Stories from the Amazon - Jungle girl goes to Argentina

This story happened during a time in my life when I was working as a missionary with Cowboys With a Mission, a branch of Youth with a Mission, YWAM. The mission was based in Wyoming with another base in southern Brazil. I was to lead a team of missionary trainees on their outreach period of two months. I was so very reluctant and terrified to be the team leader actually but everyone felt like I was supposed to be the team leader, which I guess was good for me and caused me to grow and learn as well.  Part of our outreach was in southern Brazil where the mission was based and then we were to go on to Argentina for the rest of the outreach period. I am fluent in Portuguese and was used to translating back and forth but Spanish was a whole other language. I can understand it well enough to get pretty much the whole conversation but not to be able to translate it word for word, like I can in Portuguese. My team got pretty frustrated with me on that aspect since they had been a bit spoiled by the word for word translations they got while in Brazil. 

The first part of our time in Argentina was going by bus through Iguacu Falls, which we also got to stop and see. That is one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. The magnitude and power of the water coming over the falls is breathtaking and awe inspiring.  One of my favorite memories from seeing the falls with this group of people was when we stopped for lunch, only we didn't really have lunch, only a few apples. There were coatimundis running around everywhere in that park. We sat in the lush manicured grass of the park and ate our apples with the coatimundis climbing into our laps trying to steal them from us. It was entertaining and I'm not sure I've ever been around wild animals so closely as to have one climb in my lap! 

Our travels took us to Buenos Aires where we did some random community service jobs for some churches. During that stay, one day I was walking down the street and there was a tree next to the sidewalk and thousands of fruit had fallen to the ground. It was an apricot tree and I picked some up and ate them, never having eaten a fresh apricot or even seen a tree. It was the most delightful fruit I'd ever eaten and I filled my pockets and hands with what I could find on the ground. Even though it's a silly memory, I still think of that huge tree with all the apricots going to waste on the ground. 

Next we travelled to the plains area of Argentina and stopped at a very large cattle ranch. Very large as in you could ride a horse across the land all day at a lope and never reach a fenceline. It was amazing. We helped work the cattle and ministered to the ranch hands. 

Then my favorite part of this trip, and the whole point in telling this story, was our next portion of the trip where we went to a desert area of the country. We got to the pick up location and were transported out to the community by tractor and trailer. We piled up our bags and selves in the the trailer of the tractor and endured a very dusty ride for several hours out to the Puesto (post). Basically it was a house and little ranch. There were lots of these Posts within several hours walking distance of each other. We got to the first one and were greeted by a pair of kids. Apparently their parents hadn't gotten the memo that we were arriving and weren't there. We never found out exactly where they had gone but they never got back during the time we stayed there. The kids said we could spend the night out under the stars. We helped them gather firewood and do their work there and then we asked if we could pray with them. At this point another person had joined our team and did actually speak Spanish so that was very helpful in communicating. The kids told us it had been 11 months since it had rained and they asked for prayer that it would rain. Of course being the gung ho full of faith young missionaries that we were we prayed fervently for rain. That evening the kids cooked some form of delicious looking pizza over the fire oven and served it to us, one tiny piece per person. We then picked the flattest most comfortable looking sand to lay out our sleeping bags in. I had yet to unroll my sleeping bag which was a borrowed one that I had brought from the States. To my utter horror and dismay, when I unrolled it in the sand that night I discovered that instead of being a nice adult sized sleeping bad, it was a child's size one! And did you know that it gets really cold in the desert at night? Even in Argentina!  But since that was all I had, I tried to scrunch my tall self into that tiny bag. Before we had even had time to really fall asleep, God answered our earlier prayers and the sky fell open and torrential rain started coming down. We all grabbed our sleeping bags and ran for the tiny house and the kids said we could lay our sleeping bags in the one room. So 13 of us (I think that's how many we were) crammed like sardines in the tiny one room house with a leaky roof and dozed the rainy night away. 

The next day we hiked for a few hours through the sand to another puesto and shared the gospel and prayed with the family. They asked for more prayer for rain and we once again prayed with them that God would send more rain. That second evening we were scheduled to leave and the tractor trailer came and got us in the midst of a second rain. It was so amazing to see God answer those prayers and that those people actually saw that prayer being answered like that. 

We had more stops at different places and ministering in churches and with different people. On our way back to Brazil to catch the flight back home,  we had to go through Iguacu Falls again, only we missed the bus. Our bus from Argentina didn't arrive in time for us to catch the only bus leaving. So we ended up sleeping in the bus station on the floor. One of the team members left their nice shoes sitting in plain reach for someone to steal. They didn't listen to my suggestion to hide their shoes and sure enough, sometime during the night when everyone was dozing, the shoes got taken. 

I feel like now that I'm older and more experienced I would like to have a repeat on that trip, but I'm sure in so many ways it was a growing experience for me and for all of the team. And to see God work in such miraculous ways will never leave my memory.