Wrapping Things Up.....

As we our finishing our time in Chile I realize how little I've actually posted about our work here. We leave Santiago, where we've lived since mid-September, on June 25th in the evening. It will be so sad to leave all our friends and church family here. We are coming home shortly before we orginally planned to (our tickets were for July 10th) but our doctor recommended trying to go a few weeks earlier for the baby. Mmmmmm 11 hour overnight flight. *sigh*

So a little bit of info on our lives here and a few pictures:

Shortly after we arrived the international school that most of the kids in our youth group attend, Nido de Aguilas, hosted a sort of international food festival called Kermess. Many of the families and communities join together to represent their nation and cook food and decorate a booth. It is a really fun time. Well this year Matt was asked to head up the American booth (because he is such a fantastic cook!!) and he decided, keeping true to his roots, to make a Cajun feast, so we all had jumbalaya (and root beer floats, how American!). It was so much fun. Matt is being recognized here with some of the other booth CEO's.

Here Matt is working with some of the youth group kids and parents during the event. The decorations for the American booth were great. We had a swampy Louisiana-ish atmosphere with plastic gators and Mardi Gras beads.


In this photo we were having a suprise goodbye for a guy who had been involved in helping Matt with the youth group. At the party Matt made coffee drinks for everyone and even had a list of all the coffee, espresso, and other misc caffeinated drinks that could be "ordered". It was fun having lots of the youth and their parents over to our apartment.

Here Matt and the youth band Hope's Hero is playing in front of the church (they are off to the right). A couple months ago we had a church service outside on a Sunday morning. It was a great time of fun and fellowship enjoying a pot-luck with all the families after the service. It was also a time that the band was able to share their progress with the church!! Matt has been working very hard with them for a couple of years, some even began their instruments with his instruction. They have all worked very hard and come a long way and Matt loves playing music with them!
Here's one of Matt playing with the band. I know it's a little sideways but, frankly, I was too lazy to fix it after waiting like 5 MINUTES for it to post to the blog!!! (That's what we get for living in a country that has to have all cement walls because of the earthquakes. Our poor little router gets a little winded trying to spread the internet through our apartment. Some days it positively creeps!)