Our team met on Monday afternoon at the Gatwick airport Air Europa check-in desk. It was a really hot day in England, nearly 40 degrees! Some of the team had problems with the transportation because of the heat – but thank God, everyone arrived at the airport safely and we got through the security check smoothly.
Our team of six come from different parts of the world. Sophie and Steph are from Northern Ireland, Ali comes from the south of England, Abby is from the midlands, Kathryn comes from Scotland, and Abel is from mainland China! We are a very diverse team, thank God for putting us together to serve Him in through cross-cultural mission.
We safely arrived in Buenos Aries (BA) on Tuesday morning; our first breakfast was at McDonald’s at the airport! After that, we had a city tour in Buenos Aries. This was a good opportunity to explore BA and Argentine culture. Thanks Latin Link for booking it for us!
On Tuesday evening, we flew from BA to Salta, which is the city our team will work in. After a two-hour flight, we safely arrived. Latin Link members welcomed us and took us to the church, and we received a warm welcome from the church members. Finally, we settled down in the church Cristo El Senor after two long days of travel.
On Wednesday, we had orientation with the Latin Link team and the church pastoral team. They taught us a lot about Argentina’s culture and showed us around the city. Salta is such a beautiful place, we really love the city, culture and people here.
From Thursday to Saturday morning, we started work on the church building project. The church was built by missionaries many years ago. The roof is really old and has been broken a lot, and the garden wall needs to be polished and painted. We’ve started to build a relationship with the builders, even though most of the team members can only speak a little Spanish, and we’ve got a really good atmosphere to work in. Friday was one of the builder’s 62nd birthday, so we made a birthday cake and celebrated during lunchtime.
On Saturday afternoon, we helped out at the kids club in the church. We were all excited to see so many lovely kids. We led the song, game, and Bible story for them, and the kids were really happy to have recently returned to the club after two years of lockdown.
On Sunday, our church brothers and sister came over to cook our lunch, and afterwards, they took us to the north part of Salta. We walked to the hill and saw the amazing city – it was a really nice afternoon. In the evening, we joined our first church service. Our team introduced themselves and contributed a song and testimony. The service went smoothly and everyone felt really encouraged.
Prayer points:
Please pray for our health. Argentina is in winter now so the daytime can be very hot, and the evening really cold. Some team members have a bad cold, eye allergies, tiredness, and back pain.
Please pray for our Spanish. We have two Spanish speakers in the team, however, as Argentina’s Spanish has a different accent and most members don’t speak Spanish, we find it is a little hard to communicate with local people.
Please pray for unity, our team members are from different parts of the UK; we have different backgrounds and behaviours, please pray we can understand each other deeply and cross-culturally.
Thank you!
Argentina Step Team
