This morning Mark and all the other staff left for Chanco, a small rural town along the beach of southern Chile where Campus Crusade is holding the annual Student Conference. It is to last six days, and is to be held at an internado – a public boarding school of sorts – that is open to us because it is summer here in Chile.
Mark is in charge of the food for the conference. That’s for 45 people, including the staff and students, every meal for six days. That also means that he was in charge of planning what they would eat, deciding how much they needed to buy, buying it, cooking it, cleaning up after it, and reimbursing all the costs later. A big job!
This evening he called me after arriving in Chanco to let me know that there is nothing at all in the kitchen there. No plates, no cups, no silverware, no pots, no pans, no serving spoons. NO REFRIGERATOR, NO STOVE! They do have a sink.
He was prepared for most of this, because rumors had begun to arrive about the primitive nature of the place before he left. But he had pretty much counted on there being a hotplate at least.
I hope the students like sandwiches.
