Do you drink it amargo or dulce?

This is a question that I hear whenever "mate" (maw-tay) is brought up. Do you drink it bitter or sweet? Mate is a very bitter tea that they drink here in Patagonia. To take off the edge some people put sugar or some sort of artificial sweetener.

I am a coffee drinker. I didn't used to be. However, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen started bringing me coffee when I was in Bible college. Let me show you some simple math...

Girl you like brings you coffee + desire to win her heart + incessant need for caffeine [projects+exams] = coffee addict for life.

Coffee was so bitter when I first started drinking it, and I hated it. However, after years of drinking it I have grown accustomed to it and I even like it now. I say that because mate was extremely bitter when I first started drinking it, and I hated it! However, now that I am here in Patagonia I want to be like the people here so that I may be able to lead many of them to Christ. Therefore I went out and bought my own mate (the cup used to drink mate), bombilla (straw), yerba (the herbs), and stevia (a natural sweetener since I already put enough sugar in my coffee). So the process of getting accustomed to it has begun, and I'm even starting to like it! And by the way, I'll take it dulce.

Attitudes

I've been listening to some podcast lessons on cross-cultural ministry and the last couple of them were about attitudes. Here are a few attitudes that are good for missionaries to have:

• You are a guest
• They did not ask you to come here
• America is not superior, and neither are you
• The doctors, mechanics, and other professionals here are capable
• They are not strange, you are
• The way they do things is now the way you do things
• Their language is your language, their culture is your culture, their food is your food
• You can learn from them, and make sure that you keep yourself quiet and listen to what they have to say
• Identify with them
• This is your home now
• Make friends
• Don't treat them like tourist attractions
• Like what they like
• Respect them, they deserve it just like anyone else
• Let them build trust, and, be trustworthy yourself

A lot of these are things I remember hearing from the podcasts, and some of them have just been my experience. If you are interested in hearing these podcasts that have been coming out weekly check out Pastor Austin Gardner's website: www.austingardner.net.

Lago Pollux

On Saturday I took a little time off and went to do some fishing. I fished a total of about 4 hours. Together we caught 9 fish, I caught 2 nice sized rainbow trout. Here is a picture of the smaller one I caught:

And to let you see what Pollux looks like, I grabbed a picture from somebody else's website:

It was nice to get away and relax a little. I must admit that it was not as "glamorous" as the fishing I am used to. I loved my new kind of fishing though! I filleted up those two trout and cooked them for lunch yesterday! Their meat was pink, as opposed to the white meat one might be used to in farm raised trout in California. Somebody told me that here in Chile they don't farm raise fish for lakes. Everybody loved the trout (I say everybody because we had Eduardo over). I coated the bottom of a casserole dish with olive oil, salted and peppered the fish, and then covered them with lemon slices, zucchini  tomato, a frozen veggie mix, and butter. 20 minutes in the oven and voila!

It's Dusk

It is 10:00 pm here in Coyhaique (which, by the way is usually called 22:00 here) and the sun is just barely starting to go down!

Fish

Fish is a funny thing. You grow up knowing certain kinds of fish. Some that I really remember are Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Cutthroat Trout, Large-mouth Bass, Small-mouth Bass, Salmon, and Cod. You get to the other side of the world and you eat fish and you wonder, is this Salmon or Cod? Haha...there are other kinds of fish. Some of the ones that I have eaten here in Chile are Congrio and Reineta. Neither of them are fish that you can readily eat in California, if you can even eat them at all there, and their names don't translate too well to English. However, when any avid fish eater things of the words, "Chile" and "Fish" then one very specific specie comes to their mind:

CHILEAN SEABASS

There have been times that I have sat at a restaurant eating a seven or eight dollar fish meal and wondered to myself, "Is this Chilean Seabass and would I be paying $30 for this meal in California?" Finally I took the initiative to try and understand fish in Chile. First off, Chileans almost NEVER eat Chilean Seabass. Second off, the Chilean Seabass that you eat in California is not really Seabass at all, its just that in the 70's a major fish distributor decided that in high end restaurants "Patagonian Toothfish" wouldn't sell very well.  For all you ecologically friendly readers, the Patagonian Toothfish is supposedly an endangered specie. If you go to some restaurants in Santiago you may get served "Chilean Seabass", but is not the same fish you pay an arm and a leg for in Los Angeles. They say that in Patagonia it is not to uncommon to find the right fish served in a restaurant, so I think now that I know the name I may order it sometime...that is, if it doesn't cost me an eye of the face (Chilean equivilent phrase to arm and a leg).

