Whew! I hope I have enough fuel in the tank to finish this week. But what a blast it’s been!

I couldn’t post an update yesterday because the Internet was down in the hotel again. Maybe they just turn it off at 0100hrs. I wouldn’t know because I don’t usually get back until 0130 or so. I had every intention of posting this after I finished teaching my plenary session this morning. I got to the speaker’s “green room,” opened my computer and the lights went out. I was able to come back to the hotel for just this brief time before returning for tonight’s activities and fortunately the Internet is now working.

Tuesday night’s speaker was Guatemalan Junior Zapata, one of the leading youth speakers in Latin America, a man I first met years ago when he was finishing High School and I was the speaker at a youth camp in Guatemala. Our students really loved what he had to say and begged me to ask him to come to The Summit in 2011. I wrote about our reconnecting after many years in this post from April of 2008 if you’d like to know a bit more about Junior.

Last night was Night Without Borders at CIMA 2010. Pastor Yun was the speaker. If you have not read the book about his life called The Heavenly Man, you need to get it. It will stretch you and probably make you uncomfortable, but you won’t be bored. Yun is one of the principle leaders of the house church movement in China. Forced to leave due to harsh persecution, he now lives with his wife and son in Germany. His son Isaac, who speaks German, is often his interpreter. Last night a Chinese pastor who lives in Argentina interpreted into Spanish.

You would all be proud of our group of students from KCBT. They have been stretched to the limit but they have responded splendidly. They have all been serving in areas like cleaning restrooms, trash duty and other menial chores that are not much fun under normal conditions much less in a foreign culture with temperatures in the upper 90’s. Just this morning one of the staff leaders stopped me to comment on how pleased he was with this group and what a delight it is to be around them. We have had some great times.

I’ve told you that you could go to http://www.cima2010.com and click CIMA TV to watch the evening events via live streaming. I just found out yesterday that my morning sessions are also being streamed live! I found this out because a Salvadoran friend who lives in Calcutta, India posted on Face Book that she saw the last part of my teaching yesterday morning. I have one more session tomorrow (Thursday) if you would like to join us at 0730hrs Kansas City time. You can click the British flag to translate the site into English, Browse around and you can even see a few pictures already posted. Most are from three years ago. I’ll post some pictures on Face Book when I get home and there will be videos up on YouTube before long.

God is doing some fabulous things in young lives here. The atmosphere is electric. Thanks for your prayerful support. And, thanks to you who gave to some of these students to help them make this trip. I have no doubt it will be life-changing.

What a time this has been! Just the sight of 2200 students from all over South America is electrifying as they worship God and learn about what is going on in the world and the place that God has for them. I couldn’t do an update last night because the Internet in my hotel was down.  It was 0130 before I got to the room and I wasn’t about to try to figure it out.

The days have been packed solid and they have been hot, hot, hot! I’ve been getting to the sleep about 0130 to 0230 each night and up no later than 0700. A thunderstorm blew up in this morning and helped to break the oppressive heat a bit. We were all thankful for that. Our team of students are doing great, but it has sure been a stretch for most of them. As true servants they have spent the past couple of days cleaning restrooms and sleeping on the floor body-to-body with 2200 of their new best friends it’s been fun to see hem interact and deal with the normal cultural barriers.

Here are a few random highlights since I last wrote:

