Home!

I thought I would let you all know that I was safely reunited with my family yesterday morning. Everything went well with the flights. I will possibly post something about my last week and a half in Chile but that won't happen tonight.
Kristin

December 7-15

The first part of last week was spent getting ready for the arrival of my grandparents on Thursday the 10th. My cousin Juliana also celebrated her 6th birthday that day. We were able to keep the secret that the grandparents were coming until the kids walked in the house from school and found them sitting on the couch. They were surprised and happy to see them. We are all excited to have them here.

Thursday December 10, 2009

On Thursday Juliana took cupcakes to school.

After we dropped the kids off at school we went to pick up Grandpa and Grandma from the airport.

For lunch we went out to a Chilean restaurant where the waiters presented a fake birthday cake to Juliana and sang happy birthday to her.

Friday December 11, 2009- Sunday December 13, 2009

On Friday we literally "packed" the car and headed to Algarrobo for a mini weekend vacation at the beach. Algarrobo is a city on the coast about an hour and a half away.

Some friends of my aunt and uncle's loaned us their apartment in Algarrobo. This was our view from the balcony of the apartment.

We enjoyed a weekend together with fun and fellowship.

On Saturday we went up the coast from Algarrobo to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar to go sightseeing. We got to eat lunch at a seaside restaurant where we could faintly see sea lions on a rock in the distance. In the afternoon we went to a beach to play in the waves.

A landscape clock in Viña del Mar.

sightseeing in Valparaiso.

These interesting rock towers were outside of the restaurant where we ate lunch.

Tuesday December 15, 2009

On Tuesday we went to Juliana and Jonathan's school program for the end of the school year. Jonathan was the King of the Jungle.

Juliana's class danced and did a little thing about opposites and spelling.

Until Later! Hasta Luego!

-Kristin

Graduation #2 for 2009

Graduation!

On Friday I finished my last week of Spanish class!

Diego who is the academics director and was my professor for 5 weeks awarded me with my "diploma." Over the course of 9 weeks I had three different professors and a few different classmates. I met people from Germany, Brazil, France, England, the United States, and of course Chile.

There were 4 other students that graduated on Friday. They had a going away lunch for us.

Joint Church Service!

On Friday night we went to a church gathering for all the Free Methodist Churches in Santiago. Joakim who is a man that goes to our church (Casa Grande) and a lady from another church did a special music.

Sunday Afternoon Outing!

On Sunday we went to a Chilean arts and crafts place called Los Dominicos. It is a good tourist attraction for those people wanting to buy handmade souvenirs. There they had a couple of cages with different birds. We thought that peacocks and iguanas were an interesting combination.

After going to Los Dominicos we found a nice park were we could monkey around.

My grandparents will be arriving on Thursday morning for three weeks. Neither of the kids know that they are coming and it is amazing because we have slipped plenty of time.

Thank you all for your prayers!

Kristin

We Gather Together To Share The Lord's Blessings

We had a good Thanksgiving with all the traditional Thanksgiving food. Two traditional Thanksgiving food items that you can not get down here are sweet potatoes and cranberries so I brought canned sweet potatoes with me so that we could have sweet potato cassarole and someone else that came from the States brought canned cranberry relish. We had 13 people for Thanksgiving dinner: Daisy, Daviana and Luis Fernando (Lucho is in Colombia right now so he wasn't able to come), Kay and Leo and their baby Sofia (Kay and Leo are missionaries here. Kay is from the States and Leo is from Chile), Marta and Soledad, and then the five of us. (The picture was taken before Marta and Soledad got there.)

holding baby Sofia

-Merry Christmas-

When I got home from school the day after Thanksgiving the Christmas tree was already up. They put the ornaments on after I got home. One of my favorite traditions about Christmas is sitting around in the living room looking at the Christmas tree with the living room lights off and the Christmas tree lights on. I also like looking at all the ornaments and remembering stories. There is one ornament that Kathlyn made when she was little, it is a wreath made out of felt with little pom-pom berries on it. It only has a couple of pom-poms left because when we were in the car after church the day that Kathlyn made it she stuck one of the pom-poms up her nose. She wasn't a very good nose blower at that time so it took a little bit of work to get it out but it definitely made for good memories. I love you Kathlyn ;)

-Alpha and Church (November 28, 2009)-

Joaquin led the singing for the church service last night. Lucho usually leads the songs but since he is in Colombia right now we have had to manage without him.




The kids doing a fish puzzle during children's church.

-Juliana's Class Party-

Today Juliana had a school class party at a house on the outskirts of Santiago. She wasn't able to swim because she broke her collar bone again but they did a lot of playing in the water.

All the water activity really wore them out.

This week will be my last week of spanish classes. When I finish I will have completed 9 weeks of classes. I have learned a lot but I still have a long way to go.

