Familia!! Chau!

July 6 - we left Barreal, San Juan, headed for the province of Salta waaaaay up north for the preaching campaign we've been waiting for. Normally there's one about once a year in different parts of Argentina. Because there are a lot of places with a LOT of need. So in our group, 18 of us went, but in total from all around the country there were 70 brothers and sisters that came up. We went in 3 cars and it to us 22 hours to drive there and finally arrived in a town AGUARAY. All the brothers were good as so when we arrived there was an apartment waiting for us for the whole 10 days that we were going to be there for. All set for preaching

Packing up my stuff before shot

Half of the group.

And after

                                                             

I think this house was built to have
 parties. I think we had about 3 parties
 in 10 days. Man they love their latino
music

First night with some of the brothers.
Massive hamburger for 2 dollars.

Typical house. 1.5 metre high roof

One of the meetings we had out in the Chane Reservation.
About 6 locals came. 

Brother Gonzalo Martinez. The only
brother that speaks the Chane language

For the first Sunday meeting, we all
met in the town theatre. Had a little
movie prepared for us about the territory.

Morning field group. And this is what it looked like every
single day. At least 60. Tiny hall too

Witnessing in one of the reservations
and found this out the back.

Aguaray is just about on the border
with Bolivia so there's always heaps
of trucks waiting

Half the time it's a mission to find the
front door. Geronimo and Enzo

Played football a couple of times during
the week. Pretty cool group of brothers

 Ok so we spent the first few days preaching in the reservations. The need is SOO huge. There are thousands and thousands in this territory and there is only a congo of 25 or so. They were pretty crazy. Dogs and donkeys everywhere. Saw a few monkeys and one climbed on me right up on to my head. So needed a photo. A couple of other scary things like when we went to one door, the man came out holding a machete semi concealed, holding it white-knuckled and didn't relax until we told him who we were. But apart from those with machetes and dogs it was pretty amazing. Everybody we called on was a doorstep study that lasted 20 minutes. Placing Bible teach books left, right and centre because the territories were only done once every couple of months. So we went back 3 or 4 times during the week on the people that were really interested (pretty much everyone). So we arrived the friday and on wednesday, all 70 of us went to a country town, ACAMBUCO, and it only gets done once every six months. It was a 2 hour drive into the mountains and we spent all day peaching. At about 4 o'clock, 5 of us, one from Aguaray, one from Cordoba, two from Barreal and one Kiwi, were dropped off about 30 k's up a horrible freak road even further into the mountains. We had a big backpack each and we started walking. Our goal was to do the 5 or so little communities that as far as everybody was concerned, had NEVER been preached to before. These people never leave home their whole lives so they were amazed seeing people like us coming to talk to them about something they had never heard before. So that wednesday night we did about 5 houses, leaving bibles and BT books with each one, and then made our way to the little school in the middle of nowhere hopefully finding a place to sleep. We walked in and the principal gretted us and invited us in. with all the 40 girls and boys staring at us the whole time. The cooking lady gave us dinner too which was awesome. We slept in the boys dorm which had the worst smell i've smelt in AGES. i was scared to go to sleep too. Twenty 5 - 14 year old boys all listening to music and making a racket till 3 in the morning. The temperature was pretty much perfect. A few mozzies at night but not too bad. Slept and slept till..... 5 in the morning. We had about 20 k's to walk that day and around forty houses to do.

Wednesday morning, leaving the hall with our packs

The road to Acambuco

Quick stop half way to Acambuco. We saw a few Tucans too.
HUGE and you could see their colourful beaks from far as

It should say Bienvenidos a Paradise

Such a cool place. Theres one road that goes straight through
 the middle of it and its just one huge paddock and the houses
are spread out in any random order. I think all the animals are
community owned because they just roam EVERYWHERE. Horses,
sheep, pigs, ducks, cows, donkeys. Heaps of ant hills too

One of the little local boys showing us his horses.