• Ryan represented us in the CIMA talent show last night with a very cool rap. In fact, for a few minutes he was the coolest dude around. He did a fabulous job. Tonight, he is going to rap again with the other students on our team with an original CIMA rap he wrote on the Buquebus the other day. He’s a real rock star.
• Speaking of rock stars, I felt like one when I checked into my hotel here. Upon seeing me, the bell captain ran over, called me by name and asked if he could have his picture taken with me. Someone had given him a copy of my Directions book and he mistakenly thought I must be important.
• The night before last I went to dinner at 0030 (Yes, the 30 minutes after midnight. That’s the culture here where restaurants don’t open until 8:30 or 9:00 in the evening) with my Peruvian friend Ruben who has worked with us in video for years. When walked in the door and he asked for a table for two. The hostess looked very confused and said, “you want a table for two?”  When we insisted, she explained the problem. I had on a loose-fitting white shirt and a black bag in my hand.  They had just called for medical doctor for a sick patron and were amazed I got there so quickly. When she saw me with the white shirt and black bag she just knew I was the doctor.
• Yesterday afternoon I was waiting for a friend who was going to share a taxi to the evening event when a man nursing a beer by himself in the hotel lobby bar saw me and called for me to come over. He saw the CIMA bag in my hand and wanted to know what that was. He is a tour guide and had seen advertisements all over the city for CIMA. I gave him a rough idea of what it was, but he wanted to know more. He commented that those he had run into that had the CIMA identifications were different – respectful was the word he used. That led to a conversation about religion, faith, eternal life,  Jesus, God and churches that lasted almost an hour.
• A German mission executive and I have been sharing taxis in the morning. Today, a taxi driver who had taken him two days earlier called for him and we let him take us. My German friend had noticed a Bible on the front seat of his taxi and that started a very interesting conversation about his life. He is extremely thirsty for knowledge of God and the Bible. He has a Master’s degree in neuro-linguistics but is a taxi driver. He studied in Tokyo and married a Japanese woman who some years ago had a relationship with a priest that resulted in her divorce from the taxi driver. Now, as a divorced man, he feels estranged from his Catholic church. (Sadly, I have to say that we sometimes have been guilty of making divorced people feel a bit like lepers. This is not to condone divorce, but simply to say we have to learn to better minister to people in less than ideal circumstances).  My German friend does not speak Spanish and the taxi driver’s English is a bit rough. So, when I hopped into the cab this morning he began pouring his heart out in Spanish. Very interesting and sincere man. I plan to give him a couple of my books tomorrow morning when he comes for us. When we got to the fairgrounds this morning he wouldn’t take our money. He insisted that was his tithe.

My job has been to open the day with everyone in the large hall, students, pastors, leaders, staff, volunteers, etc. I have been teaching from the book of Titus on the process of making disciples. A professional actor from Buenos Aires has been working with me doing some wild improv comedy to illustrate the main point of the message each morning. That’s been interesting to say the least! Following my teaching, everyone breaks into small groups to discuss and apply.  Also today, I taught a workshop for pastors. Remember Melo, the scripture transporter? He is here for a couple of days and it’s been good to see him. He will soon take a group of Latin Americans to transport some of the scriptures we assembled in October.

In past days and on Face Book I have mentioned how you can see the services in live, streaming video each night. Some of you have been able to connect while others have been challenged. I’m sorry that I really can’t give any more specific advice since I can’t see your computer. There services are in Spanish anyway, but I just thought it might be fun to look in on what we are experiencing here. I’ll report back when I can.

OK, it´s 0130 in the morning Argentina time (3 hours ahead of KC) and I am tired. This will be short.
We were expecting 1800 students plus speakers, staff, leaders, etc. The reality is that 2500 students showed up. Yikes! They are struggling to find spots on the floor for everyone to sleep, etc., but they are students. Somehow they will survive. The opening was amazing, filled with energy and anticipation. Wow! It was truly electric.

Some of you were able to watch live streaming video. Tim Mensendiek figured it out, so let him tell you how he did it. Others of you struggled. The web site is http:www.cima2010.com/. They will be broadcasting live each night. You can change the web page to English by clicking the British flag, or you can simply click the CIMA TV logo to take you to the video page. We were about 45 minutes late getting started tonight because of the press of people. It was fantastic! You will also be able to keep up on picture of the event there also. I think that by the morning they should have some things posted. Stay tuned. They are publishing a color newspaper each morning, so I think they will update the web, too.

