Kelli's Visit, Continued Ministry, and Future Plans

My sister, Kelli, was able to come down and visit us for the last week of March through the first week of April. We had a lot of fun showing her what we do down here on a weekly basis and even got to take her to the Salt Flats in Uyuni with two other families! We are so glad she was able to come down!

In March, we also hosted the Bolivian Young Couples group from our church, that we have been attending all year, at our house. It has been an awesome group to be a part of and we have made many close friends who will be very hard to leave.

Our time is mostly taken up these days with teaching at Carachipampa, Natalie full time and me part time. Natalie is still working with the Timmer's youngest daughter, Grace, in the mornings and teaches 11th and 12th grade English in the afternoons. I have taken over 7th and 8th grade computers and will be teaching 7th and 10th grade math next week while another teacher is in the States.

Babywashing and Homeless Ministry continue to thrive. In fact, last night Steve and Danee Morel coordinated a Bible study in the Plaza for the people that we see every Tuesday night. In total 5 men and 1 woman showed up and our Bolivian friend Adrian led them in a study of the basics of Christianity. It was really cool to see them listening to him and asking questions. After the Bible study they shared a meal with some of our volunteers. We also passed out bread, fruit, and coffee, as it is getting cold here at night, to the Quechua women and their children who line the streets around the Plaza.

One of our biggest prayer requests for the past month is for the money and manpower to complete repairs on one of our unfinished homes in Kewina. In March, a huge hail and wind storm hit our area and knocked over 30 or 40 trees in the area of our homes. One tree that was around 150 feet tall bounced off the corner of one of our homes. It caused extensive damage to the roof and minor structural damage to the exterior wall. Luckily the homes are not being used yet so no one was injured and the damage is all repairable.

These two homes sit on the property of a big Christian Camp that is owned by SIM. They were not as lucky as their chapel was almost completely destroyed.

As far as our future plans go, I finally found a job and we get to stay in Colorado! But we are going to be moving to Crested Butte as my job is with a small firm that is based there. We have already found a townhome to rent in CB and I will be starting my job on May 29th! We are excited about the move but also sad that we will be leaving the Denver area and all of our friends and family that live in the front range. But we will make frequent trips back to the front range for visits and you are all welcome to come visit us in Crested Butte. We are still trying to decide what to do with our house in Broomfield, so if you know of anyone that is looking to rent in that area please let us know.

New Home Construction

Back in February I had an awesome opportunity to help with the design and construction of a new home for a very poor family that lives south of the airport here in Cochabamba. The head of the family is a 21 year old named Carina. Both of her parents are dead and as a result she takes care of her three siblings and her own son. Here is a picture of the one room house that they currently live in that is in the middle of a "lake" that floods them out of their house every year. Her house is made mostly out of old pieces of corrugated metal and cardboard. The back wall is made out of adobe, and here in Bolivia there are beetles that live in the adobe that make your heart swell and can kill you if they bite you.

The project was started by Chris and Erin Sidmore, pictured below, who are missionaries from Montana. Chris also teaches at Carachipampa, the school that Natalie and I know work for on a part time basis. The goal is to build around ten very simple houses for different families that live in this area. Carina's new home will be the first one.

My job was to come up with the basic design of the house and to design the foundation. Once the design was done I traveled out to the site with a team of high school students from Carachipampa and directed the work for the foundation. It took twelve of us eight hours to dig and pour the foundation. Construction down here is a whole different ball game!

Here is a picture of the foundation after we finished digging and placing the rebar. You might notice the tools laying across the ditch, those are what we suspended the rebar from. Carina's old house can also be seen in the background.

After lunch we poured the foundation. Most of the group helped with the mixing and transporting of the concrete to the site as we had to mix about 400 yards away since it was the only place with electricity in the immediate area. Myself and one of the kids, Levi, worked and finished the concrete.

One of the coolest parts of the experience was working alongside Carina as she helped us with the digging.

Currently there is a mason working on the walls of the one room house. When he is done I will travel back out to the site to direct construction of the roof and to help pour the concrete floor. It was a pretty awesome experience and I look forward to helping them finish this first house before we leave in May.

The Coopers Meet Bolivia

Even though we spent a great holiday season with adopted family and new friends in Bolivia, it was a welcome sight when my parents finally walked through the gates at the Cochabamba airport!  They came for a two-week visit in January and needed a vacation from their vacation by the time they boarded their plane to return to the U.S.  We kept them very busy!

We spent the first week and a few days of the second week of their visit showing them around Cochabamba.  We started by taking them down to La Cancha (the market) and riding every where on trufis (public bus/van transportation).  They found out quickly that we hadn't lied about the smell at La Cancha, and they both had immediate panic attacks when out on trufis and taxis in the crazy Cochabamba driving.

We made multiple stops at one of our favorite places to spend time, Casa de Amor.  We spent plenty of time playing with and cuddling babies.

We took them to a few restaurants to try some local dishes.  At Casa de Campo, they got to try a Cochabamba favorite, Silpancho, that includes rice, potatoes, fried beef, eggs, onion, tomato, and locoto peppers.  Silpancho will be something we miss when we return to the Unites States!

We also took them to a local favorite, Kabobs, which is owned by an Iraqi man who has been living in Bolivia for years.  It was delicious!

We took them to a local Saturday market, which is where we buy a lot of our groceries for the week.  It blocks off a few streets every Saturday, and we can buy fruits, vegetables, potatoes, pasta, dairy items, and beautiful flowers for the week.

