Life as usual--busy: Day 57

I feel like a new strategy is in order.

WORK: Todo bien. I love the daily translation, or editing of English with a native speaker's eye, that I am given. I am slowly chewing my way through their "Sales Kit"--all the powerpoint presentations and word documents that are on hand to promote Globant or make a sale. I hadn't realized until I started translating stuff for them, but Globant has a really community-service minded approach to corporate business. They have a program to teach the youth (teens-early twenties) of vulnerable neighborhoods about technology and informatics, to give them better employment possibilities and nourish their expressed passion for the techno-world as noted in high school. Currently, the class of the pilot program is half employed by Globant for real, and half in university furthering their studies. Also, it participates in Random Hacks of Kindness--a movement to help with social problems of many varieties through the development of software and coding. On top of that...it's just a freaky cool place to work. :) I adore my lunch hours with colleagues. I like getting to know the office building and things like which microwave runs best, which coffee selection on the vending machine I like the most. I love having a work email, and having a meeting in the office in another city on Thursday. I love it.

CHURCH: La Misión just had a retreat this weekend, out in the province a little ways, in a town called Maximo Paz. What an amazing nook of God's creation! The landscape is laid out flat and open, with trees, tall grasses, and--at night--stars from end to end. So refreshing to spend time outside the city, where stars and grass and quiet are rarities. I hadn't realized how much I missed open spaces.
Anyhow, the reason I was blessed enough to go on this retreat was that I was asked to care for the kids of a couple families. SURE, I told them! It was a wonderful time. All of Saturday was spent with the 6 children, between 1 and 8 ish, and E (one of the youth girls who was my teammate in caretaking). We did facepaints, coloring books, runs to the playground, games on the bridges, played Octopus (like Sharks and Minnows, only I created an octopus dance for laughter enhancement), and generally gaining acceptance into the hearts of these precious children. I will never forget them.
It was also a huge joy to be a part of the community of the church at lunch and at night, when sessions were paused. We went for walks, had conversations, drank mate, played with the kids, and generally enjoyed one another. A lovely, blessed time for all.
Other than that, Sundays at La Misión continue to be most truly fulfilling and worshipful. This past week we sang "I Am Free" by the Newsboys (in Spanish), and I realized anew how true that really is. Free to run, dance, and live for Him. Pastor M gave a whopper awesome sermon about Psalm 23, emphasizing the fact that we shall never want for anything; that our Sheperd is always at our side; that our cup is overflowing. Beautiful truth.

FOOD: Yes. Let's go ahead and make it a category. Hey, it takes up a major portion of my day! Plus I genuinely love it.
Today I had the following: avocado, salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, zucchini), a veggie empanada (basically their version of spanikopita), pasta with red peppers, and strawberry-banana fruit salad I made myself. MM MM MMMM. Fruit and veg. :) Must say, however, that I do have a request in for one of A's homemade asados. We are working to schedule that.

SPEAKING SPANISH: Enchants me. I love seeing improvement in the areas that were hard for me when I first got here. I spent the vast majority of my day communicating in all Spanish. The hard parts at the beginning (perhaps you remember a weekend post distressed at not understanding any conversation one Sunday) were group conversations. So hard to pick out without context or vocabulary. I am steadily improving! Spanish is a gorgeous language, and I am enthralled.

SOCIAL LIFE: The church is such a blessing! It provides more opportunities for spending time with people than anything else has. And they're fantastic people.
There's my Sundays group, with which I go skating. We went this weekend--although the group was diminished due to exhaustion from the retreat and such. We still had cookies and mate and roller bladed. There's M and Sonidos de Esperanza, where I get to spend time with niños and pervasively share the love God's given me. There's the Bible study, where I am learning to really take ownership of the dynamic relationship with God I have access to. There's V and her boys, with whom I hang out rather regularly, for some reason or another; I really get a kick out of them. Then there's my guitar teacher, C, with whom I practice/have lessons Friday afternoons at 7.
Apart from church friends, I find other ways to spend my time. Lunch hours with work mates, meeting random folks on the subway for a conversation (like the Canadian couple I met today, taking a 5-month "break from corporate life" after quitting their jobs, to explore Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina. Yeah. I wanna be them!).
There's the gym, the guitar, the devos, the Facebook... yes, I am not wanting for ways to fill time. And in there somewhere is just enough sleep to get by.


I am well-contented, learning much, and loving all around me.