LAST Ministry Day!

(Paul, Jordan, and Jake writing prescriptions.)

(Angel being tossed in honor of a crowd pleaser in the plaza today!)

Hey there...

we´re here to report on our very last ministry day of the Uruguay mission trip!

First, Teresa will share something from today´s clinic:

-this next post is from mama teresa, but mckay is typing it. mama wrote it all down, but if there are any spelling mistakes or errors, blame it on mckay.

the clinic was slow today but the highlight was when two boys off the street came in after being seen by the doctor, they came over to the prayer station and we talked to them until they were comfortable. we were just going to pray for their physical needs but then i felt we should ask if they had jesus in their heart. the translator, katie, felt like she should ask if they had heard of jesus. one of they boys, esteban, said he didnt know who jesus was, but over the past week many people had mentioned jesus to him. katie told him the story of jesus and all he did for us and asked if esteban wanted to accept jesus into his life. he fully understood that he was guilty of sin and he very willingly accepted jesus christ ino his heart. i saw a homeless boy soften and change right before my eyes...walk well done.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next, McKay is going to write about a vey funny activity we did today, but first I give you a photo of Angel and Laura demonstrating their jump roping skills during some ministy in the park.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is McKay...Today we had a pretty slow clinic. The leaders decided we should do a fun activity to get our blood flowing, and the activity was...
another drama with a twist.
our biggest drama, in the beginning, requires a lot of people. so... we all picked numbers out of a hat. all of the roles were numbered 1 through 14, and 15 was a wild card. here is the list of people and their roles.
(role) role they had before switch, name, (role) role after switch

(here are¨"Adam & Eve". We laughed so hard, it was nuts!)
(God), Tiger, little girl -he put on my size small hot pink shirt and skipped with a little doll the whole drama
(Jesus), Greg, Eve
(Satan), Ricky, Adam

(Adam), Jake, karate guy
(Eve), Amy, Jesus

(mime), Austin, mom
(mime), Savannah, karate woman
(mime), Angel, God
(mime), Laura, soccer player
(-----), Jordan, mime
(karate guy), Paul, mime
(karate woman), Jenny, mime
(soccer player), Becca, mime
(little girl), McKay, Satan
(Mom), Taylor, WILD CARD, - she could do anything she wanted to using any props and could come in at any moment.

Anyways... that was absolutely hilarious seeing Tiger be the litle girl along with Ricky and Greg having to be Adam and Eve and love each other. But, people seemed to think that my being Satan was pretty out of character compared to the litle girl. Everyone had fun with it and Leah filmed it the whole time. It was a blast.

<3>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now we have Jordan to tell you about our plaza adventure today!

WOOO! we decided to head out to the park to go and minister. we have such a short time left why not use it to the fullest? we were informed that we were going to be going to a plaza. so everyone grabbed their drama shirt and put on a smile. we started walking with a group of about thirty including close friends from the church and 3 missionaries that are living in Uruguay. keep in mind that we are in a city environment.. nothing short of the amount of chaos on the Las Vegas strip. trying to stay together was a large task in itself. a constant flow of traffic on the sidewalk going up and down, the loud and angry cab drivers, yelling from the stands on the side of the streets to buy a matte, it is an everyday life for these people. so we pass the plaza we had been at yesterday...32 blocks and very sore feet later we had arrived at the new plaza we were going to perform in. gathering crowds was not the hard part, it was keeping their interest. We had the help from the local missionaries, they blew fire, juggled fire, and rode around on a unicylce! It was great!!!! we performed hats, in the begining and dead man. some were interested, some listened, and some kept walking. it was told to us by a local that never has such a large crowd been drawn because the locals are so un-interested. He was impressed with how many people gathered around and watched us. So many people kept coming that we gave TWO different invitations to accept Christ, instead of just one. We packed up, and headed out. I think that the sidewalks grew and extra 10 blocks or that we took the long way home. a plastic chair back at our destination has never felt so great.... :D

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hopefully we will get a post in from Miami the day after tomorrow. Our plane leaves for Buenos Aires at 5:00 PM tomorrow. GOOD NIGHT!!!!!

Ministry in Montevideo

Hola everybody, this is Jake. Today after a couple of hours at the clinic we decided to journey to the town plaza to perform some dramas. The trip was about a 30 minute walk from the church.

(Paul carrying the cross on our walk.)

When we arrived there was a big sidewalk intersection right in the middle of the plaza filled with busy people. There was a small stage in one of the corners of this intersection. We performed every skit that we had with the exception of "Sin Bucket".







