Living in a foreign country necessitates making adjustments to fit into the culture. As I said in last week’s post, some adjustments are harder than others. Today’s post is about an adjustment that has become a part of our lives in the past month. This is not a hard adjustment, in fact it has been something we love! Long lines are a part of life here in Argentina. I guess they are a part of life most anywhere. We have become spoiled with conveniences that keep us from having to stand in long lines in order to accomplish something, like automatic drafting for paying bills (here we stand in long lines at general payment centers where we can pay almost any bill. Although no one wants to spend excessive time in long lines, they are a part of life here. With that being said, we have learned of something that has benefitted us in these last several months. Women who are expecting a child or who have infants are ushered to the front of lines! Leslie just had our fourth daughter. She would go into stores with very long lines of people trying to buy groceries and be asked to come to the front of the line. It is a wonderful thing! We were registering our newborn to receive her birth certificate, and the line was very long to pay, the attendee told me to take the baby with me, I was then ushered to the front of the line and payed the fee before everyone else. We love the way Argentina shows respect, concern, and love to mothers with infants and expecting mothers. This is not something we are accustomed to but it is spoiling us.

The people around like to see the baby and comment about how big she is and how beautiful she is. They don’t know her, but it doesn’t matter, the people here love to see a young baby.

This Sunday is a a special day in Argentina. I have lived here for almost 1 1/2 years. I am constantly learning new things that I have never heard of. This Sunday is a great example. We will be having elections this Sunday. Voting is obligatory here, and because of that places where people come together close for the entire day (I am told even the dance clubs will close on Saturday night). Because of this, we will be having an early morning service on Sunday. This was determined after receiving counsel from several pastors here. Even though Sunday will be a bit different, we look forward to meeting together and worshipping the Lord!

In the past I have heard missionaries talk about cultural adjustments and sometimes it has a negative connotation. I want to make clear that not all cultural adjustments are hard. I present to our readers the “merienda”. While in the United States we are accustomed to 3 meals a day, in Argentina we have 4! Breakfast, Lunch, Merienda, and Dinner. Breakfast is at a normal time, lunch is usually around 12:00 – 1:30 or so. But Dinner is not until 9:00-10:00 PM! So around 4:00-5:00 PM we have a merienda. The merienda consists of coffee or mate (mate is a local tea, but that is for another post), and cookies, pastries, or perhaps a toasted ham and cheese sandwich or some other time of small sandwich. I do love merienda! On Friday nights I disciple a family at 6:00 PM. We will start the time together going over some of the material, and in about 45 minutes in we have merienda together. I never know what it is going to be, but I know it is something we will enjoy. Last week we had coffee and something like a cookie sandwich with ricotta (sweetened) in the middle. If I am out I may get a coffee and a croissant (we call them “medialuna”). Yesterday I was with one of the pastors for merienda and I had a coffee and a croissant. Tonight we will be together again for merienda. It is a beautiful (and delicious) part of the Argentine culture. This is an easy adjustment for us as a family to make.

Next week we will publish another post on the cultural adjustments. Check back soon for more.

I remember Taco Bell’s old commercials that had the motto, “make a run for the border”. These words have a different meaning now. This morning we took what will hopefully be our last “border run”. A “border run” is when missionaries have to renew their visas by crossing the border to get stamped out and stamped back in to the country (giving you another 90 days). We are in the process of receiving our residency which would eliminate the need for such trips, but haven’t yet received this status. This morning was a especially different. It was the first time we have had to do so with our newborn, Argentine daughter, Isla. We left at 5:00 AM to drive 4 hours to the closest border (Uruguay). When we arrived, we gave our passports along with Isla’s Argentine Identification Document and her Argentine Passport. The immigrations officer asked for her birth certificate. We did not bring that with us. This is when things got complicated. Neither Uruguay nor Argentina would allow Isla to cross the border even though we had the proper identification because they wanted proof of her birth. As I tried to calmly discuss that she was obviously born and that the two documents proved her Argentine citizenship I was met with disagreement and then was handed off to other people. I explained what we were trying to do, just get our visas renewed, I insulted the Uruguayan immigrations officer. He took that to mean I didn’t want to have anything to do with his country, only to receive a stamp. I offered to hold our newborn baby outside of the border so that my family could cross, but by this point I had already made all parties mad. After 30 minutes or so of back and forth, asking for the same thing in as many different ways as I could, I finally received a little grace from the Argentine immigrations officer. Then we were met with more problems. My wife crossed the border and made an immediate U-Turn, technically not leaving the border-crossing compound (this was at the request of the immigrations officer). I was informed that she did so illegally. Even though we own the car, even though we have car insurance that covers us in much of South America (including Uruguay), because we do not have residency, we are not permitted to drive an Argentine car on foreign soil. By this point I was beyond aggravated, but I knew any arguing would only make matters worse. I begged for forgiveness, claiming ignorance. They finally stamped our passports and gave us the visas we requested, and led me out of the door.

An important guideline for missionaries to remember is: “I don’t have to understand it, I just have to accept it.” It is beyond ridiculous to ask for a birth certificate to prove someone was born when they are right there and have all the documentation needed to prove her citizenship. She had a passport and her Argentine documentation. She could not receive either of those documents without her birth certificate so by having them it proved that her birth certificate has been verified. But the important thing to remember is that my logic is not their logic. I don’t need to understand why they require her birth certificate, I just need to know that do. Part of culture shock is trying to understand or logically reason why things are the way they are by using “American logic” or reasoning. Today I had to step back and remember, “It is not important that I understand why the immigrations officers are not allowing our daughter to cross the border with her passport, it is important however that I accept that they require her birth certificate along with her Argentine Identification Card and her Argentine Passport. If the foreigner will be kind and keep calm, he will go much further than if he spouts off about how “they” and their “ridiculous rules” don’t make any sense.

The big adjustment here is accepting the culture even though you may not understand the logic behind the way things work.