what was i thinking?

hey, the laziest blogger you know, is an even lazier facebook friend.

i don't know who still checks this out anymore, many of you may have resorted to sending me emails to which you have probably not received a reply. many apologies. brief history in my time. i have been back i the states since the 3rd of april (still haven't completed my taxes) hit the ground here in the marina with boat maintenance and visits with friends, family and plugging in at church. two months later and i was on the road again; what was supposed to be a two week trip to utah expanded to a full month, this resulted in my not returning to la but rather, going on to the bay area to visit with more friends and family and attend the wedding of my friend jodi. again my plans were not set in stone, so i expanded my visit to a four week period.

now i've been back in los angeles for another 4 weeks, getting more boat items removed from the "to do" list (taxes still on that list) if you are one of the many emailers who has given up on getting a response, i'm trying to change my ways.

back? - i didn't know he'd left

deepest apologies to all who've used this to keep up with me. some of you know i was home and running all over seeing family and a few of you i had the great pleasure of getting to share some brief visits. to those of you who i didn't manage to see or even contact i'm sorry. perhaps upon my next visit.

so here's the latest tale: i had lots to accomplish on my short visit, the biggest expense and concern was the boat. i really didn't fully resolve the issue, but it won't be totally neglected as my brother is going to be able to use it as a resting place if any opportunities arise for him in the film industry in los angeles. then there was the hope of getting together with the producers of "the way of the master", this didn't pan out as i was on the road out of los angeles for much of my visit. but they did have some very interesting news concerning a couple who live in santiago who expressed and interest in helping to get this series into the hands and hearts of the spanish speaking community. they were in the southern california area while i was there, but again our schedules were not quite compatible. i'll be contacting them today in hopes that we can meet here in santiago and work together.

the other event that took place while in los angeles was that my computer which was 5 and a half years old, by apple terms it's an antique, had a video card failure. the miracle here was that this took place just after i'd backed up the entire system. that includes all photos from the last year as well as the entire project with 24 translated episodes, i have to testify that i believe this was divine intervention. my friend nigel was gracious enough to allow me to use his employee discount on the purchase of another computer. so now if you skype me you can see me.

i've been taking a couple of classes online and the loss of the computer really was a bit of a set back, i'm playing catch-up now, so i'll have to keep this short. i have made it my goal to keep this blog up todate more often.

merry Christmas

many of you may not know that i'm back in the states, i wanted to surprise my mom, so i didn't let you know. so i'll bee around until the 29th of feb. i hope to contact and see as many of you as possible. have a merry Christmas.

it's a long story on just why i came back i'll try to give the details in a bit.

no problems here

i felt some rumbling but the area affected is 20 hours north of us. hadn't even heard of the damage until some of you called. thank you for your prayers. my apologies for not keeping things updated here, i am pushing hard to keep up on the class work i promise updates soon

3 aug

today we did in 5 hours what a forklift could have accomplished in 10 minutes - we moved three tons of bricks from the ground floor to the 2nd story which is not yet built. much of the construction in chile is constantly in progress. this church will soon be two stories. the job was actually fun as we were tossing the bricks to each other in a fire line. most everything that people feel they me use again one day is thrown up on the roofs of their homes, it's baffling as some homes don't look like they can hold the weight, add to that the fact that this is earthquake country and some folks are going to have repercussions one day.

our group is being split in two days, i'll spend the rest of next week here in arica and the other half of the group will head south closer to the city of acica where our last two weeks will be spent. time is really moving now as we've been kept pretty busy with this church.

29 july - 22 july

camping


four more weeks left, two in arica and then to a city which is a bit larger and south called acica (sp) from there it's back to pichilemu, where they've been battling the cold, apparently they've had a breathing epidemic in the town, i'm praying things will warm up and folks will be getting healthy again by the time we return there.

the last week has been one of much rest, we stayed outside of arica in a campground. i'm not quite sure if i have the details completely right: the pastor at the second church we visited a month ago is somehow involved in ownership or renting this property (but they didn't come out to visit us) the congregation from the last church we visited was very actively involved with us. they brought us mattresses and bedding, food and water. there was a pool, that was half full of green water, so the guys started bailing it out with 5 gallon buckets. samuel and robinson lead the charge, this was pretty ammusing as the soil here hasn't seen this much water since the last tsunami. the sandy soil just pooled the water. the next day the water was gone in most areas but when we walked over those places the soil caved in. we also had an incident with the loss of electricity in the commodore which is doubling as the guys sleeping quarters. i'm always leery of electricity (even in the states) but things are down right scary here. the area that flooded was also where the subterranean power supply was located. it started sparking and burning later in the day which when i thought about the fact that we'd been walking around that area in the puddled water and sinking into the soggy mud made me conscious of how we were being protected. i did get a pretty good shock trying to turn on an outdoor light switch 220 volts ain't fun.

the rest of the week was spent filling the pool back up and fighting off wild dogs. they were pretty bold, entering our kitchen and eating anything that wasn't tightly enclosed. they also were able to dump over the 55 gallon barrels which held our trash (pretty impressive for a cocker spaniel) i chased them off from day one but someone in the camp was feeding them and encouraging them to come around. i didn't eat for the first 4 days i was there a group of 4 of us were baptized in the pacific, then the congregation threw a party for us. benjamin made ceviche and they brought out a chinese chef (yes, he made chinese food) i went a bit overboard (having not eaten the previous day) my stomach was upset as i ate much and did the heavy spice thing.

