Scott's Beni Trip

In the first week of December, I had the opportunity to fly out to one of our orphanages in San Lorenzo for a day trip. San Lorenzo is located in the Beni province of Bolivia which is north of Cochabamba. I flew with three of the other men from our team, Mike Timmer, Steve Morel, and Steve VanderWerf, as well as the ITeams director for Latin America. Our pilot, Tony Murrin, is one of the elders of our church here and his mission here is flying supplies and rescue missions around Bolivia from Cochabamba. This picture is of me with the two Steves from our team and the Latin America Director, Woody Roland, in front of the plane we flew in to get there.

The flight took about an hour and fifteen minutes and the scenery was really quite beautiful. This is a picture of Cochabamba from the air. In the middle, on top of the hill, is the Cristo statue and the tallest mountain in the background is Mt. Tunari which is around 16,600 feet tall.

We flew over the Andes north of Cochabamba and over the rainforest of Bolivia to get there. On the other side of the mountains the clouds are backed up for miles in every direction.

San Lorenzo is in the lowlands of Bolivia and as you can see from these pictures it is almost always surrounded by water.

We landed on a dirt runway and walked to the orphanage, pictured below.

After visiting the orphanage and walking around the town we went on a fishing adventure. We found a guy with a 20 foot long canoe that had a motor and we set out into the "Everglades" of Bolivia.

It was ridiculously hot, and I was sweating within two minutes of getting in the boat. It was a little freaky as our guide was telling us about the 20 foot crocs and the Bolivian anacondas, which are supposedly the largest in the world, that live in those waters. So for the first 30 minutes I jumped at every ripple in the water. We caught mostly piranha and I caught one Dorado, which is kind of like a mix between a piranha and a trout. 

Because of how sharp their teeth are you have to kill the piranha before you take the hook out of its mouth. When Steve Morel caught the first piranha one of the villagers that was with us grabbed the fish by the gills, pulled out his bowie knife and stabbed it in the head. It was pretty shocking at first, but it is better than losing a finger while trying to get the hook out!

If you have never seen a piranha, they are pretty scary looking fish.

In all we caught around 15 fish, I caught the only Dorado, and we left the fish for the house parents of our orphanage.

It was an amazing trip and it was really good to get to spend some time with the other guys of the ministry outside of the work environment. It was also great to meet the house parents and see a completely different side of Bolivia.

Keep checking the blog as Natalie will be doing a post for Christmas and the new year sometime next week.

Thankful...

Thankful…

Although Thanksgiving has come and gone, we are deeply thankful for this experience, and have found ourselves talking often about how grateful we are for the relationships we are developing here.  We have been fortunate to cross paths with incredible people who have taught us, challenged us, supported us, and adopted us.

 A group of Catholic women (and a few men from time to time) from a local Catholic church downtown have quickly become one of the most unexpected and fantastic blessings to us here in Cochabamba.  When we first arrived, another family on our team, the Morels, and Scott and I decided to start a homeless ministry.  We started going downtown to the main plaza every Thursday night to pass out rice and chicken, meat sandwiches, or hot oatmeal, bread, and fruit.  We started to notice that a group of women seemed to be doing something similar on Thursdays, only they were passing out coffee, tea, warm milk, and bread.  After talking to them one night in the street, they warmly invited us to come to their church, San Francisco, early the next Thursday to meet them so we could all go together.  We had no idea, at the time, what a huge blessing this would be.  The next week we all prayed together and sang together before we left.  These volunteers know EVERY homeless person in that area BY NAME.  They know parts of their life stories, why they are on the street, and they have developed personal relationships with these people.  The peoples’ faces light up when they see this group coming, and they have come to trust us because of our tie to this group.  We have met many single moms, men who are alcoholics, people with psychological issues, and boys and girls whose parents have passed away leaving them with nowhere else to go.  One of the men, Alfredo, is an unbelievable historian.  He can tell you anything and everything about the history of Bolivia- the government, the people, and the traditions.  We have cultivated a unique friendship with this group of people, and they have made it a point to teach us about Cochabamba and to help us experience as much of Bolivian culture as we can.  When Jenny was here, they took us to an authentic Bolivian restaurant that was packed! 

The picture above is just a few of the people we see every week, but from left to right is Lis, Joanna, Scott, me, Jenny, Jackie, and Silvia and Lucy (Jackie's mom) are in the front.  We never would have known about the restaurant, and we got to have great food and great conversation.  By the end of it, Jackie’s mom was my Bolivian mom (picture below) and I am now affectionately known as Jackie’s American sister. 

