Pineapple

I can't exactly do it with the speed of one of the ladies that sells sliced pineapple from a wheelbarrow in the market, but my pineapple slicing skills have significantly increased.  And I know how to make the juice by boiling the skin.  I might be a real Bolivian some day!

Rainy Day at Home

Muscles

 Showing off

Even they know they are cute!

House Work

We've been getting lots of work done on our future house (for Angel and I).  We need to have a new bathroom added on, so that required moving lots of rocks that were left over from previous construction.  And in the midst of the rocks, we found what appeared to be a small tree.

Turns out that small tree took a LOT of elbow grease and broke a pickax to remove!

 I gave up, but Angel managed to get it out.

We also purchased our water tank.  The house is on city water, but the city doesn't provide water every day.  So "tank-burg" is our backup.  We also bought a kitchen sink and shower.

I was able to borrow a couple of ladders from the BLC so that we could spend a Sunday afternoon sanding the terrible dark blue ceilings in most of the house.  Angel wasn't a fan of getting rid of the blue since it is his favorite color, so he took some of it with him.

Ramiro came with us to help with the ceiling and managed to escape with nothing more than a light dusting.

Workshops

With the new year I am quite happy to be taking on some new responsibilities.  Our life skills workshops our now if full swing!  I will be not just be putting the kids to work, but using my skills as a psychologist to develop personalized life development plans for every boy in our 2 oldest dorms.  My goal is to help them get to know their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, and focus their career goals in areas that will best fit each individual.

The tractor finally came and is getting the Agriculture area ready for planting.

Our bakery is producing yummy bread for breakfast every morning.

We also have a projects group that is sanding the front of the building in preparation to paint.

The boys aren't necessarily excited that I started a work program half way through summer vacation, but they were all very interested in the goals of giving them more focus and direction for their futures.  They crave that and still have a greater fear of the unknown than your average person.  So they are all participating and that is all I can ask until I've had enough time to prove the success of the program!

Sad and Happy

Both a sad and happy day.  One of our boys was reunited with family recently.  Sad for me, but happy for him.  Luckily for me, I have been able to get to know some details of his history and have been present to see the reactions of his family with this new change.  And I am confident it is a good and safe move.  And I definitely know that distance doesn't restrict family, but that doesn't make it easy to see one of our boys off.

Reading the last official letters from sponsors at a going away party with the staff and his closest friends.

Opening a present from the staff.  A photo of his class and art supplies for a passionate drawer.

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

Sidewalk Sunday School

While the Christmas team was here, we headed out to do some Sidewalk Sunday School children's evangelism.  We had about 20 kids at our first site.

The park had a great set up for the show.

Thank goodness the rain held off!

Fun fact: my future house is 2 blocks up and 2 blocks to the left!!  Isn't my view awesome?

One of the boys came up after the program and handed over a butterfly.  He said that his mom has lots of flowers, so he had brought a butterfly with him.  After I took the picture, he took it back and headed home with it sitting on his shoulder!

New Year 2013

I don't think I have ever been so excited to welcome a new year.  Even greeting year 2000 my senior year of high school doesn't compare to my joy right now.  So many good things are coming!

This is part of the amazing view from Angel's parents' house.  The fireworks started around 11:30pm and were just starting to quiet down around 1:30am.  The view of the city is enough to awe me, but this night there were fireworks going off everywhere!

It was a little chilly outside, so I took complete advantage of this really soft blanket that Angel's sister offered!  We toasted at midnight, ate 12 grapes (Bolivian tradition), and hugged all of Angel's family.

The next day the whole family went out to the lake.  We took a tour on a boat and even went down a zip line.  Here my prince charming hangs out by the castle (restaurant) near the zip line (we don't know the people up top).  Start of a great year with great people.