15 july

today was a pretty great day of relaxation. i was a bit concerned about the timeline as i'd been invited to have high tea in the early evening with friends we'd made at our last church. meanwhile during the day the assistant pastor had offered to take us out for the day. my worry was that we might be out for the full day and be unable to contact our hostesses.

we rose early and had quiet time and breakfast at the regular times, then it was sitting around and waiting for the cars to arrive. it was supposed to be 11ish but the actual time was 12:30ish. we ventured up to the largest of the three fertile valleys, which surprisingly was not far out of town before you could see the groves of olive trees, banana trees and tomato vines. amazing fact we were told that each mature olive tree will yield a ton of olives, a kilo (2.2 lbs) is $4 here, an eight oz can in california is over a $1 that's pretty amazing when we saw these fields of thousands of trees. i thought it odd that the villas weren't grander.



we made our way up to a museum in the valley where the claim to fame there is the oldest recorded mummy. the cost was preclusive to some members of the group so we drove around the valley. there were the geoglyps - ancient designs out of rock on the hillsides. we then scales a hillside, i did it barefoot as my flip flops didn't do so well in the sand. down was much faster and easier, bounding. this is sort of short and cryptic as i'm in front of the school, getting strand looks from hte locals.

we managed to make it to the dinner with our hosts had a there's more to this and i'll hopefully update it all in the future.

updating the blog is a bit more of a challenge

this week as the one hotspot i found is at a school, the problem is it's closed for their winter break, and in order to pick up the signal i have to pass my computer through the bars of the gate and hold it in one hand and hunt and peck with the other.

the "it's a small world" aphorism is an excuse to avoid recognizing that there are no accidents. i've had these chance encounters on so many occasions recently and in the past -- i used to write them off as amazing coincidences, but i've come to the realization that stasticticly everyone of you would have to be traveling every single day i've traveled in order for me to have had these encounters by mere chance. since most of you don't have blogs indicating that you are out there everyday traveling i have realized that these encounters are not random statistical coincidences, but that there is a Creator -- He has a sense of humor, He reveals Himself daily to those who are open and earnestly seeking.

i was going somewhere with this, oh yeah, yet again i've had several run-ins that are confirming i am in the place where i'm supposed to be: two weeks ago i was in a local supermarket here in arica (pop 180,000ish) i was waiting in the area near the cash registers when this guy who was also waiting asked if i was from california, this threw me as i hadn't said anything or spoken near him. he thought i was in town for the rip curl surf competition. turns out he saw the travel badge on my back and recognized marina del rey. after a bit more discussion he mentioned that he is in a shooter living in santa monica, his mother lives in arica. strange to met someone in the same union in a line for groceries in south america, in la most everyone you meet falls into some industry category, but down here i left town to get away from all of that.

so the latest encounter was last week at the church we are working with; the pastor here knows the pastor i went to cambodia with in november, "the circle is now complete" that pastor from cambodia wrote my referral letter for the discipleship program i'd applied to ywam in australia, i was visiting his fathers church in santiago when i met mitch, the director of the ywam base here in pichilemu, are you confused?:

muddy explanation --

met isreal and debbie in cambodia (oct 06)
while traveling through so. america i started ap process for ywam surf dts in perth australia (jan 07)
had asked israel to write a pastoral referral for the application
stayed at the church of israel's father (jose) while in santiago. (feb 07)
met mitch anderson director of ywam base in pichilemu
that same day recieved email from perth that israel submitted pastoral referral
went to pichilemu to check it out.
a week later perth folks sent odd email that they couldn't find referral (march 07)
israel had sent a copy to me which i used for the pichilemu application
home for twelve days (march 07)
back to chile and began dts classe (march 07)
after the first week i wanted to move over to the counseling school - leaders wouldn't let me.
had to decide where i wanted to go on out reach (stay in chile or go to so. africa via germany) (april 07)
got a clear message in writing that i was to stay in chile.
outreach to arica (june 07)
met camera guy in market, (july 07)
at the church met pastor who knows israel and debbie, (july 07)
same day got email from base in australia

chile is living up to it's name . . .

