Wow! This week is really flying by! All of the sudden, we realize that we’re at the start of day 8, with only 4 days to go! These past two days have been so amazing in so many different ways and words honestly can’t express the excitement we’ve all felt while getting to live them out.

Monday we started our day by walking around the city looking for homeless people so we could give them bags of toiletries and invite them to a local church (which also offers free English classes). We did this through lunch, where we ate with Osvaldo (the preacher of the church), his wife, and a member of the congregation and talked about what else needed to be done.

From there, we took a subway to the area the church was in, and split into two groups. Ashley Musick led the first group of people to the church, where they began re-binding old songbooks with new covers, and Osvaldo led the second group of people to a community hospital, where we gave out more toiletry bags and invited more people to church.

From there the second group headed to the church to begin re-painting the interior and making the church look more appealing to the public.

We built relationships with the church staff while we were there working along-side them, and realized more than ever that the physical help that we bring is not what blesses the country of Argentina, it’s the fact that we give up our time, money, and energy to work and live along-side our brothers and sisters in Christ for just that reason, they are our family.

Tuesday we took time to explore the city and see all the different cultural centers and aspects of city that make Buenos Aires the city it is. At the end of the day, a few of us went with Ashley to a local house church where there were at least four countries represented and everyone spoke Spanish.

We continue to be encouraged by the church here and how quickly it seems to be growing. Tomorrow we will continue work on the church we worked on yesterday and can hopefully see people we met yesterday come by and ask about church.

I’m reminded of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in chapter 3, verses 13-21, where he writes:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

-Roman and the Argentina Mission Team