I was blessed to awake to a sight not many people will ever get to see - the sun rising over the Andes near Santiago.
A clear view of the Andes is rare even for the people of Santiago.
The valley in which Santiago lies is one of the most polluted places on the planet, directly below one of the infamous holes in the ozone layer. On its worst days the snow-capped peaks, which lie only kilometers from the outskirts of the city, can hardly be seen through the haze. The opportunity to see the mountains in total clarity was brief; ten minutes later we descended into a thick layer of morning fog, and the world around us disappeared.
Customs was a nail-biting experience. My team had been praying for weeks that the process would be easy and that I would be allowed into the country without any hassle. For my team leader's sake, I was glad I was the only minor in the group. Pulling together the official paperwork for ten people would have been an absolute nightmare!
The cause of all the worry? In order to crack down on child trafficking many countries, including Chile, now ask that minors unaccompanied by their parents have additional documentation along with their passport ready to present to officials to ensure that they are not being taken across international borders against their will. In my case, the additional paperwork included an officiated letter of intent and a full itinerary of the trip, complete with times, addresses, and emergency contact information. If I were to be stopped by an official and they found a glitch anywhere in my paperwork, they would have the power to send me back to the United States, and my mission trip would be over before I could claim my luggage.
Fortunately God was with me in customs. Every person I spoke to merely glanced at my passport and waved me through, and the same held true for the rest of the team. Every one of us made it into Chile without any problems. Praise God!
Our host missionaries met us outside the baggage claim. Lee and Lisa Schnabel work with the Foursquare Church and have been serving as missionaries for twenty-five years. Santiago is their newest home and they have been spending most of their time training Chilean pastors for ministry in the one hundred and twenty Foursquare Churches around the nation. Our first day was a day of debriefing about the situation in Chile, and this is what they told us:
1. Chile is still a developing nation. This means that the features of a modern society are present, but there is an obvious line of separation between the haves and the have-nots. Poverty is a very real and pervasive problem, and class distinction is very common.
2. Evangelical Christians are a small-yet-growing group in Chile. The Catholic Church is still very influential, especially among upper-class citizens. Religion in Chile has become more of a routine than a path to salvation.
Because of this we were told that our ministry in Chile would be more relational than physical. The Schnabels planned for us to travel to several Foursquare churches in the Santiago and Val Paraiso areas so that we could share our testimonies with the congregations and offer prayer for any needs that they might have. One of our biggest goals was to encourage the already-existing Chrsitian community and to help them grow in their faith, so that they in turn would be prepared and eager to share the Gospel with others even after our return to the United States.
With that information in mind, our first stop in Chile was the mall.
Wait... the mall?
Actually, on a day of adjustment to a foreign culture, the mall is a good place to go. There we could exchange our U.S. Dollars for Chilean Pesos, check out typical Chilean fast food fare at the food court, and see firsthand how the locals interacted with our group and with each other.
Lee and Lisa told us to pay attention while we were in the mall in order to gain insights about the culture. So what stood out to me?
Besides the obvious fact that everyone around me was speaking Spanish, I also noticed how much nicer everyone was dressed compared to me. Suits and ties were common for the men, and the women wore blouses, skirts, and trendy jeans or slacks. We were in a very, very nice part of the city, and in my North American Walmart wardrobe I felt very, very out of place.
On a lighter note, I remember walking by a nun who seemed to have taken a very keen interest in a clothing display outside a high-end fashion store. I felt like I had walked smack into a physical manifestation of an oxymoron.
Lunchtime begins around one or two o'clock and is the biggest meal of the day. At that time we split into pairs and were given 10,000 pesos* to spend in any food court restaurant of our choosing. My partner and I chose Taco Bell. That sounded safe enough.
But I soon discovered that Chilean Taco Bell is very different from the Taco Bell I knew and loved. I ordered (in Spanish!) French fries, but they came with all the trimmings one would usually find on a batch of nachos in the U.S. - cheese, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, and ground beef. Even more surprising - nothing was spicy. I tried to imagine corn chips in the place of deep fried potatoes and ate my nacho fries in silence.
I spent most of my meal trying to follow a conversation Lisa was having with Marco, a Santiago local who was helping our team coordinate our activities and travel details. Marco is a tall, dark-haired, tan Chilean man and Lisa is a petite blond American woman who just happens to be fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese (her parents were missionaries in Brazil for a huge portion of her childhood). She is also one of the most energetic women I have ever met. I tried to listen as hard as I could, but the majority of their laughter-punctuated, rapid-fire Spanish flew right over my head.
In all honesty, it made me feel a little uneasy. Would I be in the dark the entire trip?
That night we went to Lee and Lisa's apartment for dinner and more debriefing. While we ate pizza ( I had yet to see an authentic Chilean dish) we discussed customary Chilean greetings. There are two ways to greet people in Chile, depending upon whether you are a man or a woman.
MEN:
1. To greet another man, and handshake and a brief hug will usually suffice.
2. To greet a woman, give her an "air kiss" by gently bumping your cheek against hers.
WOMEN:
1. Greet both men and women with an air kiss.
...but don't kiss them on both cheeks. They do that in Argentina, and that's just weird. **
Dinner with Marco and the Schnabels concluded my first full day in Chile. We spent the night in a hotel downtown, and I barely had the energy to write about everything I'd seen in my journal before I fell asleep.
*The current exchange rate in Chile is about 550 pesos to 1 U.S. dollar.
**Marco happens to disagree and says that the Argentinian "double kiss" is just fine. We decided not to take Marco's word for it...
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