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Wanna stay up-to-date on my life from now until November 2012 as I work with Campus Crusade for Christ in Buenos Aires, Argentina?
...then follow this: http://www.berkeleyinba.blogspot.com/

Dios les bendiga :)

Turning the page...

The whole group at Ekklesia!

The whole group of Clemson students and our professors at the cabin

The Clemson sign we made from the part of a tree tunk to leave in the cabin, with all the others made by other groups who have stayed there. Look at how perfect the holes were for the tiger paw!

Holly, Meghan, and I with our favorite prof--Cande (love her)

In the cabin--I'm so glad Holly goes to Clemson :)

I can't believe I'm really writing my very last blog! When I look back at my first post, it seems like I started this whole journey ages ago! But at the same time, I can't believe it's over because it's flown by so quickly! I'm so excited to see all of you again and catch up soon! I'm gonna miss everyone here SO much though.

So, as of Thursday night, I am completely done with classes and I got all As! Yay! Praise Jesus! Now, I just have to write a 10-page paper in Spanish about my experience here for a 3-hr class credit in Clemson :P

Let's see, what's been going on lately: This past Friday, all the Clemson students and our professors spent the night in a cabin in a nearby town and, there, the students presented their expositions, which is combined with the 10-page paper to make up the grade for the 3-hr class credit. It was SO much fun! We talked, laughed, and cried as we said goodbye. Our teachers have meant so much to our lives here--I'm gonna miss them so much. It was so cool, because in the expositions, our group touched on every type of art: I acted, Kevan wrote and sang a song (hilarious!), Holly wrote and read a story, Anna made a piece of art (out of the bottom half of an old door...incredible), and Jack drew cartoons of the things here he's gonna miss. Plus, Jess and Chip did things with technology: Jess made a website promoting this study abroad program (it's amazing, check it out: http://www.tyiko.com/) and Chip made a video to promote the program as well--he's really good with that kind of stuff. Everyone did such a good job!

For my exposition, I acted like I was waiting for a colectivo (the public bus transportation here) and talking to a person at the bus stop about my experience here. As I searched in my bag for a bus coin, I pulled out things that reminded me of different parts of the trip, talked about them, and what I learned through the experience--all in Spanish! Everyone laughed at my jokes (whew!) and I had a great time with it! Doing forensics (speech and debate) in high school finally paid off! :) We had a delicious asado and stayed up until 4:30AM (all the professors too!) singing Argentine folklore songs we learned in our culture class and playing bongos and guitars!

Saturday I went to the Paseo de las Artes (the local art fair--incredible stuff) for the last time and picked up the last of my gifts, then headed over to my last Ekklesia--the Bible study I go to with Commission International, a missions organization here. After the Bible study we ordered empanadas (like always) then headed over to an awesome place called "Un Lugar", which means "A Place"--pretty vague, huh? There's absolutely NO sign or anything on the front to show that inside is a bar, so you have to already know it's there--so piola! (aka, cool) We stayed there until 4:30AM (very normal haha), talking, laughing, and making jokes, like we always do! The group is having a goodbye party for Kevan and I Friday, so I'll get to see all of them one last time--man, I'm gonna miss them so much.

Yesterday was sort of a bummer because two nights ago I stayed up ALL night making 50 CDs of a slideshow (with music, pics, and videos) that my friend Meghan and I made (it's 30 minutes long!) to give to everyone in our group, and when I gave them out and people tried them, none of them worked. The two of us spent $30 USD each on everything, so it wasn't a huge loss in money, but it was still so disappointing. We fixed the problem now, and I'm gonna try to get the slideshow to as many people as I can tonight at a birthday party! :) I don't want our time and hard work to go to waste! It's tough though because a lot of the students left last night, so that's why yesterday we all got together and watched it...at least we were able to show it to the group, because we hooked up my laptop for the presentation. Pray we figure out how to get it on facebook, youtube, or a blog so everyone can see it and share it with their families around the world! It's really great! If you want to see it after I get back, let me know!

Well, I guess the only thing left to say is keep praying for me as I wrap up this week with my friends and family and that I'll be a shining light for Christ as we say our goodbyes. This morning I was able to talk about marriage with my sister here who's pregnant and is planning on living with her boyfriend in the apartment that I live in now (it's off to the side of the family's house). I got to give her a pamplet from my US mom that's in Spanish about how living together is not a good idea and why marriage is more than just "a piece of paper". Pray she'll read it and want to talk to me about it later this week. Also, tomorrow night, my church Bible study is having a goodbye party for me and all 3 of my sisters are coming too! We're gonna watch Fireproof (if you haven't seen it, you need to!), which gives a clear presentation of the Gospel. Pray the hearts of my sisters will be open to the truth of the message. I love all of you so much and I really appreciate all of you who have kept up with my blog and have prayed me through this journey in my life. I'll be flying home alone (pray about that!) this Sunday and my flight from Córdoba leaves at 4:30am! Again, I love you all and I'll see you soon! Hasta pronto!

Pics!

