Quilpué

On Monday of our trip, we took a bus to Quilpué (keel-PWAY). It is about a 1.5 hour drive from Santiago.  We left our hostel, took the Metro to the bus stop and took a very nice bus to the city.

Drive out of Santiago

Homes on the side of the road- this reminded us more of the South America we know.

Could tell we were getting closer to the coast - seeing palm trees on the sides of the hills.

When we got into Quilpué, we first went to a real estate company to talk about possible homes we could rent.  During the conversation with the real estate agent, I was thinking - uh oh, almost a year of Spanish school is doing NOTHING to help me understand this Chilean Spanish.  I was relieved to find out he was hard to understand by even the Chileans that were with us.  It was a bit discouraging because he said it was hard to find a house to rent.  But we know the Lord is in control of where we live - so we will trust Him!

We then left to go see the ministry site.  The government of Quilpué has leased to Youth For Christ a plot of land ($1.00 a year for 100 years) in hopes of YFC starting an outreach center for the children and youth.  Quilpué is a bedroom community, so most parents travel to the surrounding cities to find work.  This leaves the children and youth without much supervision.  The vision for this plot of land is for the children to have a place to come for some structure - homework help, soccer games, bible stories, and other activities.  While this future ministry is exciting, we were a bit overwhelmed.  There is a lot of work that needs to be done to the property.  It does have a classroom building, soccer fields, and a house.  But it still needs a lot of work.  Currently a church meets in the classroom and they have a few events for the youth, but nothing very structured and ongoing. 

Road outside the property - looking left

Road in front of property - looking right - the wall on the rights is the wall to the property.

House - a man lives here to keep watch on the property.  He is the pastor of the church that meets in the classroom.

Soccer field

Front of house

View of the property

Classroom building - where currently a church meets

View of part of Quilpue.  It's hard to see, but the billboard on the left is advertising an apartment building we are interested in trying to find an apartment.  Took this picture before we even found the apartments.