Godly Edification Across Mountains and Borders -- Angela Helseth

Beautiful countryside, lovely people and some funny, crazy, worthwhile, uplifting experiences in the van made up our first long weekend here in Chile. We arrived in Santiago on Monday July 25th and on Wednesday we left for Argentina. Our plan was to do a program at a school there where one of the Argentinean members works as well as spend time visiting the brethren in Argentina so we were to drive out on Wednesday, stay over halfway in Temuco, Chile then finish our drive out Thursday, do work in the school on Friday and spend the weekend with the Argentinean brethren.  About three hours out of Santiago, we got a call that some of the teachers from the school in Argentina were protesting so the school was closed and thus it was impossible to complete our original plans. We stopped at a Copec, the most common gas station around, and the minister and elder discussed what to do. The decision was made to do our program at a school in Los Sauces, where the elder’s mother-in-law works. So after six to seven hours in the car, we arrived in Temuco where the elder and his wife live. We ladies stayed with a very lovely woman from the local Temuco congregation and got to rest a bit before waking up early to drive an hour and half to Los Sauces where the elementary school was.

As a cultural side note, it is very rare to have central heating in Chile as it tends to be expensive, so many people have wood stoves that they use to heat their homes. This causes a lot of pollution and in Santiago it is actually illegal to burn wood in this way. Thus there is no way to heat one’s home, other than with some sort of floor heater, like you might find at Walmart. Since it is wintertime here in Chile, even though their winters don’t get too cold, we definitely needed to burrow under multiple blankets in order to keep us warm.

Thursday we spent time preparing the activities, driving the hour and half to the school and then spending a couple of hours with the little kids, as you can read about in our blog titled “Energy & Joy” by Mike Wilkins. We then departed early Friday morning from Temuco on our way to Argentina. The countryside was absolutely beautiful with some amazing sights of the Andes Mountains covered in snow. The countryside is surprisingly similar to a drive through the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Many varieties of trees, some types of pine, mountains, open rolling hills and fertile land. We talked and laughed and slept and snacked and finally arrived at the Chilean border. We got out of the vans and piled into the building, passports in hand. Everything was going fine until the worker asked about a piece of paper that looked like a receipt, which one of us Americans had saved in our passport. We had received this receipt-like paper upon entering Chile, but none of us had thought twice about it. The person who had saved it explained they’d saved it just on a whim to include in various other mementos from the trip. The man said it was a necessary piece of paper for each one of us to have before crossing the border and leaving Chile. None of us had realized the paper had any significance, but all of us just happen to have the document except one of us and the man behind the desk was pretty set on not letting us cross the border and leave Chile, saying we had to travel back to Temuco, which was “only” five hours away by this time, in order to get a new paper. To complicate matters more, the man told us we had to pay a certain fee as the result of a new 90 day law for visiting from the United States. So we left that building to find a computer with internet, of which there was only one in at least 100 miles in a nearby general store. We read through the law but there was no spot for in the auto generated list for “US Citizen” so we couldn’t complete the form or pay the supposed fee. Of course we were all a little frazzled, confused and worried, but we prayed and went back in and somehow, when we passed by to the second office, they let us all cross the border without paying the fee and with no other problems. 

After crossing the border we stopped to enjoy the snow, cold temperatures and blowing wind and for a photo-op next to the “Welcome to Chile” sign as we crossed over into Argentina.  We had some worthwhile discussions on the drive about how we feel God is working with us, how we came to the point of baptism and other topics, as well as plenty of laughs and attempts at both Spanish and English jokes that were sometimes successful and sometimes got lost in translation, literally. We made it into Argentina around 7 or 8 that evening and we split up, staying in the homes of two different families from the congregation in Argentina. In the home where we ladies stayed, we had a lovely Friday evening late dinner of empanadas and homemade juice, topped off with pie and a very interesting conversation about a group of new perspective members and the amazing way they found United Church of God and the faithfulness they have held onto for years.

On the Sabbath we were able to spend a lovely day with the brethren in Argentina, getting together with seven or eight Argentinean brethren plus the nine of us who had traveled from Chile. The services were held in a member’s home and we three American ladies had the opportunity to sing special music which was a hymn sung half in Spanish and half in English. After services we spent a most  lovely evening talking and snacking outside near the barbeque grill where some tantalizing smells were wafting from inside and around the kitchen table. We had Spanish lessons, did some dancing, discussed our lives back home, laughed a ton and were able to give and receive the gift of hospitality and friendship amongst God’s family even if we couldn’t all speak the same language. Finally the meat was ready and apparently “Argentineans make the best meat” and I think we were all in agreement with that. Finally we ended the evening around 11:30 pm as we had an early departure time to head back to Temuco the next morning. We girls didn’t do much sleeping, that night or the previous night, being so eager to discuss our experiences and other things and we found out the next day that the guys had done the same. We definitely built some strong relationships from this trip.

Sunday morning we awoke early, said our goodbyes and muchas gracias and departed for the long drive back to Temuco where we would stay before finishing out our trip back to Santiago on Monday. We had no trouble crossing the border this time and were able to use the hours in the van to discuss our plans for the leadership classes we would be teaching near Santiago during our last three days of the trip. We arrived in Temuco and the elder’s wife had prepared a most wonderful supper and we were able to all gather together to share with some of the Temuco brethren. We had all sorts of edifying discussions around how we know God exists, how we know that what we believe is the truth and how we know God is working with us. It was another blessed opportunity to form bonds and brotherly relationships between all of us as members of the family of God. 

Overall our weekend trip to Argentina and Temuco, Chile was a rousing success, and not because we did some activities with some children at a school for a couple of hours, although that was a very fun and wonderful opportunity. Really though, I think it was a huge success in the manner that we got the unique and very valuable opportunity to weave connections and create a strong link between God’s people across three different countries. “Oh, how nice and sweet” you might be thinking. Yet I would take it farther than saying it was just a nice, sweet, fun thing and say that building these bonds amongst God’s people is actually an integral part of doing the Work of God and it’s a key role and responsibility that the Body of Christ has: to form familial relationships and provide encouragement and edification to one another in order to enable each of us to walk worthy of our calling and maintain the path to God’s Kingdom. God is all about building relationships and the bonds we were able to form across cultures, miles, and languages serve to draw the family of God closer and help us all realize that edifying and encouraging one another is a crucial component of our Christian walk. God is indeed building His family and preparing future leaders in His Kingdom and we truly experienced that family amongst our fellow brothers and sisters in Argentina and Chile.