So Eduardo, a faithful man in our church here, brought us a box of Reineta filetes. Have you ever had, and please excuse the alcohol reference, a beer-battered fish? It is delicious, and definitely not healthy. I'm not necessarily referencing the specific batter that has beer, just the batter that has the consistency that a beer-batter has. The truth is, that I am very against alcohol, and so I always avoid beer. However, I thought that these Reineta filets would be very good in that kind of batter. I typed into google "How to make beer batter without beer", and conveniently I wasn't the first person to search for that. It looks like as a basic rule you can take any beer batter recipe and replace the beer with club soda. So last night we did it! It was delicious! And afterwards there was extra batter so Annie cut up a Zuchinni and did that too! It was very good!

While on the subject of fishing... I have heard that there is some good lake fishing not too far from here. The man, Luis, that I am discipling has a cabin at that lake. He also has a motor boat and fishing poles. He said he loves to fish and asked me to join him. It is trout fishing, and whereas the average trout in California is less than a pound, it sounds like the average fish he catches is more like three to five pounds (that's the average). Sounds like some good eating to me, and hopefully a good way to bond with Luis! I need to find some honey holes anyways before my dad gets here, so I can teach him how to fish. I'm not a huge fish eater, but my neighbor is fanatical about fish. I took him some of the reineta that Eduardo brought us and he was very thankful. I know I'd score some points if I brought him some fresh trout filetes.

Zeal & Potential

When I was going door to door and just leaving things on doorsteps (as opposed to trying to speak to everyone) I left something at Luis' house. About twenty minutes later I received a phone call from somebody I didn't know thanking me for the CD that I had left them, it was Luis. I got his name and address and asked if I could come by for a visit sometime. I went for that first visit last week and it went well. I thought they would come to church, but they didn't. I got a call from him this week asking if we could meet up. We met up and it went great. Luis has been saved for about a year, but he is not involved in a church. He has asked me if I would do discipleship with him, and of course I obliged! He has been unemployed for three weeks so he has an unusual amount of free time. He says he's become an expert in cleaning his house. He was a military instructor for artillery for nine years (we have a big base here in town), and after getting out of the military he worked for a mine. Because of downsizing they had to let him go. One of the exciting things about Luis is that he has a lot of zeal and he is just like a sponge. He wants more and more of the Scriptures. He came over for discipleship and we studied the Bible for over three hours. This was refreshing, because sometimes when you study the word with someone they space out after 20 or 30 minutes and you feel like you have to work extra hard to keep their attention. Luis was so lost in the study that he forgot he was supposed to pick up his family at 6; he didn't realize until he looked at his watch and it was 6:10. I have high hopes for him and am praying for his growth.

Eduardo (from the independent Baptist church in the next biggest city north of us, Puerto Montt) continues to be faithful. He is a great encouragement to me. He wants to be more involved in ministry and he is just a person who wants to help. He also has a gift for giving. He works in the fish and game industry down here, so I thought he'd be a good person to ask where to get good fish. The next thing I know he shows up with a box of Reineta! Which is not a fish that you can get in the U.S. as far as I know. Because of my attention deficit, I'm going to end this post and continue the next one about fish! On one last note, Eduardo is such a giver and I'm very thankful God put him into our lives here.

Christmas is a most wonderful time

It's Christmas time! I love Christmas time. I love how people are generally nicer. I love the music, yes, the music might be my favorite. I like the decorations: lights, ornaments, wreaths, etc. I like the drinks: hot cocoa  coffee, eggnog, etc. I find that people are more likely to listen to you talk to them about Christ. I know that the push of the political right is the put "Christ" back in Christmas. I kind of just feel neutral about all of that. There is no mandate or prohibition in the Bible about celebrating the birth of Christ, and that's why I feel fine about it all. On Sunday one of the boys in our church here asked me if Christmas was the day that Jesus was born. I told him, "Maybe!" And in my head I thought, "there is a 1/365 chance he was born that day!" I have read from differently people arguing about what day Jesus was or wasn't born, but at the end of the day none of them know when He was born either. Whenever He came, I'm so glad He did! And I'm so thankful for what happened the week of Passover (when He gave His life) and on that first Easter Sunday (when He resurrected)!

