18 Sick

After about 3 weeks of feeling spontaneous pains in my stomach, I had relief. Such pain can be expected in other countries because the bacteria are simply different. And then, finally, I felt healthy! I was at the top of my game, ready to take on any beastly plate of food that might come my way.

But you'll notice that I'm using a past tense.

2 days ago, I woke up with a hot head. We didn't have much on our schedule past a Spanish lesson. So when the lesson came about, I was feeling warmer, and my muscles were really relaxing and my stomach was starting to feel the pain. I laid down for a couple hours, trying to sleep. This was not a goal achieved. I curled up in my bed, moaning in pain, praying for the comfort of unconsciousness. It didn't come. One of the boys at the house is studying to be a doctor, and when he got home, he took my temperature at 102.02 F, which as you may know is pretty hot.

So then they took me to the hospital!

I asked the soon-to-be-doctor if they were going to take my blood, because, as you might know, I DON'T like needles... especially the ones opposite the elbow for the extrusion of my much needed blood. It creeps me out in a way I can't describe. But he said it'd be ok, and they might give me a needle in my butt, but they wouldn't take my blood, and I was ok with that.

And then they took my blood.

I only shook a little... ok, maybe my legs were bouncing 2 inches off the floor (quite literally), but it passed, and the results of the test said that it's not Dengue, or anything serious like that, and they came to the conclusion that it's a bacterial infection. Oh joy.

So the next day, we were supposed to go to Talita Cumi, but staying at home was the best option for me... with my SSOPs (spontaneous spells of pain). I can now honestly say that I have never felt such a pain in my life as I have from this "bacterial infection." I burned my hand really bad when I was like 8 or 9, and that was really bad, but this is a pain on the inside that I can do nothing about. no position or rubbing or soft flow of water can relieve the pain. It's just... there. But hey, it's getting better, so that's good!

I am now on a diet, and with the help of my pastor's wife's cooking skills, I'm able to almost enjoy my lack of dairy, bread, and anything exciting like that... Drinking more water than usual. I suppose that's a good thing, though the last time I decided to drink much water, it ended with two trips for an oral spurt. That was because I drank it all at once though. Yes, water poisoning is indeed true. That was before I took the first aid class.

Anyways, please pray:

-For my health, of course, as it improves, that I will quickly regain health and not find it hard to locate more pills.

-For Ken's success in fundraising, as he tries to raise money for a new property, as the family of boys seems to be outgrowing the present location.

-For the impression we leave of the friends we make here, and that they will forever remember the love that God has for them. That it will leave them affected enough to live their lives fully for him. ie- that we can live out our lives like Jesus and show them the love of God.

Thank you for reading and keeping up to date with me. You are totally awesome!

17 Love

So good news that I forgot to mention last time: the classroom cleaning and prayer payed off, and Christian is in school, I'm excited to say!

I've found one of the highlights of my time here so far to be working with the kids at Talita Cumi. I think this is a highlight because of how easy it is to love those kids, and how friendly and loving they are. They all got so much love in them. Something that was confirmed in my mind by a wise friend of mine is that God really allows people to grow in their ability to love; in their ability to understand; in their ability to be more like Him. He helps us grow in such things. People have so much love for someone, and God takes that and grows it up and people find themselves not understanding how such love could grow so deeply. I think this will happen constantly while I'm here. And it breaks my heart that the Bolivian laws state that orphanages that the government supports ($1 a day for each child), including Talita Cumi, must not allow children to reside there past the age of 18, and for all those kids who don't end up getting adopted just go on back to the streets. I guess that's what Ken's house is for.

Ken's house is really great. The heart of the mission is based in the love of God and He really is blessing this home.

16 Thankfulness

Thankfulness. It's an interesting thing. No matter how poor a person can be, they still have SO much to be thankful for. Notice that capitalization. God has given us all so much, including a whole world of people to bless and be blessed by. A whole world of people who by choice could by faith give you all their belongings if so called. Now, I doubt anyone reading this has either given EVERYTHING away, or been the recipient of such generosity, but to simplify, we all have so much to be thankful for.

For all of you who have seen me in person... or seen photos of me of the past 4 years or so, you know that I have quite a collection of bracelets on my wrists. I tend to be rather sentimental (one might even say semi-mental over it) and have a reason to wear each one. With the schedule that I'm living by, Mike and I work with El Jordan every Friday. El Jordan works with families from hard situations. So today, after going out to a property and setting up a game for tomorrows events, and doing other things (all the while, carrying a baby spider monkey in a little "monkey murse" on my back... awww!), we got to go work with the children at El Jordan. (By the way, the "J" is pronounced like an "H" and the emphasis is on the "a.")