All of the Clemson students who are in the Geography class together plus one of our Argentine friends from that class (the one girl who's not dressed up)

Jessica and I at the goodbye party/tango presentation

Our delicious breakfast of bread, jam, coffee, and juice that was delivered to our room each morning at the lodge where we stayed during our trip to the Northwest of Argentina...us girls were pretty stoked about this benefit at the lodge :)

One night at dinner

Chillin at the lodge...such a tough life...

The lodge...SOOO beautiful

Yeah, we took a bus up this high...we got pretty close to the cliffs a few times...pretty scary

At the salt mine (salina)!

In front of one of the many colorful mountains

Two weeks and some change

Hey everyone! Can you believe I'll be home in 2 weeks and a few days?? Crazy!! I can't wait to see everyone and catch up! I seriously cannot believe I've been gone for 5 months...it seems more like 5 weeks! This time has flown by and now it's almost gone. I'm going to miss my friends and family here so much. But it'll be nice to get back to warm weather! :)

Well, recently I've just been busy wrapping up all my classes and getting ready for our before-finals-tests that are this week! I have a presentation tomorrow, an exam Wednesday, another exam Thursday, and two quizzes next Thursday! After that, I'm home free! Well, except for the portfolio I have to make about my trip for a 3-hour class credit at Clemson! It shouldn't be too hard! It's basically an easy A for a 3-hour independent study class! I'm up for that!

The weekend before last, I went to the Saturday night Bible study (amazing, as always) with Commission International (headed up by the Fulfer family), spent time with the international students at a friend's house, and then went downtown with some Argentine friends. There, I met the new exchange students at UBP who are here for only 5 weeks. So little! I'm really glad I came for longer! I know after 5 weeks here, I still had A LOT to learn! It is really strange to hear English being spoken on campus by these new students tho! :) Now our group can't mumble things to each other in English without worrying about anyone around us understanding! Haha, joking, joking...

Nothing really exciting happens during the weeks here so I'll skip to the next weekend :)

This past Saturday we had our long-awaited tango presentation for all of the other exchange students, professors, and Argentine families. My family couldn't come, but most of the other students' families could. The presentation went really well. It was part of a huge goodbye party for us, even though we still had 3 more weeks! We ate locro (not my fav) and empanadas (my fav), sang songs and danced dances that we learned in our Culture class, and some of the students played drums that they made themselves this semester! Everyone in the tango presentation had to wear all black and white, so all the girls had their nice black dresses on and the guys had the "white-dress-shirt/black-slacks" look going on.

Check out the video of us dancing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcV-TPdVMac

After the goodbye party, I went to the Saturday Bible study but it was especially exciting this week because was at a new location--the house the Fulfers are renting as a bi-lingual house for exchange and Argentine students studying in Córdoba! Right now, Leigh and Tim, two college students from the States, are living there and helping the Fulfer's out in their mission efforts for 2 months! When in the States, the Fulfers advertise this opportunity at Christian conferences for college students and they've had several kids come help them out over the 3 years they've been here. Another guy who's come the past two summers, Kevin, will be here in a couple weeks. Both Kevin and Tim go to North Greenville, so we have a lot of friends in common! Leigh is from Texas A&M and really has a heart for missions--she's really sweet :) The house is awesome though! It's huge and really old with so much character! It's one of those places that makes you want to take a lot of artsy photos--at least it did that for me :) After talking with Leigh and Tim for a while, we had Ekklesia, the name for the Bible study, and then we ate an asado until 1am! From there, a group of 9 guys and 4 girls went to Caserrato for some delicious ice cream and we ate there and talked until 3:30am! Only in Argentina can you hang out in an ice cream shop until 4 in the morning with no problems! I know in Greenville, my friends and I are always ticked that Starbucks on Woodruff Rd. kicks everyone out around 10 or 11...that's never a problem here!

Then, yesterday I went to church, heard a great sermon by Pastor Sam, and hung out with Laura, the Fulfers, Tim, and Leigh a little more! When I got home, I got the huge blessing of being able to talk a little about spiritual things with my family because my mom just got back from a Logosophy conference. She mentioned how one of the things she learned was that we need to examine all of our thoughts and actions to see the motive we have behind them. I piped in and said that this idea is in the Bible--as Christians we're commanded to "take every thought captive"! We also talked a little about homosexuality and how God loves the person, but hates the sin. I talked about how it's just like any other sin, but we as humans dismiss these other sins as "not as bad". For example, God looks at a person who gossips all the time the same way. Whether it's a gossiper or a homosexual, we as Christians should love them completely just as God does, however, we should not condone the sin they are living in. Please pray that spiritual topics will come up again in the conversations I have with my family these last two weeks.

A few days ago, I got to talk for a while with one of my sisters about what she believed. She said she believed only through Jesus can we reach God (probably coming from her Catholic influence), but that she believes all religions call the same God different names, and that one thing might be true for one person, but not true for someone else. It seemed to me that she's a little confused. She also said that we can get to heaven by doing good things. I shared Ephesians 2:8-9 with her and told her how I am aware that there are other religions in the world, but that doesn't mean I believe they're other versions of the truth. I told her that the Gospel isn't MY truth, but it's GOD'S truth from His Word. She acted like she'd never heard that before. Please pray that we'll be able to continue this conversation. She was really interested in talking about spirtual things and open to hear what I had to say. Praise God for this!

