Family picture in the airport
My first selfie!
City lights of Santa Cruz
Coconut tree in the courtyard of the guesthouse
Ice cream at the Hipermaxi (EE-ber-maxi)
Children's story in church on Sunday
Mango trees are the best for climbing
Even in a skirt!
More ice cream on the way to Charagua
Photo sphere of the Neufelds' yard
Supper in our little kitchen
Isabelle's sketch of the two yards
Reading aloud in school
Well, I live in Bolivia now! Overall, I would describe it as just like India, but milder. Everything - the traffic, the poverty, the smells, the garbage, the heat, the plants and animals, remind me very much of India but less extreme. Let me tell you the whole story.
So, the flights were uneventful. We didn't go through any customs until we landed in Santa Cruz, when they had no English and we had no Spanish. But they looked at our Passports and stamped them with a 30-day VISA. Then we picked up our luggage and were wheeling our cart through a line because that's what everyone else was doing, when a guy from the airport comes up to us and says a bunch of stuff in Spanish. Isabelle seemed to understand, so she let him push our cart and he swung all our suitcases on and off the scanner belt for us. Then he wheeled it out a door and we followed. In the jumble of people meeting people we found ourselves surrounded by the ones we recognized as ours. Haphazard introductions were made, and Rudy said he had sent the man in to help us because they wouldn't search our bags then. Isabelle said she had understood two words: "Rudy" and "outside".
We drove with the Neufelds to the guesthouse (run by a Bible School) that night, and spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday there with them, getting used to the place, getting to know each other, and running all kinds of errands. It was strange to live right in a city and go out several times a day. We ate out a lot, and had a lot of ice cream. On Sunday two other young mennonite families from La Crete, Alberta joined us for church - Jake and Anita Derksen, for whom we had brought those much-prayed-for school books, and Daniel and Heather Giesbrecht. Both these families had recently come to Santa Cruz enroute to join our peeps in Charagua. (Half the time it is pronounced TA-daw-gwa, half the time Sha-raw-gwa. Who knows.)
On Tuesday we drove home to Charagua. It was a five hour drive, one and a half of which were on a bumpy, windy, hilly dirt road. We had been warned about this road and the havoc it wreaked on the steeliest of stomachs. We were fine, though - Isabelle took some preventative gravol. The dirt, though! It's so orange!
We moved in to our little place - a small two-room guesthouse on the Neufelds yard - and went over to the Friesens for supper. They told us about the ministry.
They have been here for many years, patient missionaries to the Old Colony Mennonites in this area. It is a tough work and a sad, oppressive situation. They run a radio station and a Bible study and lots of one on one relationships, but if someone on the Colony gets saved and wants to leave, they are completely shunned and ostracized. It takes real guts to leave, and there's a rehab centre here too for those who have just left. But they are seeing some good fruit, and really hoping that some of the brave families and individuals who have gotten all the way away would be bold enough to come back and help. The testimony would be huge.
We started school at 7:30 the next morning. The four Neufeld kids moved all their computers and books out to the room in the garage beside our little kitchen, and Isabelle and I learned the ropes and then presided until noon, when we went in for lunch, and then until 2:30 after lunch. It's all BJU DVDs, so we had time to do some lesson prep and our own studies too. From 3:00 to 5:00 a guy came to teach the Neufeld and Friesen kids Spanish, and Isabelle and I sat in. All of a sudden I woke up and the room was empty. Oops!
Isabelle and I ate by ourselves that evening. We have our own kitchen space by the school room, and eat our Breakfasts and some of our suppers there. Margie stocked our fridge and cupboards before we came, and we bought certain things like cereal and butter in Santa Cruz. Now I believe they are going to take us around to see the town. Toodle-oo!
This is the first blog post about Bolivia, and this is what all of them will look like. You won't be able to see the whole post in the email, so just hit the "Continue Reading" button at the bottom and you'll hop over to the blog and see the post in its entirety. If you didn't get an email for this post, just let me know and I'll make sure you're subscribed. If you're not on the gmail hangout, just click the link. It will only work if you have a gmail account. That's where I send out instant updates and pictures.
So.... I'm flying to Bolivia the day after tomorrow. It's exciting, surreal, scary, a dream come true - everything at once. It all started at Mission Fest in February. My cousin Isabelle and I had been actively seeking God's will for our missionary hopes since the previous July, and at Mission Fest my Mom's cousin Carolyn heard we were looking for an opportunity and told Aunty Syl about the missionary families in Bolivia who needed a mother's helper or two. Long story short, God made it clear to both of us that this was the thing for this fall.
Here's the deal: Rudy and Doreen Neufeld and Martin and Margie Friesen and their ten collective children are living in Charagua, Bolivia, and ministering to the Old Colony Mennonites in the area. They run a radio station and Bible studies among other things. They are missionaries with Avant. Isabelle and I will be mostly helping with the homeschooling of the chidlers - a "classroom" of seven or so. We'll live in the little guesthouse in the Neufelds backyard. Then there's Jake and Anita Derksen who recently moved to Santa Cruz from Alberta, enroute to join the Charagua crew. We'll split our time with helping them as well (they have six under ten).
The reason you haven't heard much about all this until now is that both Isabelle and I were at camp all of July and August - me until the 17th, her until the 26th. (Oh yeah. We're young. We can handle it.) We fly out of here, missionary partners at last, at 4:45 on the 30th.
Below are some pictures from summer 2018!
This was my home for much of the summer.
We played a lot of Mafia one week.
My camp name was Rapunzel.
One of my campers got ahold of my camera.
We went out to the field last night and goofed around with the camera a bit.
Now I'm busy packing and making sure everything is set to go.
I guess I was really stressed out, 'cause I broke the stress ball.
