up with both a  mother and a father.

The poverty and need here is great, and I keep going back in my mind to how much we American’s take for granted all the blessings we enjoy daily.  We rarely wonder whether or not the electricity will work, we never worry about running out of water and most of us do not really worry about where our next meal will come from.  What we in the US consider poverty is ABOVE the level that would be considered middle class here!

All in all today was a very emotional day.  Sometimes emotional events can be exhausting, but it is so wonderful to see God in action here on the “front lines” of the spiritual battle.

We did get to take a few pics today, mostly of the team from Grace Brethren and our “digs”, but the picture below is a horse that is tied up outside our place, and we are told they are here (outside the fence) to keep the grass “mowed”.

Argentine Lawn Mower