So how does this connect with bracelets?

Well the kids were rather into my bracelets, and wanted them. Thoughts of giving and kindness ran through my head along with emotion-based thoughts of sentimentality.

"Well not all of them are extremely sentimental to me..."

With not a large number of kids, and a smaller number of children with wrists to small to fit such bracelets, and attention spans too small to stay focused on what was happening, I started removing the less sentimental bracelets from my wrists. Understand that the newest one I gave away had been on my wrist for almost 2 years, minus maybe 3 weeks total for which my wrists were rashey or burned. So sentiment builds up none the less, just from them being there, but hey, these kids don't really have much, and from what I've seen and what I've heard, these kids are so thankful for any small gift.

BUT

They ravaged them fiercely, trying to all get the one they wanted, none thanking me or even paying attention to the fact that they had received a gift. What bothered me much was the one girl (who looked about 15) who took 2 bracelets for herself. I asked her to give one to someone else, as not everyone got one who apparently wanted one. Bad counting on my part. And the one girl who didn't get one was Monsurrat, who, if you remember, was one of the kids at the house we helped build. The only kid there I already knew. So this double-braceletted girl offered her bracelet to her little 3 year old brother, who's wrists were obviously too small to support such a thing, but soon said "oh, it won't fit him. I'll just keep it." But in Spanish... So Monsurrat wasn't very happy, and I was feeling the same as she was. Eventually, the kid's mom showed up, and that always helps. Monsurrat has a bracelet now, and I think she's thankful.

It has been a day during which I wish I was fluent in Spanish.

So I am trying to convince myself that I should be thankful for the opportunity to bless these kids with gifts. And I should be excited for the possibilities of all the items I might fill my wrists up with again. But that's hard. Please pray for my attitude. I need to... I don't know. I need to be wise with giving, though I didn't feel foolish in my giving today. I just felt unappreciated. I'm not sure if I would be informing all the Internet community of this if I wasn't so exhausted and disappointed, I guess, but the thing with people is that as much as we get to know ourselves, we always tend to forget that everyone is just a fragile little mass with emotions on a weigh scale with life events on the other side. We're all just so topsy-turvy. Please pray that I can smile and let it go. I don't do things to be thanked, but I guess I've grown up expecting it.

So remember kids, say "thank you" when you feel it slightly appropriate, and you won't end up with the emotional missionary blogging about his lack of being content with his kindness... I don't know what I'm saying. OY! Time to relax.

In closing, let's all be thankful... and... I want a pet monkey.

15-Going to School

Today, I was trying to further my whatnot for Briercrest, but the topic of school is not in regards to me, but to Christian, one of Gary's sons, who is having trouble getting into school. They're new to the area and with only two small schools in the area they now live, it's not easy to get in. His loving mother has been cleaning the classroom and doing other things to try to earn her son's way into school, but there has not been success yet. Please pray for Christian, as he is such a smart kid, and should be in school. Pray that his mom's scrubbing pays off in the end. Oh, and school has already started, by the way. If you're confused, they just got off summer vacation here. We're 6 months different as far as school goes.

Mission Timoteo has made a decision to not accept Mike and I as volunteers as a result of another individual asking to volunteer, having priority. It would be "too cramped with all of us." But that's ok. All the best to them, and we will still find ourselves busy. Actually, Talita Cumi is very interested in having us work with them! If you recognize the name "Talita Cumi," it's because it's the name of the orphanage I was going to work at if I was accepted by the EFCCM! I'm amused by this. So yeah, I guess I get to work there anyway!

16- Soccer=Fun?

After church yesterday (Sunday the 30th), we went to a restaurant where Mike and I got to eat a cow tongue. It was actually quite tasty! I was amused by the irony in the fact that the tongue wasn't full of taste. It was good though... strangely better than the potatoes next to the tongue on my plate. Apparently to prepare this kind of potato, they grow them in the mountains, and store them for a couple days... or weeks, not sure. And they freeze at night, and dry and thaw during the day. Over and over. Not too tasty.

