More new friends, Formosa

Thanks to forty-year old connections to my dad and my grandma, a local family that pastor a Formosa church contacted my dad through Facebook and asked if they could drop by and see us. They met us at our hotel and then invited us to their Saturday evening service.

Jorge and Eli Paulina pastor a church in their home in Formosa. They built a surprisingly spacious sanctuary room off the back of their house. Most or maybe all churches here have services on Saturday or Sunday night due to the excessive heat and humidity in the summer. Their church, Hermanos de Formosa, meets on Saturday night.

Compared to American services with which I am familiar they have a pretty heavy-duty service. We sang hymns and songs. Several Bible chapters were read out loud. Dad and I gave (practically mandatory) greetings. A sermon was preached and portions of scripture were read publicly by all; we each took turns reading a verse at a time. Whew! Keeps you more alert in service!

Here's an sound clip of the singing:

After service they invited us to dinner in their house. By this time it was 10:00 pm but that's an early dinner for an Argentine. They are very friendly hosts and we visited and traded insights about each other's countries and languages. Around midnight they drove us home but first took us out to a new area of the city. It was dark so I couldn't tell exactly but it is a park along the Río Paraguay. It is nice drive and other people were out enjoying the cool river breeze. They dropped us off at our hotel around 1:00 am and asked if we'd join them for lunch on Sunday. So we did.

We had a good time on Sunday eating beef and pork grilled on their Argentine asador. For desert we had a nice, cold ice cream pie. Ice cream is popular in Argentina. We visited some more, helped each other's language skills, discussed cities and states from each of our home countries, traded contact information, and departed with the expectation of future visits by all.