A new song

Sacred Christian music is absolutely beautiful! I have loved listening to the many CD's we have collected over the years. The music we used to listen to - rock, country, hip hop, and all that plus some CCM after I was saved - just cannot compare to sacred music. The sound, the words, and the way the music moves your heart to worship a Holy, Just, Loving, Omnipotent and sacrificial God will never be matched with rock music attached to Christian words.

I'm still adjusting to sacred music in Spanish. Sometimes the songs are prettier in this new language of mine. Yet other times, nothing but English can compare. At any rate we enjoyed having the "Argentina team" from Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Wisconson ministering in the church here through music. We got a call about 3 weeks ago from a missionary friend in Argentina asking if we'd like to have this team over for a couple days.

The brass group was amazing! Each of the singing groups was a tremendous blessing. They worked hard at learning every song in Spanish, I should say Castellano, which was a particular blessing to the Uruguayans. The one on one instrumental and choral clinic was a tremendous help.

It was fun to host 4 young women - Emily, Tiffany, Laura and Lori. Emily comes from a family of 9 children so she handled the bustle rather well. Tiffany is the grand daughter Ron and Loraine Breil, friends of ours from our home church. (Loraine, we are praying for a full recovery from your recent heart attack!) And Laura and Lori were neat to get to know.

After we distributed invitations and a church flyer, we took the team out to Los Tres Botones, that farm we take everyone, and they had a great time. They got to enjoy the terrific Uruguayan food, horseback riding, soccer and more.

Last night's service was a particular blessing to us after we saw, Richard. Scott first met Richard when he came by our house selling potting soil. He has been back at least a dozen times to sell other things and also to talk. He's the guy who makes things from the palm leaves that I blogged about a couple months ago. He is a believer and also worked with sail teams in yacht clubs so he and Scott have much in common. After the service he said he could hear the difference in the music and thought it to be such a blessing that he plans to begin coming to the church regularly.

Richard was one of ten visitors last night. Please continue to pray for our language teacher, Cecilia, we have invited her to church dozens of times and though she says she will come she has not.

Well, I have a house to clean, laundry to wash, a church directory to design, and a kindergardener to gieve a test to. I'll try to post more vacation pictures as well as those from this special music meetings.

Los Tres Botones

The Estrema family, missionaries in Buenos Aires, Argentina, came for a visit the day after Christmas. Jeremy preached on Wednesday night. The Estrema's daughter Ellie turned 4 on Wednesday and for her birthday we went out Los Tres Botones on Thursday.

First we toured the farm. I had to laugh at the crinkled noses when we went by the pigs pen. Their smell is quite familiar to me since I used to raise pigs. But nobody else seemed to appreciate their cute muddy faces and body as they tried to keep cool. Oh well, at least they like farm life. Our family all felt reminiscent of our Michigan farm life when the farmer brought out a bottle of milk for Simeon to feed to the new calf. I remembered the time I was reading a farm animal book to Simeon, when I asked him where the cows were he ran to the front door and pointed out to the yard. Finally they all got to pet a rabbit and see the geese and chickens.

While we were touring, the farmers wife was cooking up a wonderful lunch of Asado and all the typical Uruguayan fixings. Including cheese made right there on the farm. To say it was all delicious is an understatement!

Before and after lunch we went horseback riding. All of us had the best time! Not one of our children was afraid of the horses. Simeon wanted to ride the HUGE (he was at least 5' 8" at the whithers) gelding with Scott. Though there isn't a picture of it I got to ride the gelding as well. I sure miss my aggie and veterinary days when we get to do things like this. Boy, we have the BEST mission field.