Thank you all again for your prayers!

Kristin

Spanish Grammar

The graduation lunch for some of my schoolmates.

I now have three classmates and two of them are ladies so I am no longer the only student or the only girl in my class. I also have a new professor for this semester. I have decided that I now know more about Spanish grammar than I do about English grammar ( In the reasoning of why you say or write things the way you do).

This week I didn't do a whole lot besides school. On Friday I did go to the Central Market with a couple of my classmates. It is a fish market and was very interesting to see. There were a lot of fish and other sea creatures like octopus, crabs, and the only edible barnacle in the world (I think). We also walked through a meat shop and a market that had fruits and vegetables.

We had 3 people at alpha yesterday. One of the guys asked a lot of good questions about God. Please continue to pray that we would have the words to say and that God would work in their hearts.

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I met a girl at Jonathan's class party. Well I invited her to alpha and she seemed interested but was not able to come this week.

L-R: Marta, Beth, Rolando, Fernando, and Me.

The discussion time after church last night.

Javier (the man on the left of the picture above) celebrated his 75th birthday today. We went over this afternoon and took him a cake and visited for a while. I have now been in two authentic Chilean homes.

Javier and his wife Gladys.

That about sums up last week. I will keep you posted.

-Kristin

This week I finished my second three week session of spanish classes. Two down one more to go!!


On Tuesday I went on a tour with some of my classmates. We were planning on Going to The Museum of Bella Arte but when we got there this is what we found:

"Museum on strike"

So instead of going there we went around back to the museum of modern art. After we walked through the museum we went to an icecream shop. It was very good. I had manjar chocolate. Manjar is kind of like carmel apple dip.
We walked to the museum from our school so here are some of the pictures of things that we saw on the way.

From Left to right: one of my schoolmates from Brazil; Me; and Alejandra, the head of the school.

Carebineros (policemen) on horseback.


On Wednesday my aunt Beth and I went out to lunch with two girls that we met at alpha and one of their friends. The girls are studying at a university here in Santiago to become english teachers. We had a good time together. During lunch my aunt made the rule that I was only allowed to speak spanish and they were only allowed to speak english. It didn't always work but we did do it some.

From Left to Right: Soledad, Me, Marta, and Yvi.

On Friday the three girls that we had lunch with came to our house to make sweets and watch a movie. They taught us how to make a Chilean candy and Beth made chocolate chip coookie bars. We enjoyed each others company and they liked the movie (Love Comes Softly) so we will probably be doing something like that again so we can watch the rest of the series.

Jonathan helping Yvi and Soledad chop nuts.

Marta and I crushing cookies.

Couch potatoes.

We had three people come to alpha on Saturday. One of them was a new person. He lives near Casa Grande. Lucho had befriended him and at first the guy would let Lucho into his house but told him that he did not want Lucho talking about religion. Then one day he told Lucho that he wanted to come to alpha. That is a good first step. The subject of this weeks alpha was "Why Jesus Died." Pray that God would work in his heart and give us the words to say.

That is about all for my week. Thank you all for your prayers!!

- Kristin

San Cristobal

This week was full of school, sightseeing, church, and Jonathan's school class party.


On Friday I completed my 5th week of spanish classes. I am now over halfway. I have 4 more weeks left to complete 3 sessions of study.



The people in the picture are either schoolmates or employees of the school, Escuela Frontera.






On Friday afternoon we went to cerro San Cristobal. It is a little touristic mountain with little parks. We had a good afternoon walking around the parks on the mountain.

Have you ever seen two people trying to drink out of a water fountain at the same time? It is very entertaining!

Walking on stepping stones in the Japanese garden.

Juliana and I at the duck pond at San Cristobal.

We have started our Alpha english courses. Alpha is an introductory to Christianity course. We have it on Saturday afternoons at 4 o'clock. This was our second week. The first week we had 3 people come and this week we had 5. I am playing the guitar for the worship time and also leading a group discussion.

On Sunday my cousin Jonathan had a school class party at a farm in the mountains. We had a cookout and enjoyed the beautiful sunny day. From where we were on the mountain you could almost see all of Santiago.

helping prepare the kabobs for the cookout. The other people in the picture with me are family of one of Jonathan's classmates.

One of Jonathan's classmate's sister, Juliana, and I enjoying the beautiful weather (and waiting for the guy that was going to give us a tour).

Prayer Requests:

1. That I would focus my eyes on God and see his will for me while I am here

2. That I would follow God's will

3. (I am going to lunch on Thursday with two girls from our alpha course) That I would be a light to them.

4. That I would be a good witness at my school

Praises:

1. Someone that works at my school came to church this week.

2. I have made it over halfway in my spanish courses.

Thank you all for your prayers,

Kristin