Safely Arrived

After over 30 continuous hours of traveling, we arrived safely at our destination in Paysandu, Uruguay. When we landed in Montevideo the weather was beautiful, but about 25 degrees cooler than when we left Northland’s campus. It is “winter” down here, but the temperature during the day reaches into the 60’s. At night, however, it dips into the upper 30’s and low 40’s. We are thankful for the wood stove in the center of the camp lodge where we are staying. However, the fire went out last night and we got a little cold this morning. From now on, we will be sure to keep the fire stoked, so we have a warm place to gather on the cool mornings. The guys do like the fact that there is a soccer field in our front yard.

Our home for the next couple of weeks is Campamento Union de Centros Biblicos. This is our “base of operations” where we will sleep and eat most of our meals. From here, we will travel out to various soccer matches and ministry opportunities. We will also be working on some camp facilities projects. One specific project is to build a “play fort” for the younger campers to use next camping season. We stopped at a park in Montevideo to see an example of the kind of fort that camp director, Dan Vallette, has in mind. Our project will be to “lay the foundation” of the fort by setting some posts and pouring some concrete.

This morning’s project was to clean the swimming pool area and prepare for a baptismal service tomorrow. A church from Salto (1 ½ hours north of Paysandu) is traveling down to the camp to baptize some of their members. They will be using the “kiddie pool”. The water has to be heated by a wood fire. They guys spent much of the morning cleaning the pool area, gathering firewood, and filling the pool and larger containers with water. Jason Lorch was in charge of keeping the fire going. He earned his boy scout merit badge for that, but lost a merit badge for luggage accountability. You’ll have to ask him about it, but we left one of our team equipment bags at the airport in Montevideo.

The camp staff has already been a blessing. Missionaries Dan and Becca Vallette and their four children, Keven (12), Bryan (10), Vanesa (8), and Camila (6) have given us a warm welcome. While Dan has helped us lay out the schedule for the trip, Becca is helping to prepare meals for us. She is assisted by Jorge, a Uruguayan young man who is an enthusiastic and growing Christian. Most of our team has already made great friendships with the Vallette children and with Jorge.

This afternoon, we will meet a good number of the youth group from Iglesia Centro Biblico (Central Bible Church) in Paysandu. They are coming out to the camp for a friendly soccer match and time of fellowship. Ben Cummins and Timothy Legg will be sharing their testimonies and Micah Herron will be preaching.

Paul Reece has become our MVP, even though he is injured. MVP in this case stands for Most Valuable Photographer. Most of the pictures that we hope to upload to the blog are taken by him except, of course, of the one I took of him taking pictures. It takes a long time to upload the photos and we are going to try again tomorrow, but for now, this post will have to suffice. We have to travel into town to an Internet Cafe to get access. We will update as often as we can, but access is not as convenient as we originally thought it might be. Thanks for praying for us.