One of the hardest times in my life was when my mother died. I was in Posadas Argentina. I was told that she didn't have very much longer to live and if I wanted to see her I needed to get back to the States as soon as possible. She was living in California and the flight cost would be about $1000.00.

Considering the difference of monetary values it might have been 10,000,000 dollars, as one dollar cost 1,000,000 pesos at the time. The base income was about $30.00 dollars a month, 1 dollar a day. I was giving Bible classes 3 times a week at nights and teaching conversational English everyday. The income from teaching with a few contracting jobs I was doing paid the bills and I was saving a very little that was extra. I had asked everyone I could for the money I needed to get back in time to see my mother before she died, but at the time nobody was able to help me. She died 3 months later. When I heard she had died, I stopped everything, my English classes, my odd contracting jobs and even the Bible classes for 3 weeks. I started writing a few chapters on my life experiences to try to keep my sanity. It took all the strength in me just to get out of bed. I believe it was the deepest depression I have ever been in. 

One afternoon about 3 weeks later it started to hail, and not just any hail, the ice stones were the size of marbles. This was not normal in Posadas as it is close to the equator and never gets cold enough to snow. When I heard the hail start, I ran to all the windows and closed them. I started typing again, when I was interrupted by a knock at the door. I stopped typing and went to the door. Opening the door I saw a young boy about 11 year’s old standing in front of me with his hands held high holding a small bird. He said (in Spanish) Sir can you help this bird? I looked at him and could do nothing else but agreed to. I took the small bird in my hands. The boy thanked me and ran off.

I took the bird and placed it in a fairly large flower pot, got a jar lid and filled it with water and placed it with some crumbs of bread beside the little bird and went back to my typing. About 1/2 an hour later the bird started to move a little, then and few minutes more and it started to fly. It was flying all over the room,

hitting one wall and then the other. I jumped up and ran to the windows flung them open, hoping the small bird would find one of the window and fly out before it broke it's neck. Well it did, and I started to thank God, Thanking Him that the little bird did not break its neck. After praising Him for a few minutes I heard God

In 1973 I moved to Argentina to do Missionary work.  I moved to Cordoba Argentina. We started an outreach to the local colleges. Things were going well for the first few months, we had a few small problems with the military government, but we had no idea that the military had been watching us when we would go on our outreaches. We had heard from some of the students that they were involved with the revolutionary movements in the area, but we were not there to get involved with that, we told them that the only revolution we wanted to get involved with was the love revolution that Jesus taught.

One morning a few months after we had started reaching out to the students we were woke up at 4 am with officers of the military breaking down our front door and climbing in the windows. I was in one of the rooms that had a window. When the young soldier broke into my window, he was scared (as they thought we were militant revolutionaries), The young man was holding a M16 rifle and was shaking so much  that I was very concern that his finger could slip and shoot me by accident. I kept telling him (in Spanish) don’t worry I do not want to hurt you. He calmed down a little and another older officer came in the room and told him to bring me downstairs. When I got down there all the other volunteers were there too. They had us all lined up against the wall. Some people were in their pajamas and others like my self sleep in the nude, and were not allow to get clothes yet. After a about 20 minutes all had calmed down. They found out that we did not have any weapons at all, and there were no signs of us being of danger to them or anyone else. They allowed us to get dressed and start breakfast etc. We knew that they were just following orders, so we offered them coffee con leche (coffee with milk) and we all started to talk. The military police place us in house arrest for three weeks so they could do further investigations. We left Cordoba 2 months later, I  moved to Salta, Argentina. I will write about that trip in the next lifes adventures.  Vince