Our students are still alive. I saw them all tonight and counted them. They came as volunteers not knowing what they would be doing. Most of them are cleaning bathrooms during the day. Seriously! It’s around 100 degrees. Can you imagine! A couple opted out as volunteers because they weren’t feeling on top of it, but I think they will be just fine. They were all sitting together tonight in the service. Poor Emily is running ragged trying to keep up with it all. For lack of a better way to describe it, she is the assistant to the assistant to Thomas Voeglin, the founder. She is a life-saver for them since she is fully bi-lingual. She is also translating the plenary sessions into English for folks with headsets. I’m telling you that they are earning every bit of their two days of fun in Buenos Aires and then some! But, I am proud of them and they will do great.

I have to get up early because I start in the morning. Goodnight!

Waiting for Luggage in Cordoba

Good evening! Our entire team is safe and sound in Cordoba. We even have all our luggage. And that is saying something since a few of our young ladies suffered a strange case of multiplying luggage after a couple of days in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. We did not have to leave the hotel until noon and that meant we could all sleep in a bit. Believe me, we all needed that!

We touched down in Cordoba a little before 4:00pm. Were it not for the range of small mountains to the west of the city, flying into Cordoba looks much like flying into Kansas City. This is a university city and has a reputation for being a center for intellectuals. The 1.3 million inhabitants enjoy a pace of life far more tranquil than Buenos Aires.

As a plenary speaker, a reservation was made for me in a downtown hotel; the rest of the team is staying at the international fairground where the conference will be held. So, the bus that picked us up at the airport headed straight downtown to drop me at the hotel before taking them to their spot on the floor where they will place their sleeping bags. As  the bus pulled away I felt badly that I was headed into an air conditioned hotel and they were going to a hot assembly hall … but I got over it quickly.

Our entire team is serving as volunteers, even though they have no idea yet what it is they are volunteering to do. They will team up with other student volunteers to do the many backstage logistical tasks necessary to facilitate a conference for approximately 2,000 students. Most of the volunteers will be German-speaking youth from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, though they will be others like ours from different places. Tomorrow they will get their assignments and orientation. The first plenary session is tomorrow evening. I am so proud of this group. They are an amazing group of young adults and I know that though they will be exhausted after this week, they will also be forever transformed for having been here.

My part is to teach principles of making disciples based on the first chapter of Titus. I think I am the only speaker who speaks everyday. I go first thing in the morning followed by a break down into small groups to discuss and apply what I will be teaching them. There will be over 8o speakers from around the world. Most of us, though, will be Spanish-speaking. Tomorrow afternoon we will meet and have our orientation.

Unrelated to the above, from various emails we have heard of the horrible destruction and loss of life in Haiti. We have not been able to get the type of coverage you are getting in the United States. Haiti is a near neighbor to the United States and it is quite natural that the interest would be great as is the desire to help. In this part of the world, Haiti is so far away that the coverage is not going to be quite what it may be in the US.

Someone asked if we have a contingency plan to help disasters like this one in Haiti. No, we do not. There have been times when we have had wonderful contact on the ground of disasters such as this, but we currently do not have that level of contact in Haiti. A local church simply cannot do everything. There are, however, many fine Christian missions and other organizations that are already responding and doing a good job. Maybe God would lay it on your heart to participate by giving something through such an organization through your work, school, or one with which you are already familiar.

Our second and last free day was invested by heading down the massive River Platte to Montevideo, Uruguay. The trip takes 3 to 3 and a half hours depending on downstream or upstream in a large, high speed ferry. This is a great way for these students to see another country and another capital for a relatively cheap price. The ferry company offers a day tour that even includes a nice lunch.

Rappin' on the Buquebus

We had a blast! There is nothing more invigorating than to spend time traveling with young adults. We had not traveled far until they had invented a game. On the way home they invented a rap! It was hilarious and fun to see people watching them and trying to sneak photos.

Tomorrow at noon we head to the second airport here in Buenos Aires and our flight to the city of Cordoba. We will get settled tomorrow and then they will receive orientation as volunteers Saturday. The CIMA 2010 conference opens Saturday evening. At last count I heard they were expecting over 1800 young people from the countries of the southern part of South America. This does not count speakers, staff and volunteers. There are over 80 speakers alone!

Me and my "Chinese granddaughter"

Lunch in the Port of Montevideo