Monday I took the day off and went sight seeing of the city. There is a sweet downtown area where it's really popular for locals to hang our and drink mate (a hot tea drink). The streets were filled with quaint shops and restaurants, I really enjoyed wandering around. I can just imagine how the streets must come alive in summer. Being the middle of winter it's a dead season, definitely not tourist season by any stretch of the imagination!! Walking to the end of the pier where only the fishermen hang out was interesting - the American girl wasn't that keen on walking so far, me being the South African was concerned for our safety as 3 foreign girls walking down a semi deserted pier, while the the English girl didn't give it the distance of safety a thought, she was just keen to go for a walk!! 

Tuesday was a family day of lunch at Rainer (the pastor's) home (it was a public holiday in Uruguay). They blessed us so incredibly with an amazing braai (barbecue) of steak and German sausages plus a large selection of delicious salads. Dessert blew us away with not one, not two but three home baked cakes!! Oh my goodness!! Lemon cheesecake (one of my favourite), chocolate cake and vanilla cake. Sjoe. Definitely in need of going on a diet!! Apart from the wonderful food it was so great to spend the day relaxing in their home, enjoying just spending time with them, not just ministering in church meetings. 

Wednesday I discovered that the closest internet was a half an hour walk away at a local gas station, so off I set to go Skype my sister for her birthday. I was super happy when I got to speak to her and her two little boys. Living the way I do it's hard to commit to Skyping my family for their birthdays, I just never know where I'll be!! Speaking to family is always such a gift while I'm away, especially seeing my nephews (they're only 5 and 3 so kinda little), although it does make me homesick. 

In the evening 5 of us headed off down the road to lead a prayer meeting at a Baptist Church which had somehow heard of us and then wanted us to come minister, so they invited us to come to their weekly prayer meeting. There were about 10 middle aged people who you could see faithfully met every week to pray and seek the Lord for their community, but it was a little dry. The beginning was especially hard for me as as soon as I got there i started feeling sick and very tired, I really just wanted to go home and watch movies with the rest of our team, the last thing I felt like doing was leading a prayer meeting on a cold winter's night when I really wasn't feeling in the mood. But I pressed through (and later found out some of my other team members had struggled a bit too) and it was sooooo totally worth it. We shared who we are, why we're there, what we're doing and how God has used us and blessed us throughout our journey. As the evening progressed we could see them getting more and more encouraged, with their hearts opening to the Lord more and more with each testimony we shared with them. We prophesied over each person as well as the church as a whole which I think just blew them away - there's nothing like having a stranger come in and give you an accurate word that there's no way the stranger could've known without God telling them. We were all emotional and on a bit of a spiritual high by the time we'd finished praying and prophesying. In the now common Uruguay hospital way they invited us for tea and cakes after the meeting, which we of course obliged and enjoyed! As was now becoming the norm, we were also given the left over cakes to take back to the rest of the team!!

Another ministry highlight was just two of us going to minister at a home group one evening. This was a great cultural experience for me which I thoroughly enjoyed. Lisa (one of my team members and I) went to Helmut (the German pastor's) and his wife Fanny's house before the meeting to enjoy tea and coffee and pastries with their family. This apparently is a typical Uruguayan thing to do, enjoy mate (the local tea) and pastries after work, before dinner. Afterwards we went to another couple's house for the home group. It was such fun, 4 couples in their 50s and 60s and Lisa and I! The group have been meeting for nearly 20 years so they really are family to each other, also because some of their sons and daughters are all inter-married! Small German Mennonite community indeed :) Again we shared our personal testimonies plus answered their questions about our trip. I also preached (my first time on this trip!) which was a little nerve-wracking (I am actually quite a shy person, especially when we're talking about the responsibility of accurately teaching God's Word) but it was good for me to be challenged and step out in faith in this area. Afterwards we enjoyed some homemade pizza, plus the now expected homemade cake, tonight being a delicious light lemon cheesecake!!

Saturday was a bit of a sad day for me when my washing never came back from the laundromat. Bare in mind that I have a particularly small wardrobe of warm clothes, so when most of them get lost at the laundromat, it's quite a devastating event. To this day I have no idea what happened, somehow only my clothes (out of about 10 of us who sent our laundry to be washed that day) did not come back from the laundromat, but when I went back (3 times!) to the laundromat to find out where they were they were nowhere to be seen. Hmm. Interesting. So now I need to get over the fact that these clothes will never be seen again but will need to be replaced as soon as possible. As we're now staying out of Montevideo in a really small holiday town there are no shops anywhere near me so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get some more clothes, but hopefully soon... In the meantime I'm borrowing clothes from my team members :)