Dylan in the mountains, Cheri with poop

Dylan writes-

The weather has finally gotten better, during the last week it was pretty nasty here. Everyone says this is an unusually cold and rainy summer. So this last week we’ve been at home more than usual. I did take that as an opportunity to get some book work done however. With the help of our Swiss/American friends who speak really good Spanish we translated one of the Solid Rock Climbers for Christ climber tracts into Spanish. Then worked on getting them printed while also dealing with renting a car to go to Chile next week. Nothing ever works out as planned and takes much longer than you’d think so these two objectives ate up a lot of time. Our friend Jesse Boyd who we’ve partnered with in the past on mission trips is coming down for 2 ½ weeks to work with us in the gospel. Our first goal is to go to Cochamo Valley across the mountains in Chile where there is a huge climbing festival going on. Supposedly Cochamo is like an undiscovered Yosemite, we shall see. Then with the rental car we’ll be driving south a few hours and cross back into Argentina near Esquel. From there north to El Bolson and home to Bariloche. While he’s here we’ll be doing a lot of evangelism, we’re super excited! Speaking of evangelism, yesterday I hiked up to Refugio Frey because I heard there was a climbing tournament or something going on and figured it’d be a good spot to share with climbers more. Sure enough the place was packed with people and I was able to give out 30+ climber tracts and have two really amazing conversations. The first came about after I had given out most of the tracts and was thinking of going home. But then I sensed God wanted me to go up the hill a bit and share some with the people near their tents, an area I hadn’t gone yet which was out of the way. So the first tent I get to has three Israeli climbers making tea and they invite me to have some. You probably know where this is going if you’ve been reading my previous updates. What followed was perhaps the most in depth conversation I’ve ever had with an Israeli. I loved it! We talked for over an hour about God, specifically Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. All the studying and learning I’ve done the last few months really paid off as I was able to answer their questions about who He is and why he is the true Messiah. I even pulled out a Hebrew/Spanish New Testament and had them reading verses in Hebrew showing the fulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament. God truly had lead me to them and given me wisdom and remembrance as I spoke, it was really cool. I could go on and on about it because for some reason it really excites me. Maybe because before we left on this trip a good friend asked me what I was most looking forward to about this 6 months. I said I’m looking forward to the conversation I will have with an Israeli where I can fully explain the Messiah using the bible. So this was a fulfillment of that hope I had. But not just for me, they were truly thankful as well. One of them realized it was Saturday (Shabbat or Sabbath, the day of rest) and said we had done a Mitzvah and it was good. By that he meant they had learned something and done a religious work or deed. I can’t remember any of their names since they were really hard to pronounce, but the one guy who asked the most questions and seemed most interested said this to me; “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever heard about who Jesus is.” I offered him the Hebrew New Testament and he with sincere gratitude accepted it. Pray that God will continue to reveal Himself to those three young Israelis who know have access to His word and that the word of God and testimony of Yeshua written in the New Testament will answer all their questions. So that was really cool. Then like 5 minutes later I was kicking back down in the main area and an American guy named Jason started talking to me. He was telling me about his Bolivian girlfriend and all his problems trying to figure out what to do with his life. I brought up some spiritual topics and he seemed really open to talk about those. By the end of the half hour conversation I had thoroughly shared with him the gospel and he was pretty stoked to get a new copy of a Spanish/English New Testament. Pray that Jason will dig deep into God’s word and be saved. By then it was time to get going so I headed down the trail. On the way I passed out climber tracts to those hiking up, and also ran into 4 more Israelis. To them I boldly proclaimed that I personally knew the God of their fathers through Messiah Jesus. They were a little floored to hear that, and took Hebrew gospel tracts to find out more. All in all it was a powerful day of witnessing and I was amazed to see how God worked in people’s lives.

Cheri adds….
So my past few days have been pretty uneventful as compared to Dylan’s awesome time in the mountains, but I have one little story to share that I can now look back on and laugh, but at the time it was hardly funny.
I took the kids for a long walk and ended up at the park for Ritter to get some play time in and Amelia to take a nap in the stroller. After a few hours it was getting time to head home so we wandered to the bus stop and based on when the last bus passed, the next one would be coming any minute so I held Amelia and collapsed the stroller then sat on the curb. I was careful to point out to Ritter NOT to step in the fresh dog poop close to where he was. Next thing I know I get a wiff of stinky and look down at his shoes. Sure enough, he stepped in it so I decided to try to get it off before the bus arrived. I took off his shoe, dropped it on my leg so now my leg has poop on it, then I try to scrape it off, it drops to the ground, and then Amelia steps in it. How can she step in it when she not even crawling yet it beyond me, but she managed it anyway. Then I hear the bus roaring down the street and I panic. Ritter is half-shoed, Amelia is braced between my knees as I’m sitting down and I realized my bus pass is buried deep in my backpack. Then the scene was about to be even more comical as I attempt to get on the bus carrying Amelia, the bulky stroller, two backpacks and helping Ritter up the steep steps… all the while we are all covered in dog poop! Suddenly the bus stops in front of us and like an angel to my rescue, a young friend of mine Daniella swoops down from the bus, grabs Ritter, comes back for Amelia and I stumble on with stroller and backpacks. It was like a scene from a movie or something. After we settled in, Daniella even had a treatie for Ritter to enjoy and a chocolate Bon O Bon to share with me. So, that's the most excitement I've had in the past few days.......

We'll include some new pics in the next update. We're headed on a roadtrip around the Lakes District of Argentina and Chile with Jesse Boyd later this week for about 7 days, so we'll post again upon our return to Bariloche.