JULY 2011

JM IN BA
Los Valles Calchaques
The month of July was essentially filled with one thing, The Calchaques Valleys Project. As mentioned in my previous newsletter, El Proyecto Valles Calchaques is a missions trip that Vida Estudiantil puts on every winter in the north of Argentina. Many people are split up into small teams and dispersed among the province of Salta to different communities to bring donations, food, and the Gospel. It lasts for three weeks in total, but you have the option to go one, two, or all three. I had the privilege and challenge to go all three. To begin this adventure we STINTers left a few days early to go to the Vida headquarters in Santa Fe, where the donations were being brought to be sorted. We, along with about 20 other Argentines, helped unload, sort, and reload literally two 18-wheeler trailers of food and clothing. On the 8th of July we began the journey from Santa Fe to a town called Cafayate, a trip originally scheduled to be about 15 Hours. By the grace of God, forty hours later, after several broken fan belts and two wheels literally falling off in the middle of the night, we arrived in Cafayate...only 25 hours late. (This trip has way too many details to put in a prayer letter, by the way.) Everyone stayed the night in the church there and distributed to their respective communities around six the next morning. I remained in Cafayate for that week.

My Contact Info:
Email: jmskinner87@gmail.com Maling Address: Rio De Janeiro 840, Dept. 4A Capital Federal 1405 Buenos Aires, Argentina Blog: http:// johnmarkonstint.blogspot.com

Support Reminder
First off, Id like to thank each of you who are reading this for supporting me the past 11 months. I also want to remind all of my monthly supporters that use an electronic funds transfer to begin to cancel your funds in accordance to when you began. For example if you began your support in June of 2010, you should cancel in this month (August) because your fourteen month commitment period has been fulfilled, and so on and so forth. If you would like to keep giving to CCC I know of several people who are in need of support. If this interests you, please contact me via email! Thanks again for you faithfulness.

Cafayate
Cafayate, although a fairly touristy town, has many very poor pueblos around it which we visited while we were there. Although we had a bit of a late start, the Lord really blessed our efforts. The first two doors we knocked on were the hospital and municipal building, and each of them gave us opportunities to get involved. The hospital needed volunteers to help with pretty much everything, and the municipal building gave us permission to show the Jesus film whenever we wanted. Also throughout the week we distributed donations, made house visits, and held events for the kids and mothers. I even had the opportunity to promote what we were doing on the local TV station via an interview! We really saw Gods provision for opportunities despite the lack in time we had this week.

Teaching some kids bocce ball with rocks

Homemade pizza we cooked in a brick oven

Luracatao
The second and third week I was stationed the furthest away with a smaller team (5-8 people) in a region called Luracatao. The first week was focused more on holding mass events. We had a dentist on our team so we brought her everyday to a pueblo called Condor, which was about 30 kilometers from anything, where she attended all who came. We also stationed our donations here and gave to the people who were waiting in line according to their familys needs. Other than that we had many activities for children including skits, movies, games, etc. The second week was focused more on house visits to contacts made in previous years that had accepted Christ. These families were so excited to see us and were thirsty for the Word of God. I had the opportunity to go and read the Bible each morning with a man named Honorato. He was about sixty-five, lived with his sister, and read the Bible everyday despite having vision problems and glasses that were not his prescription. It was such a blessing to be able to explain to him in more depth what the Gospel is and means and see his desire to learn more. Despite having electricity for only three hours each day, having no contact with the outside world, and not being able to bathe for 12 straight days, I fell in love with this region. The people of Luracatao are some of the nicest, most humble people I have ever known. Their openness to the gospel, willingness to open their homes to us, and generosity to give even what they do not have amidst severe poverty and harsh living conditions make this place so special.

Above: Honorato, his sister (Rosala), and myself