I found a yellow jacket!

This week is orientation at UCA for international students. It´s been really cool to see and meet the over 100 international students here for the semester. They did a shout out to all the different countries...here are the ones i remember that are represented: US, France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Austria, Canada, England, Italy, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand. Among the ones we´ve gotten to know are a girl from Chicago who goes to school in TX, a girl from Arizona, a girl from San Diego, aaaannnnnddd an international affairs major from Georgia Tech! Her name is Lexi Pardee, some of you know her, and i´ve had several classes with her before, but never really talked to her.
Meeting all of these people and seeing the varying levels of spanish ability has been really encouraging for me as far as taking classes goes. I´ve been very conscerned about how I would do taking classes in spanish. This was also feeding my doubts about being here in general, but the Lord has been so faithful in showing me that this is where I am supposed to be, so I knew I just needed to humble myself to his will and see how he would provide. He definitely is, and I have gone from being a nervous wreck who would burst into tears at the thought of taking classes at UCA to being truly excited!
Some more fun news is that we have a week off next week before classes start, so Caitlin and I are scheming with our travel agent connection down here to figure out how to best use that time. As it turns out, the structure of the semester is very different from home. The semester lasts from beginning of march to the end of june with no holidays, and you are required to attend 75% of each class. Then, all of July is exams and no class. Advantages are that exams are much more spread out, and I would imagine the suicide\hypertension\depression rate is much lower among college students(ps I don´t know what hypertension is but it sounds very applicable). Also, we are hoping this will allow for some travelling in that month and maybe some extra volunteering time. Disadvantages are that there will be no opportunities for anything more than a weekend trip after the semester starts. This makes it tough to take advantage of all the different regions of Argentina, as they are very spread out. Hopefully we will be able to tell you wonderful things after next week about Uraguay, Iguazu Falls, Bariloche, or some other regions we´re considering for our week off.
Internet update: We are currently trying another route. A different company installs internet that´s not wireless(a Techie should know what this is called, but I don´t) so we´re going to see if they actually keep appointments, but we´re not getting our hopes up and neither should you :( We are very anxious to skype all of you and to be able to do a more thorough job of keeping in touch, but the Lord is teaching us a lot through all of this. For example, appreciation of how so much of the rest of the world lives, patience and understanding, and most of all increasing our dependence on God and deepening our relationship with Him when we can´t be in touch with all of you. You all are such a source of joy, growth, and encouragement for us, and right now God is showing us how he is the source of those things in you and we can find them eternally and completely in him even when we are not near you. Know that even when we can´t hear your voices or see your faces, your prayers are being powerfully felt and seen answered in every moment down here. So keep it up and so will we! WE LOVE YOU!
Now we´re off to ride bikes in an ecological reserve on the river that we have been led to believe borders the whole city. We have yet to see it on anything but maps after being here for almost a month(can you believe it???), so we´ll let you know if we finally find it. Supposedly it has receded a lot over the years...
If it´s cold in GA today, just think of us and how much we´re sweating and you´ll get all warm and tingly inside:)