Travel clinic and church

Word of the day: BOLSA = purse. Okay, that fulfills my quota of word-of-the-day.
I went to travel clinic today, and it's basically about 40 minutes of sitting down with someone from Student Health asking where you plan on traveling during your time abroad. I told her I'd be in Argentina as well, and she printed out all the health precautions and vaccinations I needed for Argentina and Chile. The nurse asked me if I really wanted to get another shot again since it had been 9 years since my last one and I need it once the 10-year mark hits. I told her I'd rather be on the safe side, which is the answer she was looking for, ha. Basically...medication costs a lot. :( I had to buy Cipro (for traveler's diarrhea) for ~$9 and typhoid medication for ~$40. And the typhoid medication is really particular because I need to take it 10 days before traveling, and I need to keep it refrigerated at all times...which means I need to bring an ice pack on the plane for a ~16 hour plane ride. Golly!! I still need to get other shots and stuff, so that's even more money. Thank God financial aid is coming in by next week!

As for iglesias en Chile...I definitely am settling down at Luz al Mundo. Nancy, a former EAP Chile student who goes to UCLA GOC called me today and told me about various churches she has been to. There's one that's pretty popular, but she tells me it was kind of big, while Luz al Mundo had a congregation size of 70-100. That's even more intimate that Lighthouse! I will probably be in the Singles ministry because the college + youth ministry is mainly aimed at college students teaching the high schoolers. Here are some points I remember from our phone conversation:

1. Expository teaching to an extent. It's not just picking a topic and choosing a passage in Scripture to support it.
   
2. Emphasis on commitment to the local church.
3. Founded by German missionaries.
4. They had a woman's retreat while Nancy was there. Yay!
   
5. Used to be a part of a very conservative Chilean denomination that LAM didn't want to stick to. I remember a point was contemporary worship music. The denomination only sung hymns or something. Nancy told me at LAM, they basically sing what we sing here, but in Spanish.
6. Don't have an exact stance on charismatic gifts, but they don't practice it at LAM. What was cool that Nancy noted was that even she (from a JMac, Master's Seminary teaching background) and a Assembly of God (charismatic) friend could listen to the sermons at LAM and agree on it. :) Word of God speak!
7. Late services...IN THE AFTERNOON! Jajajajajajaja yesssss!!!!! Chileans like to stay up suuuper late at night, even on Saturdays, up till 2 a.m. When Nancy told the Chilenos that back in LA, she had church at 8:30, they balked at the idea of church service that early. Haha, I guess LBC's move to 9:00 isn't much better either.
   

That's all I remember about the church. But I also asked her the burning question (for me anyway): Was it hard to balance traveling and going to church? Nancy told me in the beginning it was, but she wanted to settle down and be committed to LAM on Sundays. Furthermore, she said staying in one city to get to know the people and the place better is just as much of a cultural experience as traveling to another part of the country. I still have a list of places I must go to while I'm there though...I was gonna save it for a later post, but since it's spring break, why not just do it now? :)

• 
  I've always wanted to to go Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina, especially after seeing the movie Happy Times by Wong Kar Wai, in which the last scene is of a character in the move who visits this lighthouse and the scene is so liberating and beautiful. *Romantic (in the 1800's intellectual sense) sigh* Oh, and this is basically the South Pole-- penguins included! And I can take a picture with a real live Lighthouse and bring it back. Heeeeee.
  


• 
  The Atacama Desert-- the driest desert in the world. There isn't much to look at in terms of scenery, but wouldn't it be cool to tell people, "I've been to the driest desert in the world."?


• 
  This is Iguazu Falls that borders on Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay or Paraguay...I forget. It's just a nice waterfall. So pretty.


• I would also like to explore Buenos Aires more, because with LBC we've only gone to Calle Florida and Tigre and La Boca and Monte...OK, maybe that's a lot, but I want to explore the other things that a missions group wouldn't be able to visit such as the opera house or Evita's grave.
  

But these are all places I would HOPE to go to, not necessarily will happen except for Tierra del Fuego-- that's the top of my list! Funny though...3/4 of them are all in Argentina. I wonder why...