Final Week on Campus

We finished up our campus ministry the week of June 20.  All week, we thought we wouldn't be able to work on campus for various reasons like the weather and protests, but it was a good week anyway.

Monday, we were warned that because of the rainy, cold weather, there might not be many students on campus and it was probably better to stay at the hostel to set up meetings with people we had met before.  My team had a prayer meeting at UNAB that morning, so we went out for that, planning to see what it was like on campus and maybe come back if no one was around.  We were able to find plenty of people to talk to, and had some encouraging conversations, especially with one girl at the end of the day.  (Unfortunately, we didn't get her info, so I couldn't try to talk to her again.)

Ronaldo providing our after dinner entertainment

Tuesday, we went to UDP expecting not to have much to do, because we had been told by Ronaldo (our friend at UDP) that they were protesting.  We still went because some of the other protesting schools still had students milling around, so we decided to give it a shot.  It turned out to just be the humanities and social science students who were protesting, so we went to the medical and psychology buildings to talk to people.  This was a little harder than usual, since the students were less open to discussing spiritual things.  We got to meet Ronaldo's girlfriend for the first time, since she had just gotten back from studying in Argentina.  She was really nice, and brought out his playful side, which I didn't realize he had.  That night, we went to dinner at his home, which was a lot of fun.  It was the typical Chilean sandwiches and coffee, but we also had a cake with manjar in the middle that his mother had made us, which was great.

View from Ronaldo's apartment

Derek took a nap after dinner, and we wanted a picture,
 but he woke up before we could try again.

Wednesday was our usual day of English clubs, which went really well, but was sad because those were the last classes at two schools.  I also tried to teach some swing dance moves after the second one, and it didn't go great, mostly because I hadn't taught a swing lesson before, let alone in Spanish.

Walking from UNAB to AIEP for our second English Club of the day

Thursday was the last day at Alberto Hurtado and our last English Club.  We tried to set up meetings with some of our friends there to talk and share the gospel, but all of these were interrupted by another march by the students.  We were waiting for people around lunch time when a bunch of students came back and seemed to bring some pepper spray back with them.  This was even worse than what we felt the week before, making us all tear up and sneeze a lot, but we decided to stay since it was the last time we would be on campus.  During lunch and English Club, we had lots of good talks with our friends.

Friday, we tried to reconnect with people we'd talked to before, but only one of our meetings actually happened.  It was great, though.  We talked a lot to Sebastian (the guy on the right in the picture above), and got to share the gospel with him.  After we finished, he said he wanted to think more about it because no one had ever explained it to him like that before, which was really encouraging.

Friday night, we had a going away party, which was lots of fun, but made me realize how little time was left in Santiago.  It was lots of fun, which traditional Chilean foods and mate, a type of tea they have.  There was also a cuaca contest, which Becky won!

At the end, the Chilean staff gave us all Chilean flags as a parting gift and talked about what we had done while we were here, which was really sad, but nice to remember with everyone.



Saturday, we had a day completely free, which was great.  It started with breakfast made by the guys, which was really sweet of them.

Our Menu

My omelet, which was great