Happy Ocean Day!

This is really my favorite holiday in land-locked Bolivia.

Dia del Padre

Feliz Dia del Padre para todos los padres que conozco en Bolivia! Happy Father’s day to all of the father’s that I know in Bolivia! I have gotten to know some very special fathers in Bolivia who love their children deeply and sacrifice greatly for their families. They are a tremendous blessing in my life as well!

But today is also a rough day for many of the Bolivians that I love so much. So many of them have never known their fathers. And so many more have been abused and abandoned by their father. For some reason God has seen fit to bless me with a wonderful and complete family, and so I can only imagine what it is like for my boys at the BLC to have this bitter reminder. I think of the special projects that I did in school as a child to celebrate Mother’s and Father’s days and pray that my boys are always confident in being loved.

A special thank you to all of the Padrinos (godfathers…what the boys call their sponsors) who have become involved in the lives of the BLC boys. You mean so very much to them!!

Loving Santa Cruz

I’m in love with Santa Cruz!! For a long time I have been hearing about the church plant here and wanting to come and visit. Finally I have the opportunity. All week, everyone I have talked to has warned me about the terrible heat and humidity in Santa Cruz. It sounded a lot like south Florida though, so I wasn’t too worried. We arrived to find Cristobal waiting with Pastor David and Pastor Edson! Hermana Lita was already at the church cooking us a wonderful dinner :) After dinner we sat around talking for a while and I successfully translated Pastor David’s entire testimony for the team. Wow. That was all God, because I’m simply not that good still! They let us sleep in a little on Thursday, but after an amazing Hermana Lita breakfast, we got to work. The boys were sent outside to mix cement and pass it bucket by bucket up to them men laying bricks on the perimeter wall. The girls were set to the task of scrubbing the walls of the sanctuary so that it was ready for paint.

Thank God for clouds and a light rain that kept the temperature very bearable. After supper we took a bus into the city center and explored a park with an incredible dancing fountain. Back at the church the team played games and I sat with Pastor Edson, Cristobal, and a couple of people from the team. You can’t get those guys to be serious! It was a great conversation though, and the first time that I have really been able to hang out with Edson as he started pastoring this church at the same time I started leading teams. Quality guy. Friday morning we hit the yard full force and pulled up every green thing we could find. We found giant snails and lots of other unusual creatures while we were at it that created a little screaming and dancing show for the guys that were still working on the wall, but free entertainment is free, right?

The girls in front of the monster pile of weeds we cleared.

It left quite the slim trail in his arm hair :)

We cleaned up and rested in the afternoon and headed to the airport after an early dinner. I really enjoyed the church there and was just as sad to leave Santa Cruz as I had been to leave Cochabamba. How is it, that when you think your heart is completely filled with one place, that you can still find a second place that captures your heart equally? I’m left trying to plot ways to get back to Santa Cruz without giving up any of my Cochabamba time :)

View from the front door of the church in Santa Cruz. Crazy!

In Cochabamba

What a tease, to be in Cochabamba for so little time :) We went to our first Sidewalk Sunday School the same day that we arrived, got the bus stuck in the mud, walked all around the neighborhood in the rain, and then put on a great show in a tiny one room church! After the exhausted team went to bed, I headed into town with a Bolivian friend to eat anticuchos (cow heart on skewers with peanut sauce). SOOOOOO GOOD!! On Saturday we went up to a great park to play and hike with the boys. It’s my favorite park ever because of the river and waterfall. In the evening we went to the Youth Service. I was so happy to be back in my tribe and see so many friends! I even presented the team on stage at church in Spanish without a translator.

Luis was so helpful with his big smile!

We were back in church Sunday morning and after lunch we headed out the BLC for some quality boy time. Somehow a water balloon fight broke out :) Nothing is better than 70 little boys verses 13 gringos! In the evening I took them to El Prado, which is downtown Cochabamba to treat them to icecream. Some Bolivian friends joined us and I had a great time plotting with them.

Serious game faces!

Monday we explored Quillacollo, exchanging money, making phone calls home, and walking through the plaza. Then we got right to work sanding and painting the Pequeños dorm room. This team is full of painting beasts! The whole room was sanded, painted, and cleaned in one day! That night we headed downtown again just to explore the plaza, like true Bolivians :)

Tuesday morning we headed back into the Pequeños room and painted the ceiling. We got the whole thing done in just one morning! That left us with some time to hang out with the boys before getting cleaned up for the WEDDING! Pastor Jorge had been our official bus driver up until Monday at lunch when we finally sent him home to get ready :) Jorge and Vanessa are now married!!

We made a brief stop at the reception for photos and some hanging out, then headed off to dinner at Bufalos…where we ate way too much! Wednesday was our last day in Cochabamba and none of us was ready to think about leaving. We headed to the top of the Christ Statue…

PBA Team from the Christ Statue with the city of Cochabamba spread out below.

…and then made a stop at La Cancha (largest outdoor market in all of South America!) In the afternoon we went out for another Sidewalk Sunday School to a village that had recently been devastated by flooding. The children were so beautiful and welcoming and the pastor of the small church took me all around showing me the damage from the mud as well as all that the church was working on and planning. It was the only church in the area that welcomes children (the others claim that children are too young to waste their time on).

Straight to the airport after that!

All Together

The lovely Michelle Shott is in town for a few days! Michelle is the Project Development Coordinator for CIN and normally works from her home in North Carolina. We recently made the switch to a new system for processing donations and contacts and she is here to train us all in the new stuff. It is going to make us so much better! And I really like having Michelle around :)

Team Meeting at PBAU

I officially met our next missions team tonight! Palm Beach Atlantic University sends a team every year for their spring break and I joined them for their final team meeting tonight. The team leader is the only one who has been before, but everyone was just as excited to get going! They showed me all of their skits and songs…until the professor in the next room asked us to be quieter because her class was taking a mid-term exam! We talked about all of their final questions and worries, and then prayed together. I’m super excited about this group!!