Our Uruguay Adventures

Uruguay Slideshow

mjmueller23 — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:58:31 +0000

Thanks to everyone who supported us through donations, prayer, and reading our blog. Here is a slideshow of our trip. This is just to hold you over while we edit the video.

more about "Uruguay Slideshow ", posted with vodpod

Truth

eporemba — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:06:54 +0000

Don’t think it ends here. Today may be our last day, but this is not the end of the adventure. Before we left Stephen Wills told us to be ready to take more than we leave; to be ready to learn and to go in with an open heart and leave with a full heart of experience and change. I couldn’t say that he could have been more right.

Coming into this trip I had no expectations. I had seen pictures of the farm, had an idea of what we were going to be doing, but that was it. To some degree I believe this was beneficial- it left an open door for the Lord to work in my heart and my mind. Before we left I had two prayers for myself- one: for the Lord to teach me patience and two: for Him to soften my heart. And… Well, I learned prayers are dangerous. They are so powerful, and so only if you really want it you should pray for it (I mean this with all good intentions). In praying these two things I thought the Lord would just bless me with them and I would come back changed. Wrong. Jesus doesn’t just do that, He is going to make you learn it and therefore you remember it. My time here was almost life destroying instead of life giving. I have never been more challenged, enraged, confused, and heartbroken all at the same time. In the midst of it all I kept questioning God and why He would let my trip be ruined by these feelings. He has simply answered me, “you asked for it… here is patience… here is a soft heart…”

One of my best friends, Stephanie Krebs, always tells me, “Jesus is not a God of trickery. He is not going to try and get you to make the wrong decision or make you confused. He loves you, so why would He do that?” I have heard her sweet voice though out this trip pleasantly reminding me of this truth. This trip has made this statement a tangible reality… God never tries to trick us, instead He is trying to teach us.

Totals

eporemba — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:05:24 +0000

A few calculations to depict our camp week with the orphans:
315 packets of Tang
400 Loaves of bread
16 kilo tubs of Dulce de Leche
140 Bananas
4 cans of instant coffee
56 bags of yogurt drink (like go-gurt)
123 hot dogs
240 pancakes
151 showers
119 cannonballs
1253 bug bites

These are just a few numbers we considered… Who knew that these items were key to success and a time of learning about the Lord and all that He is… I feel like He has a very good sense of humor.

Farm Sweet Farm

mjoslyn — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:52:52 +0000

Well we have just arrived back to the farm after five long days in the city of Buenos Aires and one very long travel day on minimal sleep. Wow, what a change of pace it really was. We went from the simple life on the farm where our hardest thought was to cannonball or dive into the pool, to a place we did not know nor did we realize the differences we’d find. BA is a huge city with so much going on.

Throughout our time there, we saw a Tango show, ate some really wonderful food, enjoyed wandering around the city, and a city tour to name a few. We enjoyed our time here and learned some really great life lessons as well. Yet something was missing in the city life for all of us and we all were rather relieved to return to the farm. Maybe we aren’t a bunch of city kids after all!

We are headed to Montevideo today to perform a drama that we did for the orphanages, but now we are performing it for a church in town. It is an extremely powerful drama called “Everything” and we learned it when we first got here but now have been asked to do it again. Should be really fun and a little nerve racking but are all quite talented. Blessings!

Everyone’s Story

mjmueller23 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:03:39 +0000

All of these kids have quite a painful past, a lot of them have had abusive parents or were living on the street with their parents. Because of their situation there is really no hiding their troubled past, you don’t end up in an orphanage because everything is going your way(Although God definitely blessed these kids by placing them at El Hogar).

After listening to each other’s stories one thing I have come to realize is that the one thing everyone has in common is a painful past. It is in varying degrees but we have all gone through things that have brought sorrow and pain in way that has permanently altered the course of our life.

But being here has brought on a more important realization about how faithful God has been to bring people out of that pain when they turn to Him. Everyone here has a story about how God brought them through the darkest parts of their lives.

History of El Hogar

timhickory — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:53:22 +0000

Yesterday the grandma of El Hogar came to the farm. She is the founder of El Hogar Orphanage and one of the first descendants of the German Colony here in Uruguay. She is a gentle lady with Mother Teresa esq qualities and it was an honor to meet her. Mike and I had the priviledge of hearing her story as we munched on watermelon by the side of the pool. She was 14 years old at the brink of World War II and her father was a soldier fighting for Germany. After her family was forced to the edge of Germany, they exiled on a boat for Paraguay. She describes it as a miracle that they received paper work during the journey that allowed them to reside in Uruguay. Paraguay was a much more poor nation at the time and would have been difficult for immigrants arriving with nothing to survive. She continued her story describing how for the first 2 years in Uruguay she lived in a barn with 250 other German immigrants surviving off of communal living. She said the Uruguayans were very generous and gave them the supplies and food necessary to stay alive. After the first two years her family moved to San Jose, the town we are now located in. Although still poor, she eventually started the El Hogar orphanage with a donation received from a menenite church in the U.S. Since then the orphanage has flourished for 40 years now and has never once had to shut down. El Hogar is a unique orphanage, it’s is family based and unlike many of the government run INAU orphanages in Uruguay the kids are allowed to and do refer to their new found parents (Kurt and Bilda Durrick) as Momma and Pappa. They have formed a family with each other which has allowed the Lord’s love to run free in them. In the past 40 years, 70 orphans have grown up in El Hogar and many of them have gone on to live fruitful lives. It awesome to see how such an amazing place started with a poor German immigrant who by a miracle in the midst of chaos ended up in San Jose, Uruguay. God’s creativity is pretty amazing.

Talent Show Video

mjmueller23 — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:09:54 +0000

There was plenty of talent in the talent show but it ended with a big dance party to the song “Vida” by DC Recto.

[vime0 vimeo.com/8649621]

Cannonball Video

mjmueller23 — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:09:08 +0000

A typical afternoon is doing this about 30 times

GABO

eporemba — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:07:50 +0000

This is Gabo, short for Gabriel Rocha, he has the biggest heart and the best dance moves.

Love for the Team

eporemba — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:55:38 +0000

To be honest, I have sat down about three times to write this… and every time I am just overwhelmed. There is so much to tell about each one of these little ninos and words could not do it justice. Last night we set up a stage made of shower curtains, bamboo and stacked boxes to put on a talent show production. It was incredible. Everyone wanted to do something. There was artwork, dancing, singing, and acting. This production was then followed by a massive bonfire out in the field with worship and catching of fireflies. It was like any last night of camp; everyone is so tired but wants to stay up as long as possible and soak up every moment that is left. It was the first time in my life that I felt “old.” My body was aching, I was so tired, and was the first one to say goodnight.

Lastly, our team met for our nightly meeting to discuss the day and how Jesus is moving in the lives of the ninos. We have also decided to share live stories with one another and I can say this: There is power in our stories. Our life stories show how the Lord has worked within us and how His grace is sufficient. These stories have brought us much closer with one another and has made us realize that we are not much different from one another. We all have our struggles and pain. We all feel inadequate of God’s love and yet we all believe that Jesus has redeemed us. Life with the Father is a choice; this is His gift. Each day we must chose to believe and follow Him, and as a team of followers we have chosen to keep one another accountable in this. I believe this is love- true love for one another.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and live. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13