Sunday (24th June) was our last church service at the German Mennonite Church. Six of us went to say farewell. When it was time for us to stand in front of the congregation to say goodbye (they wanted to thank us for everything we had poured into them but as ever, it was us who were more blessed from them), my good friend Liz gave a most wonderful thank you, shared straight from her heart. All six of us were crying, plus the paster who was trying to translate for us! Even people in the congregation were reaching for their tissues and handkerchiefs while we saying thank you and goodbye...
Just one of the wonderful things they did for us was take up a very generous financial offering which covered our mechanic bills. We had no idea how we would pay for our cars to get fixed as we certainly didn't have nearly enough money to pay for it, but we payed what we could and trusted God for the rest. Unbeknown to us the church took up an offering for us and it pretty much was exactly what we needed to settle our mechanic's bill. Praise God for providing exactly what we needed when we needed it. What's more is that they don't usually take up offerings, in fact this was I believe probably the first time they'd done anything like that.
As if that wasn't enough, they have blessed us by offering us their beach retreat house for free for us to rest for a few days before we head to Brazil. Again, I don't believe they've ever offered this house for free to any other group of people, and we're now up to 26 people in our team so we're not a small group! So Sunday after church we headed to the beach house which is in the small holiday resort town of Cuchilla Alto (translates as something like a high hill). Again we were completely surprised and blessed by the youth coming up that Sunday evening to braai for us and just hang out with us. It was amazing!! I have really loved being with this community, possibly more than any other church I've been with on this journey, they are such wonderful, Godly, practical, loving, fun people. I am missing them already.
The last few days have been complete relaxing days, long walks on the beautiful beach, log fires to keep us warm (it's cold!!), good home cooking and sleeping late. Plus, most important of all, lots of quality time being spent with the Lord to refresh and recharge before heading off to Brazil this weekend. Half of our team will be heading to Porto Alegre in Brazil on Friday to start ministering at a church there, the other half will be staying in Uruguay until all the visa issues are settled. Quite a few people are still waiting for their Brazilian visas, which is taking longer as the Brazilian Embassy is striking, plus one girl lost her passport so she's having to get a new passport before she gets a visa, which is proving complicated and stressful, as to be expected when dealing with Embassies I guess. So we're not really sure when they'll be joining us, I don't need a visa so I'll be heading out on Friday. I'm not looking forward to leaving this beautiful beach location plus the rest of our team, but I am excited about the next stage of the journey which will be in Brazil, a country we have all looked forward to going to since the beginning of the trip. We have a lot of connections there plus many people on the team feel that they will be having a future in this nation so it's an exciting time indeed.
Last car news to report back on is that the car which broke down in Peru in February has now finally been fixed and sold, praise the Lord. Thank you to those who have babysat the car for the last four months, we are very happy to have them back with our team finally. Plus it's great to have that car off our hands, it was such a hassle for such a long time!! Of course fitting 26 people into 4 cars for the next leg of our journey as we drive into Brazil will be interesting...
Some photos from a day out to some neighbouring towns:
Some photos from a day out to some neighbouring towns:
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