We took them to the Cristo statue, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cochabamba.  We took the gondola up after waiting in line for over two hours in the hot sun!  We got to go up inside the statue, so the wait was worth it.  After, we opted for the stairs on the way down... and all had very sore calves the next day!

Mom and Dad in front of the statue

Looking out from inside the statue

Mom and Dad with the city in the background

Mom and Dad got to see the work that we are doing, and spent time in each of the ministries we help with.  They came to homeless ministry on Thursday night, where we went down to the plaza and handed out bread to homeless people, mostly men, who sleep at the plaza every night.
They got to visit Carachi and watch me teach 11th and 12th grade English, which I started in January.  I am still tutoring a second grade student every morning at the same school, too.

Dad spent a day in Kewina with Scott doing construction where we are building two new orphanages.

Dad and Scott even got to take a day to play some golf with Scott's friend Jose Luis.

Walking on water at the golf course

While they were here, we decided to visit a different ministry in Cochabamba that Scott and I had wanted to check out for a while located south of the airport, which is one of the poorest areas in the city.  Our friend Chris joined the ministry, run by a local Christian church, which runs a kids club each Saturday. As he and his wife and daughter have spent time in the community, they have gotten to know people there who are currently without a home or are living in scrap metal and cardboard.  

Chris took us around and showed us the area.  The community is primarily sustained by the production of mud bricks.

Mud bricks and the ovens used to make them in the background

One of the houses in the area

Another example of a house (in the background) and the condition of the neighborhood

As we walked around the neighborhood, we handed out some stuffed animals and dropped off some food supplies at a few of the houses.  We found two little girls playing a game jumping over string.  They were so excited to have new dolls!

 Chris took us to one house in particular, where a woman named Karina lives with her two siblings and her two children.  She is 21 and her parents are no longer living, which has left her with the responsibility of herself and the other four.  They currently live in a shack made of corrugated metal and cardboard.  One wall is mud brick that contains dangerous beetles.  If a person is bitten, the bite will cause a fatal medical condition where a person's heart swells.  Her house is located in the middle of a "lake" of dirty water, and every time it rains hard they are at risk of their house washing away.  The house they had in the same location before was washed away during the last rainy season. Chris and his wife are raising funds to build houses in this area, the first of which is for Karina and her family.  Scott is helping to design the homes, and we will be posting about the progress.

Karina's house

Scott and Dad pulling out food supplies and toys to give to Karina (tan shirt standing behind), her sister (dark shirt to the right), her brother (blue shirt), and her children (brown and red shirt).  Chris is in a black shirt and gray shorts.

Living in Cochabamba, Scott and I are no strangers to seeing dire poverty, but this experience was really powerful for both us and for my parents.  

That same day, we left the neighborhood south of the airport and headed to the plaza for baby washing.  Mom and Dad both got to wash precious street kiddos, and Mom even got to do some hair and nails after the washing was finished.

After a whirlwind tour of Cochabamba, we jumped on a flight to La Paz and took a bus to Copacabana to see Lake Titicaca.

Our tour guide, Vladimir, took us to various places around Copacabana the first and third day of our three-day trip.  We hiked "Calvary" which was actually a difficult hike and was lined by the stations of the cross.  We were all completely winded and exhausted by the time we made it to the top, but the view was beautiful.

Starting the Calvary hike

The view from the top of Calvary

We toured the huge cathedral in the middle of town, and it happened to be a weekend where people were having their cars blessed outside the cathedral.  They were decorating them with fresh-strung flowers, paper decorations, confetti, and spraying champagne all over their cars.  Some were even lighting fire-crackers underneath their cars.

Vladimir explaining the various decorations and tourist items for sale around the cathedral

We also hiked the mountain behind the village, where we could look out across the seemingly endless lake.  It almost looks like the ocean!

Check out those guns!

The second day, we took a boat out to Isla del Sol (Sun Island) in the middle of the lake.  We stopped at various Incan ruins, and ended the day with a hike through a small village and into some larger ruins.  It was beautiful!

Enjoying the fresh air on top of the boat

Mom and Dad walking up the dock from the lake toward Incan ruins

The fountain above is a natural Incan spring.  Vladimir told us that the three openings represent the three Incan rules for living:  Don't lie, don't steal, and don't be lazy.  Both Mom and Dad, along with Vladimir, took water from each spout, put it to their face, and repeated the three rules.

Our trip to Copacabana was great.  It was nice for Scott and I to get out of the city, and we had great meals, conversation, and adventures together.

We had one last adventure when we returned to Cochabamba.  We took my parents with the Ross family, another family on our team, into the Chapare (the rain forest) on a hike to a beautiful waterfall.

We hiked through the rain forest to the edge of the river, where we stopped to have a picnic lunch.

The hike back up was quite the adventure... muddy, slippery, and over-grown!  We crossed a steel-cable suspension bridge (I got that information from Scott, of course), which was a little disconcerting, but finally made it to the top.  

Mom and Dad crawling their way through the jungle

Having my parents visit was a huge blessing.  It certainly made home feel a little less far away!  It was amazing to get to share our lives here with them, and I think they enjoyed the experience and are very glad they made the trip.  They certainly saw and experienced things that are not part of many everyday American lives.  We will be very thankful, too, when we go through our period of readjusting to American life, and we have people to talk to and process with that have been here and understand just how special Bolivia is to us.