Down here in Chile we were invited to celebrate either Christmas or New Years with a family that isn't Christian. I asked a Chilean pastor friend of mine if he thought that one of those would be calmer (like, less drunkenness). He said that Christmas is better because people don't want to get crazy when baby Jesus was born. I thought that was interesting...almost superstitious. Drunkenness is listed as sin at any time (Galatians 5:21). There is a lot of superstition here. When you drive along the road there are a couple of things you see that show you some of the superstitions. One of them is little altars where you can park and light a candle to a dead "saint" in hopes that they will watch over you. Some people put cards with a picture of a saint and a prayer to him/her in their vehicles hoping that it will protect them. Another thing that you see driving is little homes that look like they could even be dog houses. They aren't dog houses though. They are built where a family member or loved one died, and it is because they believe that after the person dies their spirit stays there. So they take food and drink for their deceased one's spirit. It is a great comfort to think of the words of of Scripture that teach us to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8 & Philippians 1:23).

Christmas will be different this year being far from so many that we love. I think it will be very special though. I see it as a time to form new traditions, and, while not replacing those we love who are so far away, a time to forge new relationships and love people here in Patagonia. Annie has some nice decorations up around the house, and we are planning to make paper snowflakes and watch Christmas movies. Sounds like a blast to me!

Belt loops

Since we got to Chile I have been buckling my belt with an extra loophole. Once we got to Coyhaique I started doing a second extra loophole. In the last few days I have been losing my britches and so I decided to do a third extra loophole, but I was surprised to find that there's no holes left! I better start eating more junk food ; )

We have two visitors with us this week; a man from South Carolina and a man from Santiago. They came down here with the express purpose of helping us distributing the Bible story/Gospel CDs with invitations to our opening service. The invitations also have a gospel presentation on the back of them. They have been here for four days and we have gone to about 4,000 homes; with the 1,000 that I did that totals 5,000 homes in this city of 50,000 people. If the average of each home is three people then that would mean that there are about 17,000 homes. I think the average would be more than three people per home so there are probably less than that.

I'm pretty sore!

Today we went up to a high point that overlooks Coyhaique. I went to the edge of the cliff and took this picture.

I knelt down at this cliff and prayed over this city. I begged God to give us this city.

A pretty shot

I'm not much of a photographer but I saw this flower up on the hill we were at earlier today and snapped the shot.

Ibuprofena

There is this restaurant in town that Annie and I used to go to to order coffee and then use the free wifi (funny, it's free, as long as you pay...). There was this sweet lady named Patricia, and we got to know her a little bit. Well we got our own internet like a month ago or so and so we haven't seen her. Tonight we decided to grab a bite there. I asked her how she was and she said that her whole body hurt from the busy day (she always talks about being sore so she may have arthritis or something). I asked her if she had tried take ibuprofen and she said no. After we had paid our bill I slipped out and ran up the street to the corner farmacy and got her a pack of it. She was in the changing room getting ready to go home once I got back so I left it with her friend to give to her. I thought, "What a hassle to run up there, but definitely worth it to show love and make a friend for a lifetime."

Discipleship

Tonight I did the first discipleship lesson (of 16) with a young man named Gaspar. Also, I had to put the CD/invitation project on hold for awhile because I sprained my ankle badly. For the first couple of days I could hardly walk around the house, but I've been getting better slowly. It's been a couple of weeks and today was my first day to really get out in the streets. I went to about two hundred homes, and my ankle is doing pretty well. Although it is still very sore this was definitely a positive step.

Micah walking to mom

I put Micah down in his crib today and he walked across to his mom while holding the side. I thought it was pretty cool and one of those moments that family would want to see. I grabbed the camera and decided to experiment and see if he could do it again, he got it first try! Pretty cool. Enjoy!

Tonight's Bible study was great

We just finished taking people home from tonight's Bible study. We studied five names of Jesus Christ and how those names show that He is God. Next week we are going to be studying the impact of the name Emanuel. This was our second time since we started that we didn't have any visitors, but it was definitely our most attended service. Nine people came, and with our family that makes a total of twelve. Great night!