For real, anywhere you look there was
pigs and ant hills and witnesses

Playing football at lunch time

Me, Adrian, Milton, Miqueas and Jairo. The famous five

They sort of have worried looks.
and so they should. The beginning
of the two day walkathon

Muckin around on one of the carts

Having dinner eating bread and tuna
 in the dark before we realised that
we were gunna get a big meal inside the school

The school and the main road. You can see it if you look close

Description of the photo - SMELL

I wish my school did this sort of thing

'action shot'

In the morning before we got to any houses

This was the first house so we were all happy coz we knew
that we had arrived at the first little town but it turned out that
it was the last house too haha

 So we started at 5 in the morning and walked for a good 3 hours before we got to anything. Just tons of river crossings and trees. We would normally spend about 15 minutes in each house and talk about real basic stuff and show them how to use the BT book with the bible so they could study it themselves. Did about 15 houses before lunchtime and carried on walking in some awesome spots. Always following little foot tracks. With that and the directions that we got from the house before we could find our way to the next house each time. We had one bag FULL of literature. Mainly bibles, bt books and Listen to God brochures.

One of the cool rivers. I reckon we
crossed about 30 during the day

perfect shot of Miqueas falling in for the first time. After that
he was quicker across the rivers than us because he just
walked through the water

Me and Milton preaching. You can see the path that goes to
 the house on the right. Very unused

Lunchtime

So we were following the path and we got to about here and
 we were trying to figure out where it was going to go. Coz it
was just a choice of the cliff or the river

And then we found it.

These houses had no road at all to them.
Mainly by horses. Or in our case, walking

Most of the houses we like this. Grass roof, stables, all open.
there's no real doors and windows. Because the weather is
 so good

Haha one of the posed shots we got.
Just in case it happens to be in the
magazines one day

Only a few we had to take our shoes off.

Walking through the jungle

One person wide

Just as we got to one of the wider rivers,
the was a couple passing on horse and
they gave us a ride across

It's not everyday you cross a muddy river on a horse for
preaching

At a house and they offered us lunch.
Had to get a photo with this parrot too

The house where we had lunch. Talked for a good 30 minutes

Getting towards the end of the day. We were all smashed,
and we tried to make the most of the shade. Cool shot Adrian
took

The ute that takes all the kids home
at the end of the day. We managed to
 get a ride back about 8 k's too. Saved
us heaps of time

Just after we got off the ute. Theres a bit of a story behind
 that green bad there. While we were on the the back, people
chuck bags on that they want to reach the big town. And when
we got off, we ended up with it somehow. So the next day we
went back and got it with the Acambuco police. It was a pretty
big deal haha

There were tons of oranges at every
house

We still had 3 l's to walk

 We finally made it back to Acambuco. We thought that we were going to have to set up a tent and stay a night in the jungle somewhere but there happened to be a ute passing through, so we hitched a ride on the back. AND.. we thought we were going to have to eat the one left over bun that we had for dinner. So we were joking about having a big BBQ back in town and how good it would be. We could not believe it when we asked and they said they were serving bbq. With soup. and dessert. For 6 dollars. Sooo good. Thats what happens when you do 22 hours and place 50 books in 2 days.

Walking back

Another yearbook shot haha

 In Acambuco on Friday, everybody came back to follow through with their studies. And at 3 we had a meeting that was the first one EVER in this town. 16 locals ended up coming which is super good. It was a pretty big event for the town. A couple of days of 70 witnesses storming through their town and talking to everybody and then having a meeting right in 'downtown'.

Setting up the meeting. Because it's all open and this town
 is pig paradise, during the meeting, a pig and its babies
walked right in front of the speaker haha awesome.

No matter how poor people are or
how stink their houses are, they ALL
have a sky dish

The 18 that came from San Juan. Our family worship that we
 had everyday

The last couple of days were filled with
dinners and lunchs. This was the biggest.
 With all 70 there. Right outside our
apartment

Me, Jairo and Geronimo in the Tartagal
Hall

Josias - the brother we hung out with
and all of the parties were at his house

Special pioneer brother that's a part of the
translation team for the Wichi language.
 Based in Tartagal

Tartagal, Salta, Argentina Salon del Rieno.
About 25 minutes south of Aguaray

Adrian, Geronimo, Miqueas, Jairo. On the last day

 Thats the end of my Argentina journey. What a cool time it was especially up here in the north. I think it will be the best part of my trip. What can top preaching in places like this? In the jungle, never preached to before, first time meetings. I can see why witnesses move to where there's need. Once you've seen it, you have to go back. Oh NO!! what does that mean for me?!? haha chau. Bolivia next

On the bridge between Argentina and Bolivia

Saying goodbye just before I left
on the (dodgy as) bus. Sucre, Bolivia,
 here I come!