The dramas went smooth except for the dog poop that "somebody" tracked onto the stage. I wasn`t affected, but uh Austin... ya she attracted some poo-poo along the way. After we performed we walked around the plaza giving stickers and balloons to every kid that we saw. We also passed out invitations to our clinic. We ended our quest with a few of us a bit discouraged but maybe a person passing by heard just the little bit they needed. Well need to get in bed, got another clinic tomorrow bye, oh YA when we get back; if your lucky, ill MOONWALK for you.

Ciao



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello friends and family!! This is Tayler! Today in the afternoon we visited a park that was right across the street from our clinic. This park was equipped with the usual playground things: swings, see-saws, and a small basketball court. When we first arrived we made some balloon animals for the kids and prepared for our first drama called the Chicken Skit.







In this skit we all pretend to be different things (mainly animals) and Jake, the chicken, perched high on a swing, making the whole audience laugh. After that drama, we did three others. Other than the girls and guys from the church, there were not many other people at this park. At the end of our dramas, Jerry and Leah decided to teach us the Doctor´s Office skit, in which everyone has different symptoms. Symptoms included itching, coughing, puking, sneezing, and laughing and screaming uncontrollably. I loved it!

Greg (Jesus) & Co. during the "In the Beginning" drama

Tayler is blind...in "Blind Lead the Blind" drama

Scene from "In the Beginning" Note the creepy guy in the back!

When we finished, we passed out flyers for the clinic and invited some people to church. Then we left the park and went back to the clinic at the church. There, a few of the girls from the church wanted to teach the team a dance that they had made up. So, our willing team (the girls and Jake) got in line and learned a part of the dance. It turned out to be a lot of fun and we were glad to spend a little time with the girls. We then had a service with worship, dramas and prayer. It turns out that although there were few people at the park that afternoon, one lady accepted our invitation to come to the service! Even when we didn´t really feel like anyone was listening at the park, the Lord touched someone´s heart and brought them in. He is so faithful! We had a wonderful afternoon spending time together and sharing God´s truth and love.P.S.: By the way mom, Jake and I did not ditch you... you guys just didnt come with us! :P(oh ya and I miss you haha)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well hello there, this is Angel here and I am going to be telling you a little bit about what we did tonight. Tonight after our church service we went back to to the plaza that we visited earlier today to do some more dramas. We decided to go back at night because in Montevideo, thats when the people come out. Here in Montevideo people stay out late, eat late, and commute late. Edi, our friend from the church who has been with us of the majority of our trip, decided to provide our crowd pleaser-gatherer for tonight. Among his many talents, including worship leader and interpreter, can also breathe fire!

It was amazing but the kerosine made the bus smell quite stinky if I do say so myself. After the breathing of fire we did some of our dramas. We did doctor's office, sin bucket, hats, blind, and In the beginning. Athough while we were doing our dramas the people in the plaza seemed more interested in what they had already been going about. Even though people in general weren´t very interested we still had a small crowd who were watching. We had to leave right after our dramas because of time constraint but we touched a few people and thats all that matters. So I would consider tonight a success!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hola, this is a blurb from Leah...

we want you to know that a few on the team are feeling under the weather, so please please pray for them to recover fast! (and that the rest of the team remains well and healthy).

Special Post for Doug & Sherry from the WI-FI ZONE

hey now!!!!

Me (ricky) and Leah have been working our tooshs off tonight, just like every other night trying to faithfully post these blogs! The team has been in bed, asleep, for over an hour, dreaming of summertime weather, by the way... And the reason that we are so late is partially because of your kids Take and Jayler, who wrote the blog tonight by the way... So the blog will be up momentarily, so you keep pressing that refresh button that we all know you are punching RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT!!! WE need to go to bed...

the blogging EXTRAORDINAIRE,

ricky

P.S.

my dad is crying that i did not mention that he and jerry have been here as our 'security guards' and morale support (watching the uruguay and argentina soccer game)...

NOTE FOR BECCA´S FAMILY:

You win the award for MOST COMMENTS!!! Thanks so much for the encouragement, Becca loves hearing from you!

And thanks to EVERYONE who is leaving comments, we read them all and enjoy every word! Thanks for filling our hearts with warm fuzzies.

Back in Montevideo

Hello to our friends and family back home! This is Leah. It is 10:30 PM here, we´ve just come in from the freezing/windy night air after walking from dinner. The team is up in their rooms getting settled in for the night.

As hard as it was to leave Jaguarao Brazil and Rio Branco Uruguay, we were excited to return to the capital and begin this new leg of the trip. Duing the bus ride back, we got a look at just how big yesterday´s storm had been. For at least another 100 miles past Rio Branco, much of the farm lands were flooded. People were out everywhere reparing the damage. It was quite a site, but somewhat common in that area.

