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!