We plan to go and help with a huge Christmas lunch on Christmas day at the San Francisco church.

We have also cultivated some incredible relationships with the “tias” or women who care for the children at the Casa de Amor orphanage here in Cochabamba.  You don’t have to spend much time at Casa de Amor to see that these women are angels who have incredible patience and genuine love for the kids who live in the orphanage.  One of the women, Adelaida, has become a very good friend.  She invited us to her house to meet her family, share lunch, and play soccer and volleyball.  As she was inviting us, she told me that she wanted to make sure I understood that they were poor.  She was worried because their house is not complete.  This is very typical in Bolivia, as you pay for what you can afford.  Many Bolivians have partially constructed houses or rebar sticking up from the top of the first level awaiting a future second story. 

Our experience with Ade’s family was incredible.  She and her husband have three kids, Nicole, who is about 9, Gabriel, who is about 7, and Josue, who is just under 2.  We got to be part of a Bolivian family as we ate silpancho (a typical dish in Cochabamba with fried beef and a fried egg on top of rice and potatoes with tomato, onion, and their version of fresh jalapeno).  We played soccer and volleyball, talked, laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company.  Here are pics of us playing, and you can see the goals for the soccer field marked with cans.

We realized quickly that their values are very different from typical American values.  They buy what they can afford, which meant that Ade, her husband, and the baby sleep in one complete room and the other two kids sleep in another complete room.  They have a kitchen that is complete, also, so their house is safe and functional.  They are slowly adding rooms on a second story as they can pay for them, but are in no hurry, as what they have now is paid for and works well for what they need.  Despite a lack of riches, they shared everything they had with us- their food, their family, their home, and their time.  Below is a picture of us with their family.  The second picture is of us with Ade's family, their extended family, and some of the neighbors who played soccer and volleyball with us.

We have Christmas gifts to drop off to them this week- a new soccer ball and a new volleyball in thanks for the great day we got to spend with them and in gratefulness for their genuine friendship. 

We are also really involved in the young couples group at our church.  Some of our closest friends are couples from this group, so we invited over four of the couples and made a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for them.  

They loved trying the new food, and we loved having great friends in our home.  In the picture above, from left to right, are Ademar and Maria Jose, Mily and John Mark (he is Canadian-American and married to Mily who is Bolivian), Fabiola and Mauro, and Carla and Rolando.  We spent the night eating, talking, and celebrating great friendships.

Rolando brought his guitar, and he and Carla sang traditional Bolivian songs and worship songs.  As I sat there watching people sing and relax and enjoy each other's company, I couldn't help but get a little teary-eyed and thank God for our time here in Bolivia and the people that have made our experience so incredible.  Although this worship song that Rolando and Carla are singing is in Spanish, the words are, "I'll sing to You, Lord, a hymn of love for Your faithfulness to me.  And I'm carried in everlasting arms; you'll never let me go through it all."  While this first six months has brough challenges and homesickness, we have so much to be thankful for, and we are looking forward to another six months with many more blessings, people, and experiences to come.

Jenny, Working, & Halloween In a Cave!

Happy (late) Halloween, especially to our American friends and family! Scott and I are not huge Halloween enthusiasts, but this Halloween was probably the best we've had yet. A few days before the 31st, we had a great Fall Festival party with our team and friends here in Cochabamba. Scott dressed up as a spitting image of a fellow teammate, Steve VanderWerf, and I dressed up as an 80s bridesmaid with my friend Danee with $1 dresses we found in the Cancha.

I am sure after seeing the pictures I will have a lot of requests to borrow my beautiful dress, so all of you ladies back home will have to take turns. It's quite a number! Jenny, my cousin who is visiting us right now, was a professional leprechaun. Danee's husband, Steve, found a shirt at the Cancha that said, "I am Troy Davis," so he was Troy Davis... whoever Troy Davis is! Their daughters were Waldo and a Candyland girl.

For actual Halloween day, however, we were invited by the school I work at, Carachipampa, to chaperone a senior trip to Torotoro National Park here in Bolivia. Seeing as the seniors were in desperate need of chaperones, they gave us a pretty great sales pitch, and the trip ended up being incredible! Jenny came along for the six hour (one way) bus ride and the three day excursion. The trip was filled with adventure, nature, and conquering fears! Our first day, which happened to be Halloween, we spent sporting helmets and headlamps and venturing a kilometer below the ground into a huge cave. I am extremely claustrophobic and, needless to say, was unexcited after our three Bolivian guides painted a picture on our way in of climbing through extremely tight spaces. I am here to write about it, however, and not only did I make it: I would totally do it again!

