Building Relationships

Last Friday was Bolivia's Labor Day, so a holiday for all. We decided to take a bunch of Bolivian friends bowling. Yes, there is a traditional bowling alley here, but for most Bolivians it's not a common activity. We invited 5 families to go with us and the Kienzles. Two were able to come and it was a great afternoon! We bowled for about an hour then went across the street for ice cream. Sometimes this kind of thing doesn't feel like ministry, but in our eyes it is absolutely essential, these times of relationship building. Then today, our kids's school had a huge yard sale. One of my Bolivian friends wanted to go, so she and I went along with my children and her 2, ages 5 and 9 (just lacking a 7 year old and it would be a perfect match!) We spent 3 1/2 hours there, no kidding! (I was done after 30 minutes :) After that we went out to lunch with the kids. 6 months ago, I couldn't have done it. 6 hours of being with a Bolivian by myself would have made me so nervous (because of having to speak spanish for that long without having anyone else to rely on to "save" me). And granted, my spanish was far from perfect today, but I did it. We feel like we're beginning to make good friends, and we're praying that throught these friendships others will see Jesus.

Looking Ahead

With our 5 Love Languages class now over and no Bible Studies currently going on, we met last week as a team to pray and seek God's direction for the summer months. With kids not in school, ministry in the summer (well, Bolivian winter) will look a little different. We have decided to have a 3 part series (adapted from Trinity's 3 Things series) where we will address the topics of Faith, Hope and Love, possibly having nationals lead the sessions. The purpose of these talks is to continue reaching out to people with spiritual truths and remain part of their lives until we begin a more formal Bible study in the fall. The dates for these are May16, June 20 and July 18 with a possible Sunday morning breakfast in August. English class will continue through the end of May, and we also have a few get togethers planned - one for singles, one for families and one for an end of the year English class celebration. Both families remain committed to weekly get togethers with Bolivian friends and neighbors as well. We are excited about these plans and pray that the Lord will use our efforts to glorify Him and draw people to Himself.

25 Random Things About Bolivia

There was a facebook application going around a month or so ago entitled "25 Random Things". The idea was that you wrote 25 random things about yourself and then posted it for all your friends to see. While I was tempted to do it, I didn't. But I had the thought today that I should try to come up with 25 random, or not so random, things about Santa Cruz so that y'all can get a glimpse of what life is like here. So here goes....
1. Vegetables and fruits are dirt cheap here.
2. I had to slam on the breaks the other day on the way to pick up the kids from school b/c a pig ran in front of the car. Before that, a cow crossed the 4 lane paved road in front of me.
3. I've seen a sheep in the parking lot of the grocery store.
4. We have 2 Burger Kings, but no other American restuarants or coffee shops.
5. The people here are generally very friendly.
6. Except when they are driving.
7. The driving here is the craziest thing you have ever seen. No rules!
8. This year the dengue epedimic has been the worst in 22 years.
9. We have a great grocery store, like what we are used to in the states.
10. Most Bolivians go to the market and not the grocery store. Our maid has only been in the grocery store one time. For us gringos though, it sure is nice! (plus, in the markets they hike up prices for the gringos)
11. The city of Santa Cruz is built with a plaza in the city center and then is surrounded by 8 concentric rings with spokes connecting the rings. We live between the 2nd and 3rd ring. The kids' school is between the 6th and 7th ring. (it takes us about 15 minutes to get there)
12. Events always start at least an hour later than the time stated on the invitation. Even weddings and college graduations.
13. All Latin women wear bikins - that are one size fits all.
14. Many stores still close from 12 -3 for lunch/siesta.
15. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day.
16. All middle class and up families have maids, most have nannies, and the richer ones often have one for each child.
17. Many neighborhoods consist of dirt roads.
18. Santa Cruz is a dirty city (people from here will admit this as well).
19. There are no zoning laws, that I can tell. We could open up our front gate and sell hamburgers if we wanted.
20. There is a great coffee shop, thank you Lord!
21. People from Santa Cruz are called Cambas or Cruceños.
22. There's a lot of racism between the Cruceños and Paceños (or people from La Paz, generally indigenous)
23. There is a pizza restuarant that is fabulous, Sahara Pizza.
24. Bolivians, well Latins in general I think, are very family oriented.
25. Did I mention how crazy the driving is? INSANE

Life Is Never Dull

Let me start out by saying that all is fine. But now we know what the ER looks like in Santa Cruz, Bolivia! (Do I have your attention now :) Ty fell out of the hammock last night onto a ceramic tile floor. He had a pretty big goose egg, which didn't concern us all that much since all of our kids have fallen at some time in their life and gotten one. What really concerned us were the different sized pupils. After about an hour and a half, we called our friend Toni, a doctor and fellow missionary, who said if it were her child she wouldn't take chances and would go to the ER for a possible CAT scan. Thankfully our teammate Laura was at our house within 5 minutes to put Sam and Georgia to bed and Bubba and I sped off to the ER. The doctor checked him out thoroughly and said "clinicamente" (clinically)he looked fine, that he didn't need a CAT scan, and that we should just watch him to make sure he didn't throw up or get worse. Gracias a Dios he is fine! It only cost $30 for a visit to the ER and we sure slept better knowing he had been thoroughly checked out. We're thankful that in a third world country we have access to good medical care.

