The First Few Days

The picture on the bottom is of Arica from right outside our room in the evening.
The picture on the top is a popular drink in Chile. It is made up of a dried apricot and barley.
They take the dried apricot and put water in it which makes up the juice. Mike and I tried it
but Brian was acted like a scared little girl and wouldn't try it. The best way I can describe the
way it tastes is it tasted like rotten grapes. I have no idea why people like it so much.

We have now been in Chile for a little less than a week. We are absolutely loving it here. The weather is amazing, always warm during the day and cool at night. The people here are a lot of fun. Most of them don't speak very much English but we are learning to communicate. There are some people who speak decent English and they help us translate with those who don't.

So far we have done a couple of small work projects, we sanded off the rust and painted the bars on the windows at the church with anti-rust paint. We also put together a closet for the Bjur's oldest daughter Becky. The work is rather easy but the Bjur's are just glad they don't have to do it. We have also been doing a lot of relational stuff with the youth here. On Friday nights there is a Bible Club with 2 age groups. This last week Brian helped out with the younger group and Mike and I helped out with the older ones. On Saturday's they have their youth meeting. In Chile "youth" means anyone from high school until you get married. So the "youth" here includes some people as old as 25. It was a joy to fellowship with them and we look forward to getting to know them all better. They asked me to do the devotion next week so that should be interesting.

Yesterday was the Lord's Day and it was a joy to worship with God's people in Arica, Chile. They do things a little bit differently here. For instance, the 11 o'clock service is Sunday School and the evening service, which is at 7:30, is more of a typical service. Yesterday in between services we had a fellowship time with the youth and had lunch at the church. We had a blast spending time with all the youth and playing games with them and such.

The picture on the bottom is of Mike and Brian working hard, putting together the Closet.

The picture on the top is of the Bjur's living room. On the left is the Bjur's youngest two children, Josh and Debbie. They also have another son, Jeremy.

It is hard to get time to blog on here often but I will do my best to keep everyone informed. As always we appreciate everyones prayers. So far we are doing very well and none of us have gotten sick at all, praise the Lord! We trust everyone is doing well back home and we miss you all!