So after sitting at a table of 15, most of us went to a beach to play soccer and play in the water. For those of you who know me well, you probably know that sports are not quite my thing. I usually end up passing the ball to the other team... almost every time I get the ball. That is if I can manage to get the ball. Regarding scoring, the net better be empty, and there better be nobody around me for at least... 4 meters. But anyways, We played yesterday, and I truly enjoyed it! We played for probably 2 and a half hours, and it was so fun! I don't have anything to affect my pride in an ungodly way, as the most I did was an assist, if that's what it's called. I was glad to enjoy a sport.

I don't know what it is about sports that normally make me want to go... listen to music or something. I think it's a toss-up between pain, rude words resulting from competitive nature, and people trying to tell me how to do it. I know how to do it... well kinda... I just can't do it!

15-The Near Future

I haven't posted a blog in a couple days! As I said last time, Ken was away in Cochabamba helping a friend, and I hear things went quite well there. They loaded all the furniture into the house: a site for the sore eyes of Amy, who has been relaxing on a mattress on the floor. They changed about 10 light fixtures and things are looking up for her. Please pray that Amy will be able to find local help soon, as she can't do this job alone.

Tonight, Ken took Mike and I to an orphanage we'll likely be spending much of our time. It's called Misión Timoteo (Mission Timothy). My kind of place! We had a meeting with the directors... in Spanish. I understood a portion of what was being disguised, but I felt a little lost. Things are looking good for us to work there. Maribell said that there's a chance of a problem working at this orphanage as a result of the older girls because "you is cute." But I don't think adding a little more testosterone to the orphanage is really worth refusing help (and we all know I don't possess a huge amount...).

So I'm personally very excited about this opportunity! And apparently I wasn't the only one. Just ask the 3 year old kid who left a puddle on the floor out of curious excitement!

Please pray:

-That Amy will find what she needs and who she needs for help with her mission.

-For my health. Nothing extreme, but I've been having some health discomfort.

-For the salvation of one of the guys at Ken's house. He seems to be much farther behind in his spiritual walk than was perceived these past 3 or so years.

-For Ken's health. He had fried chicken tonight for the first time in 3 months, but it wasn't in him for long.

-That everything would work out well with Mission Timoteo in our possibility of future work there.

14-Keeping Busy

So we slept at Ken's house last night. His friend is starting a home in Cochabamba, so he went there to help her out. We went furniture shopping yesterday morning, which was kind of fun, and we picked out a coffee table with a couch, love seat, and chair, which we carried around in the back of Ken's truck. Hopefully it was all ok for the 12 hour drive.

So the past couple days, we've been working with Gary's family, as I mentioned in another blog. Mike and I have fallen in love with this family and are always sad to leave. And 2 days ago, as happy as we were to be finished the house, we were sad to say goodbye.

We had some interesting adventures with them. When we were collecting bricks to make the floor, the kids were trying to be helpful and cut the bricks to fit, but a hammer isn't the most precise tool to cut a brick in half… The family was very generous and would often bring us out a glass of coca-cola. I've drank a LOT of pop these past days; especially for someone who doesn't really drink much pop at all! Anyways, one day, they brought us out a special drink that their mom makes out of corn. They call it "chichi" and it is sometimes alcoholic, but of course this glass wasn't. Mike and I weren't quite sure what to call it before we learned it's name, so we just called it "corn milk." We had both had it in our past adventures in Bolivia, but somehow we had forgotten how revolting it is! I was nervous about drinking it because I didn't know what the seed things were, or the big white mushy chunks (which, by the way, I did gag on). So we went on a little walk and discretely watered the grass with a common fake sip here and there. And of course, if you get a drink or really anything from a family who is excited about their new big house, no bigger than an average Canadian bedroom, you can't simply say "no thank you." It's interesting to see how things play out when you don't understand everything that people are saying. We were playing gringos vs. Bolivians in a soccer game with the kids until the neighbour kid got mad and took his ball and walked home. Apparently it was an aggressive game from his perspective… or something.

So that's a bit of what we've been doing. Please return in a couple days to get the latest.

Please Pray:

-For Marco and his wife, Corina, as some men came into their house with guns the other night and stole from them.

-For salvation of Marco's parents, and that this situation had a positive effect on them spiritually. (Apparently Marco's 78 year old dad was able to kick one of the guys away and knock the gun out of his hand. I thought that was cool). They shot at him, but nothing came out of the gun. The guns worked fine the next minute as they shot them in the air. Yay for loving intervention!

-A safe trip for Ken and Yimy on their drive back from Coch.

-For the continued fast language progression, as we're going to start more structured Spanish lessons on Monday or Tuesday… Maybe Wednesday.