From Halloween to Thanksgiving

Sorry I haven't updated my blog in so long! This month has been crazy busy as we wrap up the Campus Crusade movements on the campuses and the students go home for the summer! Fortunately, many of my contacts on the Ag campus are from Buenos Aires, so I'll still be able to meet up with them over the next few months! Please continue to pray that God would work in the hearts of the girls I've met recently who don't know Christ. I've had great spiritual conversations with some of them, so please pray they would continue to be open to talking about what they believe and listening to what the Word of God says as well.

Below are some pictures from the past month!

 All the girls on my STINT team! :)

 Me and Jessica (who works on the Agronomy campus with me) with Courtney, a woman on staff with Campus Crusade in the States who came to visit us on a 1-week coaching trip! What a wonderful, refreshing time that was! :)

 Jessica and me at our campus service project with some of the Agronomy student leaders!

 Halloween with the STINT team :)

Celebrating Thanksgiving with student leaders and contacts from the Agronomy campus, including four unbelievers!

Romans 10:9

Romanos 10:9, "Que si confiesas con tu boca que Jesús es el Señor, y crees en tu corazón que Dios lo levantó de entre los muertos, serás salvo."

Romans 10:9, "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Two weeks ago, I and two of my STINT teammates had the incredible privilege of sharing the Gospel with Maria, a student on the Agronomy campus who expressed interest in learning more about having a personal relationship with God. After we shared the Gospel with her, she told us she wanted to think about it and meet us later to discuss it further, so we set up a time to meet this past Thursday on campus. When we met with her Thursday, we reviewed over what we had talked about the previous week and she told us that Christ was not on the throne of her heart, but that she wanted to give him complete and total control of her life. With my two teammates and I gathered around her, she prayed aloud her own unique prayer of confession, repentance, and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. As I listened to her honest and humble words, I couldn't help but cry tears of joy over the incredible privilege I've been given this year to share the life-changing message of the Gospel with the future leaders of Argentina. :)

Below is a picture of me, my two STINT teammates, Maria, and two of Maria's friends (identical twins) who accepted Christ with one of my teammates a year ago!

From left to right: Luciana, Jessica (STINTer), Jessica (Luciana's identical twin), Cari (STINTer), Maria, me

Luke 15:10

"In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Luke 15:10

Exciting news alert! One guy AND one girl accepted Christ on the Law campus today! Pray that they will desire to be discipled by one of us in Vida Estudiantil and develop a heart for the lost students on their campus!

Thanks for the prayers! God is working!

Home, sweet home...

What an incredible weekend I just had! An hour ago, at about 6:30AM, a bus full of student leaders, staff, and STINT from the Buenos Aires Campus Crusade movement pulled into the city's bus station after an 11-hour overnight trip returning from a 4-day leadership training conference in the province of Cordoba. The conference took place in a small town about 1 1/2 hours away from the capital of Cordoba, which is where I studied abroad for 5 months in 2009. On our way there, we passed right through the downtown of Cordoba's capital early in the morning. What an fun and nostalgic experience it was to wake up to familiar surroundings as we passed through one of the cities in the world that I call "home." :)

The leadership training conference was so fun and encouraging, as I met staff and student leaders from the Vida Estudiantil movements in the Argentine provinces of Mendoza, Chaco, Cordoba, Santa Fe, Misiones, and Tucuman. What a blessing it was to see that God is moving on college campuses all around Argentina! There were about 130 people there this weekend, but in January, we'll all see each other again at Vida Estudiantil's summer camp and there will be twice as many people there then! :)

Below are some pictures from the weekend! Enjoy!

Two friends from my church in Cordoba that I met while studying abroad there! I was so excited to see them at the conference--what a small world!

 Hanging out in the room with some girls from the Vida Estudiantil movements in Misiones and La Plata

 Jill, Jessica, and Robbie, three of my STINT teammates!

Babysitting Hanna, the daughter of Charly Salinas, who is the Buenos Aires campus director (my boss). She absolutely melts my heart :)

The way, the truth, and the life

Wow, has life been crazy here! This week was our first week on our assigned campuses and it has been such a whirlwind of activity! The campus breakdowns are as follows:

Law campus:  Jill and Robbie
Economics campus:  Kurt, Morgan, Britt, Ben
Agriculture campus:  Lauren, Jes, Me

The Agronomy campus already has a strong group of male leaders in the Campus Crusade for Christ movement, but they really need more females to step up and take leadership. For this reason, we placed 3 girls here. For the past few weeks, we have mainly been initiating evangelistic conversations with the students on campus and also shadowing the current STINT team as they conduct Bible studies, discipleship meetings, English clubs, planning meetings, and prayer meetings on their respective campuses. This ministry is pretty complex because of all the campuses involved, so please pray that we will stay focused on what God has called us to do in the midst of many administrative and planning tasks. We are not here to get a bunch of tasks done--we are here to bring the Gospel to lost students who need Christ. Staying focused on this truth is key to the ultimate success of our ministry.

This past weekend, we hosted an evangelism training conference for all of the student leaders in the Campus Crusade movements on the campuses of Buenos Aires and La Plata, a nearby city. During this weekend, about 45 student leaders were trained how to share their faith, grow in their faith, and disciple others in their faith. It felt like Spanish-overload at times for our new team, but it was also a great time to get to know the students in the movement here and to learn more about how to share the Gospel in Spanish.

