The Journey in Pictures

Here I am in Panama with Cheryl, aslo a leader.

We even got actual cutlery on the flight, like the good old days.

Cheryl is now also one of my housemates since I moved (again) to a different apartment on the base. It's the same place I lived when I first got here and I even get hot water now, very exciting.

Crossing a street in Santiago, the capital city.
The cities we visited in Chile were like a mixture of Europe and Mexico. Cafes, boutiques, big buses, horsedrawn carriages, beautiful architecture and the odd cowboy here and there.

Santiago has an excellent transit system including buses, subways and cable cars.

This is the beach in Vina Del Mar where we had our first evening of evangelism. We played beach volleyball with some locals and tourists and ended up having a lengthy conversation with some English-speaking Jehovah's Witness guys from Poland.
Another night of evangelism at the pier with the youth group.
Vina Del Mar
Cheryl, Anastasia, Em, & Alejandra in Pichilemu. Alejandra lives and serves at the YWAM base in Santiago. She was our translator for our entire time in Chile and she became a great friend.
Worship session with King's Kids in Pichilemu. We helped with this kids camp for our first week at the YWAM base in Pichilemu. They were as fun as they look; we had such a blast with them and their leaders.
Mitch & Juliette Anderson, base directors in Pichilemu and hardcore surfers. Really rad couple.
Lifeguard Simon (black hat)
YWAM Pichilemu has a community swimming program, weight room, and small internet cafe.
Here I am with Evelyn. She's one of the girls I connected with the most.
Friends in Pichilemu: Patricio, Claudia and their daughter.
Secret agents Simon, Alejandra and Steve. On assignment at an undiscolsed subway station.
National surfing competion in Pichilemu. These guys were crazy, doing aerials and other potentially bone crushing maneuvers.
The road to town from the Santiago base. We would catch a bus at the end of this rocky dirt road and ride about 20 minutes to the central bus station where we could hop on a subway to the city centre.

There are so many more pictures I want to show you so I will download some onto my flickr account and you can check them out there at your convenience. I'm not sure when I'll get to it because tomorrow's graduation and then I'll be off to Kingston for a week, but I'll get to it eventually.

Buenas Noches!
Em

Warmer than New York

Hey All,

The team arrived in Jamaica on Thursday night and our ride home from Kingston was thankfully uneventful (aside from the time a big truck came rolling at us from around a sharp corner while we were going up a hill). I was sitting in the front next to our driver and I actually gasped. Incidents like that are typical on the road between MoBay and Kingston but this was the scariest one I've experienced. Our driver didn't flinch, though. He's used to it.

Our last week in Chile was spent helping with swimming lessons, a day camp, and English classes at the YWAM base in Pichilemu. The guys on the team also worked on constructing dorms and classrooms. We had a bit of a last minute drama as one of the students realized his passport was in his backpack that was stolen 2 weeks before we arrived in Pichilemu. The buses back to Santiago were booked until our scheduled departure on Monday night which only gave us a couple of days to get it all sorted out. Then we had trouble communicating with the embassy but finally made contact on the day before we left. Thankfully (after an afteroon at the Canadian embassy and something like $150 later, he got a new passport). I'll save the details for another day.

I have so much more to say about being in Chile and leading the team and being back in Jamaica but I have no idea where to begin. I guess I'm still processing it myself. It's crazy how a person can be transported from one world into another in a matter of hours. I think my brain is just trying to catch up. Not to mention that this is the last week of this DTS, the students graduate and leave on Saturday. It will be hard to say goodbye but I am so thankful to have known them for this season. I am tired and this week is a challenge because I want to rest but there are evaluations to complete and graduation to prepare for but next week I'll be able to chill at my friend Ruth-Ann's in Kingston.

Thanks so much for your prayers!!!

Em =0)

PS. I tried uploading pictures but it didn't work. I'll try again later.