A majority of the cave was easy to stand up in, and the magnitude of the cave (which extends well beyond the kilometer we covered) was hard to digest. We made a loop, entering and exiting the same opening in the mountain, but traversing down one way and back another. We climbed, slid, and crawled almost exclusively using our headlamps for light, and viewed stalagmites, stalactites, various kinds of animal poop (our guide obsessively pointed out all the poop he could find), and various formations that are thought to look like things such as condors, trees, the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, and a wedding cake. It was fascinating and really fun.

Day two we spent touring a part of the park that resembled Arches National Park in Utah. The views were spectacular, and it was probably the thing that made us the most homesick since we've been here. We miss our Colorado mountains!

The third day we hiked into a canyon that is Bolivia's version of the Grand Canyon. We saw fossilized dinosaur footprints along the way. We hiked down and back the same way, with a vertical descent of about 350 meters in a little less that a kilometer. The hike was more or less straight down and... of course... straight up! Everything about the hike was 100% illegal in the US (not a guardrail in sight), so we spent a lot of the time praying that the senior boys, most of whom haven't seemed to master the concept of cause and effect well yet, would come back from the hike with a pulse. We traversed the river over huge boulders, sat alongside huge waterfalls, and swam in pools in the river at the bottom of the canyon. Scott conquered his fear of heights as he jumped with the boys into the pools from rock ledges. Jenny spent time coaching kids on how to climb waterfalls, and I took tons of pictures. It was quite the adventure!

Other than our fantastic side adventure, we are still continuing to do our work for IOU. Scott now spends a day a week doing accounting and adminstrative duties for IOU, a day or two doing construction on new orphanages, a day working at the restaurant, a day tutoring kids in math and just started Spanish lessons today. I am still working at Carachipampa every morning, and have been offered the opportunity to teach 11th and 12th grade English at the beginning of the year for the spring semester. I am honored by the opportunity and am intrigued by the idea of an education experience in such a different context. Although I still have not made a decision as to whether or not I will take the offer.

Jenny will be with us until the 17th when she heads toward Lake Titicaca before returning to the US. She has been able to see many parts of our life, including helping with construction on the new orphanages, working at the restaurant, Carachipampa, Casa de Amor, and babywashing.

It has been a huge blessing to have her here to share our life with and to be close to family. We don't miss many material things from the US (okay... maybe Resee's, good beer, clean lettuce, and rubber scrapers), but we definitely miss the people. Thanks for praying for us, the emails, the donations to us and babywashing, and the support. We are feeling challenged, purposeful, and very blessed.

The Last Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been a little rough around here. Natalie has been pretty sick for the last week and the week before that she had to go to the doctor because of a sharp pain in her abdomen. She is beginning to feel better but is definitely still not 100%. Turns out she has amoebas and giardia. She finished the medication for the amoebas on Tuesday night and started the medication for giardia last night. Hopefully she will be back to 100% by the end of the weekend. We could definitely use prayers that we can keep her healthy from this point on as I’m not sure how many more times she can be sick before she has had enough and wants to go home.

Other than that the last two weeks have been relatively uneventful. I worked at our orphanage construction site all day on Tuesday, which was a lot of fun. I am continuing to setup the accounting system down here. I finished setting up the orphanage side of things yesterday so now I will begin working on sorting out all the different businesses that we have. Natalie and I are also beginning to do some research to possibly start a coffee shop and Christian bookstore somewhere here in Coch as a another business to support the orphanages. We are in the very early stages of this process so there isn’t much to report yet. We will keep you updated as we make progress.

We are in the process of “re-branding” Bolivia’s Best Coffee. We have a new couple here right now, the Hulseys, who have a lot of experience in marketing and graphic design. So they are putting together a new image for the company as well as press release packages for the organization as a whole. We are growing so fast down here it is clear that God has a hand in this ministry. Our hope is that the “re-branding” and the new marketing strategies will be able to drastically expand IOUs ability to construct new homes and house more kids. We will be posting the new images and press release information on this blog when it is ready.

Big news, we just received an email this morning with the flight itinerary for our next visitor, Natalie’s cousin Jenny, who will be arriving on October 23rd and will be staying with us until November 21st. We are incredibly excited to see her! If anybody else wants to make a trip down, our guest bedroom is almost always open! I think that is about all. We hope that everyone back home is doing well and as always please send us any prayer requests that you may have. Thanks for all your support!

