A Prayer Request...

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to write a little post about a prayer request that I have. I want to start by thanking you for all your prayers for me and my team this summer. It is so encouraging to know that we are supported by a group of believers thousands of miles away! I have one specific request right now that has been laid on my heart. God has blessed me with a new friend here in Buenos Aires, a medicine student named Adrianna who we met through English Club. Taylor, one of the girls on project with me, and I have been able to form a close bond with this girl in just a few days. This past Thursday, we were able to share the Gospel with her and twice this week have been able to meet with her, for like two or three hours at a time, to answer questions that she has and share what God has done in our lives through Christ. She is so close to placing her faith in Christ, it is so exciting. It has been amazing to see God work in her heart through our friendship. She has really been going through some serious struggles lately and was just so vulnerable with us about them, to the point where she started crying in the cafeteria. Just thinking about her honesty and sweet heart makes me want to cry right now! Please pray that God would continue to work in her heart and that the Gospel would just become so real to her and really click. Even more specifically, I pray for protection for her. She told us today that after our conversation on Tuesday, she had dreams about what we talked about and even a nightmare that really genuinely scared her. Im not sure if this is spiritual warfare or not but please pray for protection for Adrianna. Pray that she would not believe lies but see the truth about God and who He is. I praise Him for her genuine seeking of Him and ask that you would pray that He would continually reveal Himself to her. I thank you so much for your prayers!!

To put a face to the name, the lovely Adrianna and me.

Love,


Melicia

A little piece of home...

Hello all!

Hope everyone is doing well! Just a little update on a wonderful blessing that the Lord provided for our team last night. Each Tuesday, the Economicas team has an hour of prayer for the campus. It's a wonderful time where we thank God for what he's done, praise Him, and present our requests for how we'd like to see Him move. So, last night the STINTers on our campus invited our little Economicas team over to their apartment to do prayer there and have dinner! We actually got to open up prayer by using Soularium cards which I thought was really cool since I had never been on the receiving end of Soularium, haha. We each picked a card that described a promise God has made to us and what that promise means to us personally. I got to share about God's promise that He is unchanging and will never leave me nor forsake me. It was a nice reminder of what God has been teaching me throughout my entire walk with Him; although people, even the ones that love me, will sometimes let me down or not be there for me, God always will be there for me and I can depend on Him. He will never change. He is our rock solid foundation! I also got to hear from two women on my project about how God's promise that He loves us and God's promise that He is sovereign has both comforted and convicted them. It was so nice to be in a cozy little apartment out of the cold discussing God's promises to us on a personal level. I felt so loved and just blessed to be sitting in an apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina talking about the faithfulness of the one true God! He is so good. :) Another blessing: dinner! Our lovely hosts, Kurt and Morgan, prepared a feast of salad (it's ridiculous how rare it is to eat vegetables that aren't fried here), cornbread, chili, and brownies for us to eat. And SWEET TEA! Needless to say, I stuffed my face. It was a nice little taste of home for all of us. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, a little bit of practicing Spanish with Deborah the Argentine student leader on Econ, and reflection on what the Lord has done on the Economicas campus and all over Buenos Aires in the past few weeks!

As promised...

Hello all!

Well, here goes a more detailed post. We are now about halfway through summer project! It's crazy how time has flown. It simultaneously feels like we just got here and that we've been here forever. It's so weird. Since there's so much ground to cover, I won't write about everything chronologically but I'll try to hit the high points. :)

Preparing to share at Cuidad Universatario

Our basic schedule is spending five hours a day on campus, starting spiritual conversations with students with the use of Soularium (http://www.campuscrusade.com/catalog/SOULARIUM.html) and a Spanish/English Four Spiritual Laws booklet (a CRU tract that explains the gospel in four points). Also on campus, we participate in English Clubs in which we practice grammar, vocabulary, and conversation with Argentine students. On Wednesdays, we all as a movement, summer project people and nationals, go to a different campus each week and share. We also have training times, socials, outreaches, Bible studies, prayer meetings, and discipleship throughout the week.

Gospel training

Debriefing after a Wed of sharing

 Talking about spiritual things and sharing the Gospel for about 25 hours a week has been EXHAUSTING, in every sense of the word. Physically, emotionally, spiritually.. But the Lord has renewed us in such merciful ways from fun times with our teams to encouraging conversations with Argentines to allowing us to see people accept Christ into their hearts. I have learned so much about relying on the Holy Spirit to work in people's hearts. It has been so tempting to just want to try to convince them logically that the Gospel is true but it has been so freeing to stop relying on myself and just let God work. God has clearly been working the hearts of so many students here. It's insane how many people I've spoken to that are just perfectly placed and ready to hear the Gospel. Many believe in God and desire a relationship with Him but have no idea how that is accomplished. How good is God that he lets us be the ones to tell them?!? Me and some of my various SP partners have a few meetings with Argentines this week to catch up so please pray for that! Some have had the Gospel shared with them, others may hear it for the first time this week.

Friend from English Club being shared with

English Club has been so fun and just a really great way to make and further relationships with Argentines. This past Friday after English Club, we ate lunch with and hung out with people for about five hours. It was so fun! I learned some new words (for example, chamuyero/a which is basically the Argentine equivalent of a flirty creeper). We all shared different aspects of our cultures and lives and it was just so fun. Please pray that God would use these relationships and work through them. That He would give us the courage to be vulnerable and go deeper with these friends and share what He has done in our lives!

We really have been having some rough times on project as well, though. We have definitely been seeing some spiritual warfare go on. Many team members have been struggling with sickness, nightmares, lies, exhaustion, and just a lot of stuff. Please be in prayer against that. :) We know it is happening because God is doing such amazing things here in Buenos Aires! What with morale being low because of that, we all definitely needed a pick me up. We've gotten the chance to do some fun touristy things which has been great! Last weekend we went to a lovely neighborhood named Boca.

Houses at Boca

Doin' the tango!

All the houses and buildings were painted different colors and there were people everywhere outside doing the tango! It was really cool to just walk around and see all the sights. As fun as that was, it was nothing compared to what we got to do yesterday! Our lovely and wonderful directors (after some hard work and financial maneuvering) organized a trip for us to go to an Argentine estancia or what we would call a country home or ranch. While there, we got to ride horses, go on a carriage ride, eat another asado, and watch some cool folk dancing. It was a really nice relaxing day, out of the city, with perfect weather and some fresh air. We also got to meet some chamuyero gauchos (cowboys). What more could you want from a trip??

Anyway, I thank all of you for your prayers and thoughts. I hope that everything is well in the States and I miss you all!


Love,


Melicia

Better late than never...

Hello all!!

Sorry about the huge gap between posts...but we have been crazy busy down here in BA! God has been doing some really exciting things. I'll keep it short because it's been so long since I blogged! I'm not sure of the exact number but at this point, over ten Argentines have given their lives to Christ! Wooo!! It has been such a blessing to see so many people walk from death to life. God is so good to let us be a part of that. I'll post some more details tomorrow but I just wanted to let everyone know that I am indeed still alive and awesome things are happening here!!

Love,

Melicia