held up at gunpoint

someone better check my parents to make sure they didnt have a heart attack after reading this.. but, last night, about 12 hours ago i had a pistol pointing straight at my chest from about 8 feet away. we were leaving from david fulfers apartment and david fulfer and his family were still inside. Me, david buckenmyer,and his girlfriend were standing right out the door ready to get in the car when 2 men appeared all of a sudden, one with a gun.. i couldnt tell what they were saying, but i did hear one thing clear.. "voy a matarte" meaning that he as gonna kill us. first he pointed it at buckenmyer, who was closer to him than me.. when u have a gun pointed at u, u ever know how u are gonna react. i kinda froze and went into a thinking mode.. when he pointed the gun at me i started thinking faster.. how am i gonna solve this situation?? i dont like that he is pointing it at me.. and the thought crossed my mind to be prepared feel something intense and see blood go everywhere. but it never crossed my mind reach into my pocket for my wallet. once again he pointed at buckenmyer and buckenmyer could sense fear in his eyes, so he took a step TOWARDS the guy with the gun.. the guy with the gun stepped back, behind the car... stopped.. and spoke again.. then after a second or 2 they took off running. that was intense. in the car david fulfer prayed for them... i didnt feel like praying for them.. i felt like pounding them... we had a nice dinner though, with 3 non-believers and we built some friendships with them. after dinner, on the way back to fulfers place, julieta, buckenmyers girlfriend, hit a guy with her car.. but not too hard.. he fell and we took him to the hospital.. he was really old but turned out to be all right. i got home at 1 am and tried to sleep but it was hard..
ill add more later
sj

freaky taxi ride

so i took a taxi home the other day... im getting more and more comfortable with taking the public busses, and am learning more about what lines go where... that is good because its a lot cheaper than taxis, although compared to the us, the taxis here arent too bad.. 2 to 3 dollars can get you anywhere. so i handed the guy a 50 peso bill.. and he didnt have change.. so he got out of the taxi and walked to the store on the corner to ask for change.. the only thing is that he left the car in neutral and didnt put on the parking brake on.. so here i am sitting in the back and the car starts rolling forward, just a little bit at first.. i wasnt too concerned.. but then it started picking up steam and i started getting concerned becuase the hill was getting steeper.. i didnt know whether to hop into the front seat or yell at the driver.. i chose to yell at the driver.. he quickly ran over and hopped into the car and stopped it... that was crazy... life in argentina is always crazy!
ok, gotta go.. im speaking to the youth group in a few minutes..
BY THE WAY: DAVID BUCKENMYER AND DAVID FULFER, WITH HIS FAMILY ARE HERE!!! THATS GREAT!

ITS A BEAUTIFUL DAY!

this is gonna be long but it should be worth reading.. i hope...
hilary duff is coming in concert and im pumped to go.. yall know i am an in the closet lizzie mcguire (show starring hilary duff)fan right?.... ok, im just kidding.. about going to the concert, but not about being a lizzie mcguire fan
anyone want to go furniture shopping? why would i ask that??? well, because ive found an apartment and hopefully i will be getting the keys this friday! yay! its on the 7th floor and has a balcony overlooking a park. they have to check some paperwork on me, but i dont forsee any problems. I prayed a lot that God would show me the right apt. and i was having sooooo much trouble deciding.. but things fell into place for this one and im at peace with it. i have to get the lights turned on and the gas turned on and then get furniture.. so me actually moving into it will take a while but at least its mine!! i can officially have visitors now too.. so anyone who wants to... come on down!!!!
im really pumped too about david buckenmyer coming friday and then david fulfer comes saturday. also on saturday i have the opportunity of speaking to the youth group at church!
right now i feel like my writing is in a teenagers style, so i guess they are wearing off on me...
ok, also the coolest thing happened today.... i got to spend time with this guy jorge.. he was saved last summer and is living a tough life.. he has never had a dad, works as a janitor, lives in a very humble house way away from town.. but he came to my house today to hang out for a while.. we talked for a long time about his life and how he wants to quit smoking and all kinds of stuff.. its hard for me to know what to say to him, but i prayed before hand that god would take myself away from me, and i feel thats what he did.. he gave me words of encouragement and the strength to meet with him.. his personality is hard to talk to, and we dont know each other well, but im glad that god has used me. its seems like most of the time when god uses me i have to sacrifice something, whether it be time, money, comfort, whatever... but he longs to use us and i hope he uses me more.
i was thinking back on these last 6 weeks... and in all honesty they have been really difficult.. but at the same time they have been easy.. its kinda like running a marathon.. its insane to run that far, and it is a very hard feat to accomplish... but if you train for it really well, when you are running the marathon you are thinking to yourself.. man this is really hard, but thanks to my training, im able to withstand all the obstacles.... ive felt the same here.. ive gone days feeling alone, days of sickness, days when i wake up and the shower water is cold and i just skip my shower for the day.... but because God has been with me and because of the prayers of faithful friends.... i feel like it hasnt been that hard.. but i feel like it should be a lot harder than it has.. im not sure if that makes sense....
im gonna keep on walking by faith.... join me in influencing the world!