The reason I entitled this post "The way, the truth, and the life" is because most of the students I've shared the Gospel with so far have given me the very postmodern response that "all religions lead to the same God." Please pray that God would give us the words (in Spanish!) to lovingly share with the students that man is sinful and therefore could never come up with ways to reach God, so God reached down to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Pray that these bonds of moral relativism would be broken as we tell students that God has already provided "the way, the truth, and the life" so they don't have to try to create ways to reach Him!

Below are some pictures from the past few weeks! Enjoy and thanks for reading!

 Cari and Garrett, the other two Clemson Tigers on STINT in BA! Unfortunately, they'll be leaving with the rest of their team to return to the States in one month. We'll definitely miss them!

Eating dinner with some of the guys in the men's Bible study group that meets weekly on the Agronomy campus. Pray that more of these guys would become leaders in the Campus Crusade movement there!

Practicing the Knowing God Personally booklet with a student leader on a campus in BA that has just started a Campus Crusade movement! This evangelism training weekend was such a wonderful experience!

I'm officially a native...

Ok, not really...but I sure felt like one when...wait for it...I ran into someone I knew walking down a random street in BA!!! If there's any occurence that will make you feel like you're a native, running into a friend in a city of 13 million people definitely is it. No doubt about it.

We made it!

Praise the Lord! My team, myself, and ALL of our luggage made it safely to BA last Wednesday and we've had a wonderful time so far! I live in an apartment with 3 other girls, one from USC (we're trying not to kill each other), and two from UNC Chapel Hill. Our team of 5 girls and 2 guys joined the current STINT team of 3 guys and 4 girls here, so we'll be spending the next two months together, transitioning the Vida Estudiantil movement (Argentina's Campus Crusade for Christ) from their team to ours.

Our team spent all last week in briefing sessions, learning about the history, culture, and language of Argentina, along with some key safety tips from the current STINT team. They also took a few days to show us around the campuses where Crusade is present: Agronomy, Architecture, Natural Sciences, Law, Medicine, and Economics. They are such incredibly different campuses, but it was amazing to hear how God is working uniquely on each. It was so interesting to learn about the vision and mission of each campus directly from the STINTers and staff that are working on them.

This week, our team will be splitting up and shadowing the current STINT team one-on-one as they do evangelism, discipleship, small groups, weekly meetings, and English clubs on each campus. Please pray that God leads and guides each member of our team to the campus where He wants them to be focused this year.

We're also in the middle of helping plan a leadership retreat for all of the student leaders in BA and La Plata at the end of this month. Talk about hitting the ground running!

My co-leader and I get along great and, although we are very different, we lead well together. It's been so encouraging to have the team respect us as leaders, but also love us as friends too. :)

I'll leave you with just a few prayer requests. Please pray for:

· A spirit of unity within our team and between us and the Argentine Campus Crusade staff

· Smooth transition as the 2010/2011 STINT team passes off the ministry to us over the next 2 months

· Evident growth in our love for the Lord and each other as we adjust to the ministry here

· Barriers to the Gospel to be broken as we engage in spiritual conversations with students on campus starting this week

 
Please email me at berkeley.bagwell@gmail.com and let me know how I can be praying for you as well! It would be such a privilege to do so! Enjoy the pictures below!

 Eating an "asado" (Argentine steak cook out = AMAZING) with the current STINT team and the Vida Estudiantil staff and student leaders

 The Vida Estudiantil staff and student leaders praying over our team

Group photo of both STINT teams

Who says you can't recycle blogs??

So, I decided to be eco-friendly and do some blog recycling...

So...although this was my blog from my Buenos Aires Summer Project trip in 2008, I'm going to recycle it and use it for my STINT blog as well. Genius, I know. :)

For those of you who don't know, here's my story:

During my time studying marketing and Spanish at Clemson University, I became involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, an interdenominational Christian missions organization. From my freshman to senior year, I was part of a Bible study with girls my age and was discipled one-on-one by a Campus Crusade staff woman on my campus. I experienced immense growth in my relationship with Christ and was even able to start my own Campus Crusade Bible study and disciple a few girls who were in that group. The summer after my freshman year, I went on a five-week summer project with Campus Crusade to Buenos Aires, Argentina and experienced intentional evangelism and outreach like I never had before. I learned firsthand that evangelism truly is sharing the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God. I saw God use me in incredible ways that summer, especially when I chose to step out in faith and obey His promptings.

Since then, God has repeatedly brought Argentine people into my life in various ways and has clearly shown me that He wants me to return one day. For that reason, I am very excited that I now have the opportunity to return to Buenos Aires for a longer period of time and answer God’s call on my life.

So, from September 2011 until November 2012, I will be part of Campus Crusade’s Buenos Aires STINT (short-term international) team and will be assisting the national staff as they lead the Argentine Campus Crusade movement, known as Vida Estudiantil. My main responsibilities will include engaging in spiritual conversations with students on campus, conducting campus outreaches, leading Bible studies, and discipling female students currently involved in Vida Estudiantil. I will also help organize Vida Estudiantil mission trips, conferences, retreats, and weekly meetings. As the female STINT team leader, I will help direct the vision and mission of our team’s ministry efforts and be the liaison between the Argentine national staff and our STINT team.

However, before I leave on September 6th, I face the challenge of finding a team of ministry partners who will support me both through prayer and financially. I would greatly appreciate your prayers this summer as I meet with small groups, churches, families, and individuals and share with them my heart for Argentine students and my vision for this upcoming year.

Dios les bendiga! :)