It would make a cat jump 3 feet straight up!

Written to my kids and grandkids, but shared with you who might like to look over my shoulder:

Dear tribe:

It’s Wednesday night, day 7 here in my little borrowed “prophet’s chamber” under the +-5,000 gallon water tank. The weather has been gorgeous until tonight about an hour ago. It has threatened on and off all day, but it hit just as I was leaving a classy restaurant tonight with a great missionary couple, Rocco and Ellen Ditrolio, who had invited me out to a lovely dinner at the “Kansas”, probably the classiest restaurant in this area. The change in the weather all started with the typical Buenos Aires fireworks display. Powerful flashes of lightning and ominous tumbling thunder. Although the pavement was dry, I ran to my car. I knew sky was falling. I had just started the engine when the first big splats hit the roof and the windows. Do you remember? Those first drops are about a half cup of water each. And they sound like hail hitting the roof. I am convinced that these are really great hail stones that mostly melted before striking their victims. By now it has settled into nice California-style drenching rain while the light and sound show continues to make it impossible for even the sleepiest dog to doze off.

This weather was supposed to hit yesterday, but yesterday was the day that Missionary Ed Dabello had promised to help me install the cruise control in my little Peugeot. This involves crawling around under the car and working under the hood and under the dash for hours… no garage. So I asked the Lord to hold off on the storm for a day and He took mercy on us. We made the final cruise control connections this afternoon and tried it out… Praise the Lord, it works! Ed Dalbello is a wizard indeed… a true missionary who can do anything. I could never have installed it and almost surely there is not a mechanic in this country that could have deciphered the complicated book of instructions. I’ll still need to make a few final adjustments, but from now on I’ll not have to be sitting in one position, pressing on the throttle for 5 hours at a time out there on the highway.

BAM!!! Wow! It sounds like full-scale war outside. And a few huge bombs are hitting very close to home. BAMMM BAM and double BAM! That one would make a cat jump three feet straight up. You would love this display. It is great to watch “from safely inside”.

I confess that I am impressed… no, “overwhelmed” with the incredible reception I am getting everywhere. This could become addictive. Maybe it already has. I believe I could rent a little apartment here in Buenos Aires and just minister in different churches in the area nearly every day of the week for the rest of my life and probably never exhaust the possibilities. However, I have the “call of the wild” within me… drawing me to distant, forgotten little churches in unimportant towns where nobody goes and nobody cares.

Love the whole bunch of you.

Dad