Not Deterred

It's hard to know how to start a post that contains bad news, so I'll skip any pleasantries and get right to the point. A friend who was coming to English class at our house Monday night was held up at gunpoint right outside our front door at 7:45 at night. Two guys on a motorcycle came up quickly and quietly and threatened her and her 14 year old daughter (who never comes with her mom, just happened to on this night). They got away with her purse, car keys, cell phone, credit cards, $90, even tried to take her wedding rings but they wouldn't come off her finger. Thankfully they are both fine, although very shaken up. The crazy thing is that our teammate (a big male) had just let a man in for class, they both waved to our friend (the one who was robbed) as she was parking, and then they came inside. Next thing we know, they had been robbed. It happened that quickly. We've never thought security was a big issue on our quiet street, so never thought it necessary to wait until she parked to see her in.

It's hard to describe our emotions now. Monday night we were angry. Now I mostly just feel weird. Not really scared, just weird about the whole thing. I hate it that it happened when she was coming to our house for a class. I know we are not to blame, but somehow we feel responsible. We are "on guard" a little more now, ramping up the prayers for safety, not wanting this to deter us from the things we are here to do, the things God has called us here to do.

March Update

Things are going well here in Santa Cruz. We're pushing onward and moving forward. March has been a really good month for us as a family and in ministry. Here are some highlights....

Angela got her drivers license, and despite her initial fears, she has learned how to drive in this crazy place, honking the horn and cutting people off on a regular basis.

Georgia started taking violin lessons too. She joins Sam in this and they both are thriving in the all Spanish speaking violin school. Sam will have a concert in April in which he will play 17 songs solo!

Ty continues to be our little companion here at home as he is not in school yet. He will start Kindergarten in August and is counting the days. Mom however is not - I love having him home! He continues to make us laugh. The other day he stood and stared at my legs and said, "Wow mama, your legs look like Bolivian legs." Asking him to explain, he said "They just look dark." Isn't 5 a little young to be noticing legs?

Bubba continues to be involved in many ways here. The skills he brings from his 10 years in business are an asset in many ways. Along with being involved with the professional class ministry, he keeps the financial records for the SAMAIR division, is helping with development and fundraising for various projects, and has been using his design skills to develop prayer letters and other materials for the mission.

Our 5 Love Languages Class is going really well. Last night was a great time of open discussion, honesty and vulnerability, mostly on the part of the men. One woman said last night in front of the group that her husband was pretty non communicative, but through the class and the group she really saw how much he was trying and changing. He had tears in his eyes as she was talking.

There is more, I'm sure, but we just wanted to update you on a few highlights. God is continuing to stretch us and use us despite our weakness, short-comings, and failures. We know that when we are weak, He is strong. Praying that we won't dwell on our weakness, but that we will allow the Lord to use it to glorify His holy name.

language blunders

Thought y'all might like a little laugh this morning. Yesterday we spent all day (it was a holiday here) at our neighbor's house, cooking out, swimming (they have a small pool that is perfect for the kids), playing ping pong, hanging out and having a great time. They are a great family that we are really enjoying getting to know. Rodolfo, the husband, speaks great English as he was an exchange student in the states for a year (in fact, their oldest daughter is in Denver now as an exchange student). However, when we are all together we speak Spanish, with the exception of the times we don't quite understand something. So yesterday, he was making us a cappucino, and I thought he was talking about the froth in Spanish. So I asked "Eso es la palabra, foamy?" (that is the word, foamy?) totally thinking he was using Spanish. Everyone died laughing b/c he was speaking English - talking about the FOAM on top!!! We had a good laugh. Then later, he was talking about a trip he was going to take to La Paz, and Bubba asked him "Vas a tomar una floja?" I looked at him and said, "Don't you mean a FLOTA?" Then Rodolfo and his wife Mirtha died laughing because what Bubba had said was "Are you going to take a lazy/weak woman?" When what he meant to say was "Are you going to take a bus?" ARGH! I'm glad we were able to have a few laughs!!! Mirtha (pronounced Mirta) and Rodolfo are joining us in the class we are starting tonight studying the book "The Five Love Languages". Pray with us that this will be a good time of learning for all involved, good fellowship with Bolivians, and a chance to point people to Christ through helping strengthen marriages.