Also, I just realized I never mentioned the trip we made at the beginning of May to the Northwest of Argentina! We had a blast! It was organized by Alejandro, the director of the Clemson-Córdoba program here, so technically it was for the Clemson students, but to make it cheap enough for us to stay 3 days instead of 2, he invited all the other exchange students to come too! To sum it up, we saw a bunch of breathtaking mountains, visited the third largest salt mine in the world (CRAZY!), stayed in a beautiful lodge, and sang 24/7 in the bus all the Argentine folklore songs we learned in our culture class, with our professors playing a guitar and drums! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention our professors came too! Alejandro decided to bring them instead of our student tutors, and I'm so glad he did! We really got to know them a lot better as we spent time together outside the classroom.

Thanks for reading! I covet your prayers as I complete exams, quizzes, and presentations this week and next! At least I exempted all of my finals! Chau!

BASP '09!

All the Clemson people on BASP in the Plaza de Mayo, a very historical spot in front of the Casa Rosada! (aka Argentina's White House)

Mariela and I enjoying delicious smoothies and milkshakes!

Hey everyone! I hope this very-late post finds you well and enjoying the nice warm South Carolina summer while I suffer in this 40 degree rainy winter weather! (Haha, look back a few posts and you can see I warned you this was coming!) Well, I've been pretty busy lately with all of my professors piling on the work at the VERY LAST MINUTE (this obviously is a favorite pasttime of professors all around the world) so I haven't been doing much lately except attempting to keep my head above water (or above the pile of projects and papers)! However, this last weekend was a WONDERFUL break from it all when I got to go to Buenos Aires once more and visit the Buenos Aires Summer Project (BASP) '09! There are 7 people in BA from Clemson this year and 3 in La Plata! I was the only Clemson Tiger in BA last summer and there were none in La Plata, so the number of Tigers in Argentina this year is really exciting for me!

I even had the opportunity to stay with Mariela, an argentine friend I made last summer, and her family for free! God really worked it all out because, since I was staying with her, I just brought her with me to the weekly Crusade meeting and introduced her to all of my friends on project this year! I'm praying God will do some amazing things as the girls on SP this year build a relationship with her! :)

I stayed really busy the whole weekend! While I was with SP, I got to go to the weekly Crusade meeting (which has grown a lot since last year, praise the Lord!), go on a tour of BA with the team, stop by the local Starbucks with some Clemson girlfriends (last year during project they built the first Starbucks in BA, now there's 10! It's gonna be like the US soon with one on every corner!), go to the STINTers' church Sunday night with the team (I'll explain what STINT is in a sec), and even go to the SP bible study led by my Bible study leader in Clemson! She and another staff guy from Clemson are the directors of the BA project. Also, with Mariela, I got to go on a tour of the Pink House (aka Argentina's White House, except the President doesn't live there), go out with some of her friends, have dinner with her family and friends to celebrate her birthday, have a picnic lunch for her birthday on her campus (the Ag campus--where I did ministry last summer), and do some serious shopping! Sometime during the weekend, I got a little sick because I wasn't getting enough sleep, and I'm still battling a cold, so please pray I'll get over it soon!

So, now, the DL on STINT:

STINT team stands for Short Term International team, which basically is one of the levels of leadership that exists in the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International. In each country where there is a Crusade movement, there are national staff (people who are from there, live there, and head up the movement) and then there are STINT teams. Usually, the STINT teams are made up of 3 to 6 recent college graduates from the States who raise their own support and commit 1 to 2 years of there lives to help the Crusade ministry in another country around the world. For example, in BA there are 6 STINTers: All of them are 07 graduates--three from NC State, two from UNC, and one from USC. They basically just help out the national staff run and grow the movement by starting up and maintaining English clubs on different college campuses, going out to the campuses to talk with students about Christ, organize the weekly meetings, do outreaches, etc. The reason I'm telling you all this is because I'm considering this after graduating from Clemson. Nothing is for sure of course, but I've just been immensely blessed with so many spiritual mentors in my life and I feel like giving my life 100% to the mission field for at least a year or two after graduation would be a great way to show my appreciation for those gifts, if God so calls me. Again, no one freak out, haha because this is still something I'm just considering and praying about, but I just wanted to let you all know so you can keep me in your prayers as well.

Well, thanks for reading and I'll see you all in 1 month and 2 days!!

The grand tour of the amazing downtown Cordoba

Family reunion Cordoba-style

Eating italian with friends from church!

Introducing my Argentine family to the amazingness of smores!

The parents relaxing after having lunch at my Argentine family's house in the country

Yes, we visited the local Walmart and McDonalds: Cordoba's own US corner :)

Eating an asado (BBQ) for Sunday lunch with the whole fam

Dad showing off his amazing marshmellow-cooking skills when we made smores haha

Eating at "El Arrabal" with both sets of parents!

Me and dad overlooking downtown Cordoba

At one of the beautiful parks downtown

Eating mom's homemade spaghetti the first night

My sisters and I enjoying smores