To give you an idea of how this part of the world operates, just about everything is on a LATER schedule than we are used to. Businesses open late in the morning. Dinner is served late. You can not find an open restaurant at noon for lunch, or before 8:00 or 9:00 PM for dinner! They close between the lunch and dinner off-hours, so if you want to eat early, you are out of luck! So during our bus ride, when it was lunch time and the group was hungry, the town we drove up to had pretty much nothing open! We did manage to find a bakery and but together some sandwiches, phew!

The same thing happened tonight (and many of the other nights during this trip!!!) when it was dinner time. So we´ve learned vey well to adjust our schedules and go the Brazilian or Uruguayan way...eat very very late! Tonight we walked to a restaraunt near the hotel and had some awesome pasta.

Tomorow we have another clinic. Please pray that many people from the community will come!

And I´d like to close with a message fom Jerry: He wants all of the families and friends who are reading the blog but have not yet left a message, TO PLEASE WRITE US! The team is reading all of your comments and we all truly appreciate what you have written. Thanks! We´d love to hear from ALL of you!

Good night!

The Rainy Day!

Hi Blog Friends, this is Leah & Ricky. The story of today actually begins at 3:40 AM, when the whole hotel was rudely shaken awake with a HUMUNGENORMOUS explosion of sound and shake...it was incredibly scary at first. When the rain finally began to POUR, we were relieved to confirm it was just thunder. The thunder went on, the rain went on, and the wind picked up. The storm lasted all night.


In the morning when we were in the bus, ready to travel 30 minutes to a new clinic location, we get the news that the roads were too dangerous to travel on. The town was flooded and the rain was not going to let up until the end of the day. The leaders tried to come up with an alternative plan. We asked if there was a school we could visit, but TODAY was their first day of vacation break! Finally, the local Pastora suggested we go to the Retirement home nearby. We were so excited when the home gave us permission to visit. God is so good...when we thought our plans were ruined, He gave us something even better. Here is Austin to tell you more...







HOLA!!! I am Austin. Today is Monday? Yes, it is Monday. Jake´s 17th birthday :]. Our plan today was to set up another medical clinic at a new church. There was a HUGE giant storm and the roads to that church were flooded. Instead, we went to a Retirement home. We made bracelets for them and painted the ladies nails. We performed several dramas for them, which they really enjoyed. The workers told us that one of the biggest struggles they have there is boredom, so it was wonderful that we were there.



To our surprise, the local tv and radio news crew arrived to capture what we were doing! They took video and audio footage of us spending time with the elderly, and interviewed the Pastor and Richard.



We all had fun even though our plans had been changed. While at the Retirement home, we met an elderly man who was 98 anos!! He had no teeth. I personally love when I visit retirement homes because the elderly people seem to have a childlike innocence about them. Even though I really couldn´t understand what they were saying, when you look into their eyes you can tell how thankful they are that we were there with them and that we took the time to help them. One man that I was talking to told me that he had never seen a North American before and that he could tell we were foreigners because of the way we talked. We also made them balloons, which I think was their favorite part.













After we left the retirement home, it was still raining so we went to get lunch. It was very good. The team sang "Happy Birthday" to Jake and Leah and had them blow out a candle on a little Uruguayan dessert. (Jake's birthday is today, Leah's was on the 27th)







After lunch we went back to the church we were at yesterday to set up the clinic. It was still pouring rain, so we did not expect to have many patients. But several people did show up during the 3 hours we worked. Since we had a little free time during the clinic, we spent some time bonding with the Uruguayan and Brazilian friends with a little game of WALL BALL. It was great!!!





After the clinic, we walked around our Brazilian town, looking for a place to eat and to buy postcards. We ended up having delish steak sandwiches and french fries for dinner. We ended the night with some wonderful worship and devotions, as usual.



Tomorrow we head back to Montevideo. (9 hours by bus!)



(McKay, Amy, Tayler, and Ricky rocking the pharmacy)




Be sure to also ready Kellinee's post...you get 2 posts for 1 today!!!

Story from Kellinee

(you get 2 posts for the price of 1 today!!!! Today´s main post is above, so please be sure to check that out too, thanks)

Oi (hello) from Brazil...this is Kellinee! I am writing this to you from the city of Jaguarao on the border of Brazil and Uruguay. This trip has been an amazing experience mainly because of the wonderful people we have met while visiting. One group in particular has been special for me personally. Our first night in Jaguarao our group did some dramas in the park near our hotel where we met a group of people who we soon came to call `"the Brazilians ´'. We found out that this group was from a Four Square church in Jaguarao. How amazing! We were able to tell them about the Four Square church we were going to be doing our clinic at the next day and they showed up! It was a wonderful surprise! Especially since they walked over 5 miles just to visit us at the clinic that day!

