Springtime in Santiago!

Springtime has finally come to Santiago! It's hard to believe we are already almost halfway through the semester - time has been flying by!

Last weekend (Aug. 31 - Sept. 2), we took around 50 students to a retreat center about an hour south of Santiago, called Pintué. It was a gorgeous location, complete with a lake, soccer fields, and a volleyball court. We had a great time at our first retreat of the semester, and the theme for the weekend was "grace." Lukas, Mosby, Whitney, Elisabeth and I gave the talks for the weekend, and several team members were able to have great conversations with students throughout the weekend about the idea of God's grace. One of our exchange students told me about a Chilean student who had come up to her before the weekend started, asking her to explain the idea of grace. The amazing thing was that the student didn't even know yet that grace was the theme for the weekend! God was really working in the hearts of our students this weekend, and it was so encouraging to see.

Another thing that was really encouraging recently was that two weeks ago, we had 87 people at our Thursday night Tertulia! We filled the upstairs room in the campus house, and had a great time worshipping God together. Sadly, we just said goodbye to one of our Chilean interns, "Frizz", who is going to Puebla, Mexico for the school year to work with the campus ministry there, El Pozo. We are definitely sad to see him go, as he was a huge help to our ministry and a great friend... but we are so excited to see how God will use his talents and abilities to reach the students in Mexico!

For our Thursday night Bible studies, we usually do cycles of 4 weeks with a common theme, followed by a night that we call "Breakout." This is basically a pause between cycles, and a chance to talk about something completely different. For our breakout night last Thursday, we focused on kids around the world, and our responsibility to do what we can to help them and show them Jesus. We are really excited about the 2 projects we have decided to focus on... the first is volunteering at a children's home here in Santiago, and the second is sponsoring a child in Peru through Compassion International. The recent earthquake in Peru has been in our prayers a lot lately, and we wanted to sponsor a child who had been affected by this disaster. Last week we had our students sign up to make a monthly pledge toward our Compassion child, and we have almost reached our monthly goal already!

And last, but not least.... next week is VERY exciting. In fact, I've been told it's the most exciting week of the year to be in Chile. September 18 is Chile's Independence Day, and basically the entire week is a week of fiestas! I've been seeing signs around the city about a week-long festival, complete with traditional Chilean food and dancing. So on Thursday (Sept. 20), we will be having an asado (cookout) at El Oasis to celebrate. We have a lot of exciting activities coming up, so please keep El Oasis in your prayers as we head into the second half of the semester!