Making Light of the Load

Salta la Linda

Salta la Linda!  Beautiful Salta, a city nestled in the Andes Mountains, where we spent two years of ministry and home to our household belongings.  A beautiful morning and a fantastic view of snow covered mountains welcomed us to our next step of the journey.  And what a journey it has been . . . allow me to fast forward 2 1/2 weeks.  

Thankful for some great helpers!

Wow!  We're finally done. Twenty years of life in ministry, sentimental memories, accumulation and junk . . .  gone, sold, thrown away and given away.  The load is so much lighter now, oh, but the MEMORIES!  How can I even begin to express the emotions that we have experienced these past two and half weeks.  We knew this job would be difficult both physically and emotionally, but God has been so good to help lighten the load.  When we first began to unload all the barrels, boxes and trunks, the job looked daunting and I personally just wanted to "crawl" into a corner and cry.  How could we accumulate sooo much in 20 years?!  How do you let go of precious items that bring back so many fond memories?  I have a collection of children's artwork, souvenirs from every important event in the lives of our family and friends, baby blankets, binkies, recipes and photos.

Binkies belonging to Andrew, Aaron and Nathan

  How could we possibly get rid of all this stuff?  So thankful for the use of modern day equipment and communication, we snapped photos of the sentimental things and then threw some of the stuff away or donated it, then we set up a FaceBook event page, again snapping pictures of our more valuable items with our smart phones and loading them onto the page thanks to the use of our neighbor's wi-fi.  We invited our Argentine friends to the event page and we immediately began seeing positive results.  People actually wanted to buy our "stuff."  Then we began separating out those things we deemed garage sale items.  We set a date for the sale, Saturday, July 5th.  Saturday came and so did the people!  At the end of the day, we marveled that a room full of 20 years of accumulation was reduced to a few odds and ends, and even those things sold quickly the following week.  Some of you must have prayed, because the impossible, became possible!  Thank you!  
Yesterday, as we finished our packing and readied ourselves for the next part of this journey, we sold our last item, a portable children's pool (no one wants a pool in the middle of winter!), to a family with whom we became especially close during the process of this sale.  We had to pause and thank God for His goodness to us.  Our hearts are full, we have no regrets.  God is good!

Today's specialty: Cooked Aphid Soup and a case of Ades

Cooked Aphid Soup

With gusto, Toy fixed a soup after arriving home.  Broccoli was the main ingredient.  Delicious of course!  As we ate away, Andrew calmly says, "There are aphids in the soup!" Why, impossible!  This soup is delicious!  As we continued to eat and now observe more closely, we realized that all the little dark flakes that we thought were pepper or some other spice were actually aphids.  Not just some of them but, yes, all of the specks.  The whole aphid family was right there in our bowls of soup.  Protein packed.  But we put it away, aphids and all.   Then we washed the whole meal down with a box of Ades.  Simply delicious!  Kind of reminds me of the missionary joke . . .

Ades Orange Juice

Ades was one of our favorite drinks while we lived here in Argentina.  Unfortunately it has lost status on our list of favorites now that we understand the ingredient list.  It is soy based, orange juice "flavored" (6.56%) and sugar-packed ;(

First Impressions

Smoke Filled Air and Traffic Jam

Reality sat in as we deboarded the plane and walked across the tarmac.  Winter was in the air and our short-sleeved summer wear was just one thing out of many letting us know that we were not in "Kansas" anymore!  Customs was uneventful although we found ourselves to be the last ones checked through.  That's just par for the course for the Mast Family.  It was so good to see the Weinerts waiting for us on the other side of customs.  The guys grabbed a taxi and Nathan and I climbed into the Weinerts car and we quickly headed onto the highway.  

Protest

We hadn't gotten far before the traffic started backing up and smoke filled the air.  Awww, a protest was happening further up the highway as burning tires and people blocked traffic.   Police were all about, fully outfitted with large guns.  "Welcome back to Argentina," I whispered to Nathan.  Eventually we were able to move around the protest and continue on to the Weinerts home, passing 

Cordoba's Famous Arch

Cordoba's famous arch, representing entrance to the city.  After 26 hours of traveling, it was good to have our feet on solid ground and beds to lay our exhausted bodies.  Milanesas and lomitos were on the menu for that day as well, great welcome back foods after a four year absence.

Laura, Toy and Luz

The Weinerts run a residence for university women.  They currently have 8 residents.  Laura, one of our youth from Resistencia lives there, while Luz, another one of our youth from Salta, rents in town.  It was wonderful to catch up with these girls again.  Laura is studying psychology and Luz, English and missions.  We are so proud of these young ladies and their apparent love for the Lord.  We consider it a privilege that God gave us the opportunity to be their youth leaders, mentors and friends while ministering in Argentina for 20 years.  After 2 days in Cordoba, our next stop was Salta, a beautiful city located 500 miles to the north.