Every day this group of people (Jackson, Rafael, Kaila, Jefrey, and Janaina ) were there supporting us. It was especially special because the Four Square church in Rio Branco and Jaguaroa were able to establish a connection that we hope will be long lasting. For some reason I really connected with this group. They were helping me with my Portuguese and I was helping them with English.

Today they presented me with a wonderful gift of Yerba Mate and a Brazilian flag.

I was overwhelmed. The hospitality of the people in this part of the world is truly humbling! I will continue to treasure this gift and can´t wait to share this with my students back home (in September of course)! I hope this update finds all of our family and friends well and know that we are all praying for you and can´t wait to see you all on Saturday!

Sunday Service and Free Time

Just a little sidenote to all you blog readers... "The lost pages of the Uruguay Team diaries" (yesterdays' blog) is up!!!!! To stay in chronological order, please read the post titled 2nd clinic prior to this one!


Hello everyone!
This is Becca here, or as my friends in Uruguay call me, Rebecca (pronnounced ray-BAY-kah). Never in my whole life have I ever enjoyed hearing someone say my name as much as I do here. The people here are so full of love an it is so evident just by the tone of their voice.
I am here to write to you about what the team did today. We went to the Foursquare Church in Rio Branco, Uruguay. We attended the service with the locals and the regular church attendees. I was very excited to see my friends that I have made throughout the course of our time here. I got to meet their families and it was just very exciting. The church service started off in a few songs of worship led by Anderson who is the worship leader at the church. We sang in Spanish and although I could not understand the words we were singing, I completely comprehended the love that we shared in Jesus and in eachother. It was so clear to me that in the church, everyone was part of one big family with the common father, God. After a few songs of praise, the United States team performed a couple of dramas for the congregation. The locals embraced the dramas and could understand them partly because there was no dialogue and partly because we had a God-Sent interpeter to translate our explanation in Spanish. Looking back, I still have no idea where he came from. He continued to be the translator for the duration of the service. Then, some of the teenagers of the church presented a dance full of Uruguayan culture. It was really neat to see their culture and the super cool costumes they got to wear.





One of the leaders of our team, Jerry, spoke for the church. He just wanted to tell the people how much God loved them and didn´t want to leave any doubts. We had an altar call after his teaching and many people came forward for prayer. Two people accepted Jesus into their hearts for the first time! One of the ladies that did was in her older years, but God has no bounds and he accepts his children with open arms and from all walks of life. It was exciting to see all the work He had been doing before our very eyes.


Many people were very touched during the time of prayer.





I know that for me personally, I definitely was. I was brought to tears on more than one instance. I absolutely love my brothers and sisters that are here in Uruguay, but the language barrier was really kind of frustrating at times. But I was overwhelmed with what I have to look forward to one day when I am in heaven. I will be able to talk to Tatiana, Marianna, Maria, Natasha, and Edison without restrain. In heaven there will be no language barriers and that thought fills me with so much joy. For now, I let my actions and a smile speak on behalf of the lack of words we can share. I have never felt so much love and I can`t believe that these people are already my family! I kind of think of this trip as a mini family reunion where I get to meet my brothers and sisters before I would have been able to in heaven.


Anyways, after the service, we took part in communion as a church and it seemed to solidify our brotherhood. During the service, I was sitting next to some people from Brazil who walked like 5 miles to come to church! They were praying in Porteguese, Pastor Sydney was praying in Spanish, and the team was praying in English. It was so cool! ok, so after church, we said some of our goodbyes to the people we had met and loved on during the week.


Then, we went to the Brazil-Uruguay border to do some shopping! Then, we went to lunch and ordered 30 meters of pizza! The pizza was very good but we had some left over to say the least.




Our bus driver took us to a lake where many locals go to see sunsets. Unfortunately, I had fallen asleep (suprise suprise), but most of the team members got out and played along the beach. The stories sounded like a lot of fun.
We called it an early tonight. I think we have our final medical clinic for this leg of the trip tomorrow, so we need to get our rest. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. God has blessed us so much on this trip, and I am so excited to see what happens in the coming days. For now, Ciao! (I came to find out that they don`t say `Adios` here, they say ciao!) goodnight.
In Him,
(Re)Becca


Here are a couple of photos showing the bridge between Uruguay and Brazil. We cross this border everyday in order to get to our clinics. Above: Jerry & Leah...Below: Richard & Ricky. (That's for you, Jackie!!!)