Hey Harpeth Hills!

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be writing this update for you, and I apologize for the great length of time it took me to post this first update. I promise the next few will come sooner and more often.

First off, Argentina is such a unique place and I hope you can experience a small piece of it by hearing about it from all of us who are here over the next week. We have been at a retreat center in a small town northwest of Buenos Aires called Maximo Paz (Maximum Peace) ever since we left the Buenos Aires airport. During this time, we planned and held a spiritual retreat for one of the local churches with the theme “Love Your Enemies.”

Including the 10 of us, there were about 40 people who attended, most of whom spoke English very well, if not fluently. This was a little surprising to us, but turned out to be such a blessing! We were provided with so many opportunities to speak to people one on one that would not have been possible if we needed a translator for every conversation. This helped us bond with the Argentines on a personal, spiritual level, which is something that not every mission team gets to experience.

Friday night, we were joined by a group from Arkansas who was working with Let’s Start Talking (LST), who helped us understand some of the cultural differences that we had already experienced. A good example of this would be when Kendall Richards and I were welcoming the Argentines to the retreat center, and were both greeted by a “Holy Kiss” (as we like to call it), or when we looked at the schedule for the weekend and realized that dinner wasn’t until 10 PM. Conforming to slight cultural differences like these can really make a difference when trying to get to know someone of that culture, and we’re better off now that we’ve learned about some of them.

The retreat itself was a great success. They laughed at our skits, listened to our lessons, and asked us whenever they had questions. Osvaldo, the preacher at the local church, led us in bilingual singing and helped translate our lessons and skits for those who didn’t speak English which was a huge help.

That, along with some language-learning get-to-know-you games, helped us bond more than almost anything. Getting to hear everyone worship in two languages reminded all of us that our God has no language and that he loves everyone the same, even our enemies. We are currently en route to our hotel in Buenos Aires, where we will rest for the night, and plan out the rest of our week.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and words of encouragement. We will do our best to update you as soon as we can.

God Bless!

– Roman and the Argentina Mission Team