Dengue

I forgot to mention this in my last post, but thank you to all of you who prayed for my recovery. For those of you who don't know, I had dengue, the terrible mosquito-born illness that I mentioned in a previous post. It was probably the sickest I have ever been, and it lasted for a full 7 days. I am recovering fine, regaining my strength daily. But please pray for protection over the rest of our family, the other missionaries, our friends, and the people of Santa Cruz in general. I read in the paper yesterday that this is the worst dengue epedimic in Santa Cruz in 22 years. So we will continue to douse ourselves in OFF everytime we step out of the house and pray for protection.

Fiestas

We have every intention of updating our blog regularly, but it doesn't seem to happen. Please forgive us. We really do want to use this blog as a means of letting you know what we are doing down here. You can take it as a good sign that we are busy, that we are filling our time with ministry and family!

Fiestas. One word - Wow. In Latin America, fiestas are huge. We've been to 3 birthday parties in the last 3 weeks, all for children of friends we have made here. All Bolivian kids' parites have very loud music (totally age inappropriate) a clown or magic show, certain party songs with motions that everyone knows, all the cookies and candy and cake and soda you can eat, a piñata, and huge goodie bags. And the parties are huge. Two of the parties were for 2 year olds and there were probably 25 kids plus twice as many adults. Craziness!! These fiestas really tell a lot about Latin culture and what is valued - celebrations, family, friends. Another thing we've noticed is how inclusive Bolivians are. We've only been here 6 months but have been to at least as many Bolivian birthday parties. It doesn't matter that we've just met, we're included. So different from our North American culture of exclusiveness. Other than the super loud music the kids love these parties, what kid wouldn't? And Bubba and I are enjoying learning about this aspect of Latin culture, especially as it gives us an opportunity to be a part of the lives of our new friends.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I know it's well past Christmas, and that we've all moved on into the New Year, but we wanted to share about our Christmas here in Bolivia. Admittedly, it was hard at times to be so far away from family, friends, and all things that are familiar about Christmas. But we did have some good times and made some great family memories. In Latin cultures, Christmas Eve night is the big time for celebration, not Christmas Day. It's customary to spend Christmas Eve with family, having a meal around 11, shooting off fireworks at 12 am, and then opening all your presents. We were invited to spend Christmas Eve with some Bolivian friends who are involved with one of the Bible studies. They invited us and our teammates, the Kienzles. My first reaction was let's just "stop by". I didn't want our kids up until all hours, nor did I really want to stay up that late just for a bunch of fireworks either. So, after going to a Christmas Eve service at the English speaking church (which was great - very familiar, ending with a candle lit singing of Silent Night) we headed over to our friend's house. As soon as we walked in, I knew Bubba was going to be thrilled with our decision to go. There was a smoked pig, a whole pig, splayed out on the table complete with apple in it's mouth! We still had planned on only staying until 10 at the latest, but right about 10 fireworks were brought out to shoot off, making me a complete wreck. Not to worry, Bubba and our teammate Paul were great examples for our kids, shooting off bottle rockets while holding them, while standing on them, etc.......After a while, when I calmed down enough, I really enjoyed this new tradition. After all, if it was going to be 95 degrees, and if we weren't going to be with family, we may as well do something completely different! By this time, our kids were all wide awake and so excited, there was no way we could leave. So we enjoyed a good meal at 11:00 at night (some enjoyed that more than others:), and enjoyed a great time of fellowship with our friends. We managed to make it home right at midnight, when the skies exploded with fireworks like nothing we'd ever seen! It was 10 times what the fourth of July is, with fireworks not going off in a "controlled" manner but with every Pablo, Juan, and Jose shooting them off in the street in front of their house. The kids loved it, and though it wasn't our plan to let them stay up until all hours, I'm so glad we all had this Bolivian Christmas experience. And the four hour naps on Christmas day made it even better!



As for our New Year celebration, Bubba and I enjoyed the same display of fireworks from the comfort of our living room with the kids upstairs sleeping then waking up to the grand explosion. Then on New Year's Day we were invited by some Bolivian neighbors out to the "campo" to a lake for a "churasco" (cookout) and to swim. It was a beautiful place out in the country, and again was another great time of hanging out with Bolivian friends. The only drawback was the sunburn we all suffered from having stayed out all day. I can't seem to remember that we are far closer to the equator here and that 30 SPF doesn't cut it for all day in the sun!

All in all, it was a good holiday time. We're excited for these new friendships and are now gearing up for ministry to start up once again. Thank you for your continued prayers. Oh, one prayer request is that it is Dengue season. Dengue is a mosquito born illness that makes you really really sick. There is an epidemic this year, so please pray for our protection if you think of it.