in temp and in spice!

many of you have been wondering where i've been and what i've been up to. well i'm going to tell you. it's been almost four weeks now that we've been in the north of chile - - most specifically arica, it's a city of about 100,000, twenty minutes from the peruvian border. we've been over the border once in order to get our re-entry stamp, qualifying us for another 90 days in chile.

pichilemu was beginning to get a bit cold and just after we departed the rains came which i'm told makes for quite the mud bog, the big miracle there was the lack of rain while several projects got buttoned up. the major one was the delivery and installation of the steel for the roof of over the pool. the strange thing is that i feel like i was in on this from the outset, as i met mitch the director of the ywam base in february when he was in santiago buying the steel and hiring the the welders. i helped offload the semi trailer in the middle of the night (20 guys per beam and me in my flip flops) i was scaling the cross members to paint the welds (in my flip flops, mom you would have been proud! . . i mean freaked) the last coats of paint were being applied the day the rains came. that same day i was helping one of the leaders wrap his construction project in plastic as we put the last few nails in the rain began to fall. i left pechilemu four days later. spent a day in santiago running errands then the next day it was into a bus and 27 hours later i was in arica.

this city is much larger than pichilemu, and my current living circumstances are much more comfortable than the boat, actually the last place was better than the boat also. odd because i'm here on a mission outreach yet i've had four meals served to me everyday, the bathroom is closer and it's been warmer. people have been doing my laundry. it's not supposed to be this easy. i feel bad because i came to serve and somehow i don't feel like i'm giving as much as i'm getting in exchange.

one of my biggest struggles here has been the dramas we've been practicing and performing from time to time. over the last three weeks that was a main focus. i was really resistant, because i saw so many other places where i felt i could actually be of service or interacting with people. the biggest missed opportunity was the rip curl pro invitational which was here for two weeks, we went on a friday to scout it out and there were thousands of kids milling about. but no one was excited about going back. finally i spoke with the assistant pastor about going back out on the last friday and taking sandwiches to give out and talk to people. we heard a rumor that the competition might have ended so thursday evening we went down and discovered that it was over. still not sure what to make of that, it seems a shame because we could have had a major impact on people here. i'm trying to figure out where and when or if i should be more vocal. we are here learning to submit to our leaders, who in-turn are submitting to the will of the pastors at the churches we are visiting but i didn't get a feeling that the pastor was totally opposed to us going to the comp. it's water under the bridge but i'm still trying to figure out my lesson.

saturday i made my first pasta sauce from scratch, the tricky thing was that it was for 250 people. we got tomatoes, garlic, oregano, onions all in bulk. oh yeah and some red chile pepper. well those of you who know me know i like it hot and that my taste buds are fried, there in lies the problem i put a 1/2 kilo of peppers in the sauce -- you'd think people who live in a country called chile would like chilies -- well they don't - i got some very interesting responses, the first taste was usually a positive look followed within seconds by looks of agony as some ran for glasses of water. the strange thing is i couldn't taste a the slightest hint of spice. the kilo of garlic didn't seem to bother them. an emergency purchase of bland sauce was arranged as the vast majority of our victims (i mean guests) were children. the following day we took the left overs down to an area where there were disadvantaged people living many substance abusers, these folks probably didn't suffer from the excessive spice, having abused themselves in so many other ways. we nourished them for one day and hopefully the time we spent with them was a time of encouragement.

i had some really encouraging interaction with some children here, one young girl was exceptionally kind to me. which made it very difficult when we had to depart. we had such brief interactions but her aunt said that she really made some major break throughs since she'd been with her. it's very sad here to see the absences of men in the lives of their wives and families. i guess it's everywhere but here it seems that women are given this role of servant, and men just kind of come and go as they please. i notice a bit of that behavior even amongst the guys in my group, their used to having been raise this way so they have no problem living that way. i have hire expectations of myself and these guys who are calling themselves christians. but that's me harping and i'm trying not to do that so much, i've got much in my own life that i need to address.

so that's a taste of what i've been up to in the last three months since i filled you in, hope you are all well.

back in pichilemu

got back to pichilemu yesterday, spent the day re-provisioning and getting moved back in.

so things are moving along quicker than expected. we actually leave for our big outreach in the beginning of june, as opposed to the end, so there is much to get in order here, but it's a blessing as the rains will begin soon and this place becomes a mud bog. arika is north of the tropic of capricorn so things will be much warmer there.

back in pichilemu

got back to pichilemu yesterday, spent the day re-provisioning and getting moved back in.

so things are moving along quicker than expected. we actually leave for our big outreach in the beginning of june, as opposed to the end, so there is much to get in order here, but it's a blessing as the rains will begin soon and this place becomes a mud bog. arika is north of the tropic of capricorn so things will be much warmer there.