First full day of the camp - woke up at 7.15 in plenty of time for the devotional at 8.30 which was on Galatians - the theme of Christ living in me. Then we had breakfast - which was really nice and consisted of yoghurt, hot bread and tea or coffee. Then we had the study on Johns gospel which was brilliant. In the afternoon we went up to view point where we could see mount Chillan. There were quite a few clouds, but it was brilliant. In the afternoon I went swimming. This evening I moved into the leaders cabin, as there was space there - It's huge and quite different to the others!!

Left Santiago later than had been planned -we arrived at Rucahue at about 3 and then had lunch - salad and pork steak. We attempted to get a room together, but in the end decided it was too much hassle for everyone. The evening worship was excellent, and the sermon was on Philippians 3 - about avoiding Legalism, and that knowing Christ is what is important. I had to move beds as the one I thought I'd found once already taken! In the end I slept on the floor -quite comfy! In the evening there was a session - panoramic vision of the bible, which was really interesting and I managed to follow it!

We now know a little bit more and actually a little bit less about our itinerary. After we arrive in Buenos Aires, we'll meet up with the others and then head to Jorge's friends house. We didn't manage to get on the direct bus from Buenos Aires to Santiago, so we don't have return tickets and are going on the way via Mendoza - so we'll leave Buenos Aires at 18.30 and arrive in Mendoza at 09.00. Then in the afternoon we'd get the 13.30 bus to Santiago. (Well something like that anyway!!) Don't know what time we'll arrive at the church now with this transport! The return journey is down to us - we'll have to sort it out in Santiago at some point!!! For what we're doing when we're there - you're best to look at Laura's Blog , cos she's got a lovely entrywith the programme translated! If you want to follow our route on the map, it may be right, or it may not, but it'll definitely have photos when we get back! Here's a site I found useful for city maps of the various places.

Well we've now got our tickets for the bus to Buenos Aires with a company called flechabus, It took us 4 attempts, but finally we got them - the first time we didn't have passports, the second they were closed and the third they don't take credit cards (unusually as both companies to Montevideo take credit cards!) We've also got the details by e-mail of when and where etc...We leave on Friday 2nd at 23.00 to arrive in Buenos Aires the next morning at 7.00, where we spend the morning and get the bus to Santiago via Mendoza - or it may be 2 buses!! Then we arrive in Santiago sometime on Sunday. We stay the night in La Trinidad church and then early the next morning we take the bus to Complejo Turístico Rucahue near the town of Chillán. Then we'll have lunch, and have the afternoon free before things start at 18.30. Then we're in for a busy week, until Saturday 10th when we head back to Santiago leaving at 13.30. We arrive at Santiago at 19.00 then stay the night again at the church (I think) before heading back to Buenos Aires - where we should arrive on the 14that some point. We're then going to have to spend a day in Buenos Aires before our bus to Salto leaves at 23.00 on the 15th.

I've just added a people we know section onto samespirit so that if I mention someone in my blog, or we mention someone in our updates, you'll be able to see who it is! It will be linked properly from here soon, but for now here you go: on this site or on samespirit

Well we've survived Christmas in Uruguay -actually it was really nice. On Christmas Eve we went to 2 services -one in the barrio and one at the parish, which were both really nice. Although quite exhausting particularly with playing guitar for 2 songs (Cristianos vayamos - to the tune of "Oh Come all Ye faithful" and Nochede Paz - "Silent Night") in each and trying to lead a song when I'd got different words + number of verses to everyone else!! Then we went with Jose and 2 of his grandchildren to his house before going on to the party at their house. The party was nice as it was just us, Jose, Pablo,Carmin and the two children. We watched the children open their presents and then ate party food until it got to midnight. Then we went outside to watch the fireworks which were amazing! Looking over the river to Concordia we could see fireworks going off all across the city. After the fireworks, we went back in for dessert. On Christmas Day we opened our presents and phoned our families first thing in the morning. Then we went to Alba's for Christmas lunch which was: a starter of a sort of swiss roll - but instead of Jam had Olives and Ham (the Uruguayans tend to like combining sweet and savory) followed by chicken with salad and the dessert was lovely - it was strawberry's and pieces of cake in a syrup with some sort of spirits init topped of with cream!

Today I stumbled across Asaphfrom the worship archive forums. It's a program that lets you store songs and chords in a database, with chords and variations on the song. It will show you them, copy them as text and even transpose them!!

While we were in Montevideo, Jorge invited us to go to the provincial youth congress in Chile - a 5 day event for youth leaders. We will be travelling by bus via Buenos Aires and will be a long (The section between Buenos Aires and Santiago is 22 hours) but very scenic journey !The event should be really helpful for us both in language, leadership and spiritually. When we get back, we're going to be starting a youth group here along with a girl who approached Gilberto about one while we were in Montevideo. Tonight Gilberto mentioned the youth group and we told him about the congress and he was really encouraging.

After a nice (but busier than expected) few days in Montevideo, it's nice to be back to Salto. We've got loads of photos from the Synod, some of which will probably be online later on. We managed to meet up with lots of people through the 5 days we were there so it was good. We went to the Noche de los Luces which was a big firework display down by the river.

Well we're off to Montevideo tomorrow for the Synod (A sort of AGM for the diocese as far as I know) It's a 2 day meeting -well 4 on Friday till sometime on Saturday - Hope we get some time to sleep. I probably won't be able to update this till we get back.