Begun in Faith

An Encounter is a weekend retreat that we encourage all church members to participate in. It’s two full days of classes with topics ranging from the sacrifice of Jesus and repentance to family and sexuality. Normally, an Encounter takes place in a hotel conference room with five to fifteen participants. We have a normal Encounter planned for February 13-14, but in December we realized that two families had significant schedule conflicts. Emilse is due to have her baby boy on February 3rd, and Esteban and Jessica work weekends except for their two weeks of vacation in January. So, with two weeks’ notice, we decided to plan a low key Encounter for January. We booked a one night stay in a hotel, but did all the classes and meals in the church on our own. The week of the Encounter, Emilse experienced difficulties with her pregnancy and couldn’t come, so we got to love on Esteban and Jessica and their two kids for the entire weekend. We met this family through Hadassa's school-Hadassa ...

“Christmas in July” now has a new meaning for me after celebrating my first summer Christmas. It’s weird, but in many ways it’s the best of both worlds. It’s Christmas traditions plus lemonade and ice cream and sunshine and flowers. I actually got sunburned while doing my last minute shopping on Christmas Eve! Argentines don’t really celebrate Christmas all month long like we do, but with so many North Americans in one house we couldn’t help making a couple hundred dozen cookies. We made up some plates of cookies to deliver to businesses in the neighborhood. Our recipients were either over-joyed or completely confused. Americans have a reputation of having an overabundance of Christmas cheer, thanks to our pervasive Christmas movies. We were happy to confirm the reputation. Argentines celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve and then all night long. We started with a potluck dinner at the church at 9:00. We had Brazilian chicken cordon bleu, American green bean casserole, and Arge...