blah blah blah

ok this is my first entry that i dont have anything specific in mind to talk about. lets see.... the weather here has been really good.. 50 at night and about 70 during the day. my spanish classes are going well... we had to write about someone famous so i wrote about martin luther king. the other girl in the class wrote about kurt cobain. its cool that there are only 2 of us in the class. i found a really great apartment that i really wanted but it got rented out before i could get in all the paperwork.. that was a bummer. im thinking of signing up to take a course at the university called the psychology of personal training. it meets only on mondays for a bit in the afternoon so i figured that might be good... im gonna go to the university and check on it this afternoon. last night we went out to eat to celebrate the birthday of damaris. this friday i am going to another birthday party.. vanessa oliva is turning 22. i need to go to malvinas to check in on jorge too.. i need to contact him again and discuss where he is at and if hed like to meet with me regularly or not. sorry to be boring.. im hoping to learn to post videos soon, so be prepared for that. scott

For Will-baby

hope this rocks your world

im in school now

i was going to title my next blog entry "cold". the reason is that the house im staying at is cold. it is some natural phenomenon or something that cant be explained as to why it is so cold but its cold. im always piling up all the blankets at night and its hard to get out of bed. oh well, ill get used to it.
ok, about school. i started classes today at the university. i got on the bus ok early in the morning. i only had to pay ONCE this time. yesterday, i got on the bus.. it was only like my 2nd time on the bus, and u hand the driver these special coins called cospeles. 1 token costs 40 cents. then when u give the driver the token a register prints out a small ticket.... i figured what the heck is the ticket good for.. then all of a sudden a guy wearing offical looking clothes begins to check everyones ticket. i managed to crumple up my ticket and put it somewhere in my backpack. i couldnt find it. he asked me for it and i tried to tell him i didnt have it and then he went away. i thought i was in the clear. then after he finished checking the entire bus he came back to me and asked for it again and it was an embarrasing scene, as i could not find it. some lady behind me said "hey theres ur ticket on the ground" (only she said it in spanish) so i thought i was saved and gave it to him. it turns out that was from some other time or something and it didnt work.. he proceeded to give me a lecture about the ticket so i just pulled out another cospel token and paid again, got my ticket and handed it to him. i was kinda frustrated. anyways, today was the first day i took the bus into town and back. normally i take a taxi which costs about 2 dollars. but now i can save money with the local bus, plus it is more exciting as all kinds of students and people use the bus. oh yeah, in my spanish class there is only 1 other person.. an 18 year old girl from the netherlands who is studying economics here.. i dont see how she came here knowing NO spanish at all.. that is crazy! but now she talks as good as me cuz she has been here 3 months. when i first saw her i thought she was from texas cuz she had on brown boots and jeans and just looked like a typical person from the us.
today there was no homework, but we will have homework in the future.
its good to be on a schedule.
chao
ps will washington my next post is solely for you. if i can ever get this blog to come to life again!

pictures

here are some more pictures.. the first was taken from my roof, looking towards downtown.. the second is a street downtown.. and the rest are with the youth at the superpark.

What a weekend!

yeah it was a great weekend here in Cordoba. Friday night was my birthday.. well, i guess the whole day was my birthday but we celebrated friday night.. i invited about 10 people over for pizza. we ate, hung out and laughed... oh, and had some ice cream cake too. i finally got some good sleep... last week there were 2 days i got bad sleep.. one due to ravaging mosquitos... the other due to a loud radio.
ok, on saturday night i went with the youth group at rincon church to the super park. that is actually what it is called. super park. now it is nothing like 6 flags or the texas state fair midway.. but it was really fun. the kids at the church are really funny. they had a few good rides to do in groups. one was the hammer.. which spins you up and down and eventually u do a big loop and go upside down. they had some bumper cars, but they were kinda weak. they most exciting ride was the MAMBO. the Mambo looked pretty simple, yet it was a blast. ill post a picture of it later when i can, cuz its hard to describe. but it had some cool lighting effects and played music by 50 cent so that made it all the better. after the mambo one girl was given a new nickname.. la bandera.. which means the flag. maybe you can get the picture how she got that nickname.. she was holding on for dear life while her body was flailing around like a flag. when we got bak to the church at 10:30 all the kids wanted me to go eat with them so i went and got some pizza (2nd night in a row). i stayed there and talked with them and some other young adults from the chruch for a long time. on sunday after church we made some pizza at home (3rd straight night of pizza). and watched a movie we rented. monday was a holiday here, kinda like labor day.. so we got in the car and headed towards the mountains. it was some good scenery. we had a big cookout. on monday night we ate something called locro. i almost threw up eating it. i kept downing coke to help it digest and go down. locro is a soup with cow stomach, intestines, pigs feet and corn. it was tough to put down for sure.
ok before i go.. here are some random argentina wacky things:
seeing horses with carts being driven through the main avenues..
squeegying off the bathroom floor every day after a shower.
there are others but i cant think of them now... i gotta go get a new cell phone i managed to lose mine allready
i got pictures of the mambo to come soon!!
chao
sj