Ben and Tenesha's Visit

Ben & Tenesha arrived on the night of September 1st. It was pretty amazing to see them getting off the plane and knowing that they came all that way to see us. We spent the first week they were here in Cochabamba showing them some of the tourist sites and our day to day lives. Right after they got off the plane we took them to the main plaza to help us and the Morels with our homeless ministry. Must have been quite a culture shock! On Friday we took the to La Cancha, which is the largest open air market in the world, and then to one of our homes where we played soccer with the kids. Saturday was our really busy day. It started with Ben and I going to a men’s prayer breakfast that is hosted by our church on the first Saturday of every month. We then picked up Natalie and Tenesha and went to Casa de Amor, another orphanage here in Coch, to help feed the kids lunch and put them down for their afternoon naps. Then it was off to the main plaza for babywashing. Ben and T really enjoyed this part as they were able to wash kids alongside us and our new friends the Hulseys.

That night we went to our church since Sunday was national no motorized vehicle day. After church we went over to the Morels for games and desserts. Sunday was a relaxing day at home. We played games and rested after the busy day we had on Saturday. On Monday morning Natalie went to Carachipampa, the school that she tutors Gracie at, and I took the Bakers to our weekly meeting. After the meeting the three of us went to the nutrition center to help with them feed the kids lunch. Then it was off to the Christo. The Christo is a 33.3 meter tall statue of Jesus with his arms spread out as if he were embracing Cochabamba. The views from up there are amazing. Tuesday was spent doing construction work on our two newest orphanages in Kewina. Our last day in Coch was spent between Carachipampa, Casa de Amor, and packing for our trip to Peru. Our flight left Coch that evening and we spent the night in La Paz before flying out early in the morning for Cusco.

We arrived in Cusco around 10 am and were taken to our hostal. We spent the morning wandering around Cusco and resting before our city tour in the afternoon. Here is a picture of the Cathedral in the main plaza in Cusco.

Cusco was the capital of the Incan Empire so there is a lot of history right around and in the city. The city tour took us through the Cathedral, to the Sun Temple of the Incas, and to three Inca ruin sites on the outskirts of Cusco. Here is a picture of all of us in front of the Sun Temple, which has been mostly reconstructed and is used as a church and monastery now.

Friday in Cusco was a free day. We spent the day going to art and history museums as well as just walking around the city. In the later afternoon we walked up a street called San Blas that leads to an artisan area. The street, pictured below, is extremely narrow and steep. As cars were trying to brake on it you could hear their tires skidding on the cobblestones.

On Saturday Ben woke up sick, so him and T stayed at the hostal and took a bus up to Ollantaytambo, which is where the train for Macchu Picchu leaves from, to our hostal. Natalie and I went on a pre-scheduled tour of some old markets and some more Inca ruins in the Sacred Valley. Here is a picture of us with the Sacred Valley in the background.

Here is a picture of us at the Inca ruins of Ollantaytambo.

The tour bus dropped us off at our hostal where we picked up Ben and T and went out to dinner. The next morning we caught the train up to Macchu Picchu Village and then got on a bus that took us up to Macchu Picchu. Here is a picture of us near the entrance to Macchu Picchu, the ruins are over a ridge on the left hand side of the photo.

Here is a picture of all of us in front of the Macchu Picchu ruins.

Macchu Picchu was absolutely breathtaking! Definitely one of the most amazing places I have ever been. We took a tour through the ruins with a tour guide and learned a ton about the site as well as Inca culture and society. It was really cool to see this huge “city” that was built right in the middle of the rainforest. At the end of our tour we did a little hike that took us along the Inca Trail for about 20 minutes. Here is a picture of part of the trail.

The Inca Trail is just as impressive as Macchu Picchu. It is a trail that was literally built on the sides of cliffs. There are sections of it that seem impossible to have constructed. Even with today’s technology this trail would be incredibly difficult and dangerous to build. Macchu Picchu was completely worth the trip. If you ever get the chance to go we would highly recommend it. Here is our version of the famous Macchu Picchu picture.

After the tour we returned to Macchu Picchu village where we stayed the night and the next day. We spent that day touring around the little village and even made a little stop at their hot springs. That night we took a train and then a bus back to Cusco. The next morning we flew back to La Paz. We spent the day in La Paz just playing games and talking about how awesome the trip had been. The next morning Ben and T flew back home and we flew back to Coch. It was really hard to have them leave. I don’t think we realized how much we miss our family and friends until they left. We are very grateful to Ben and T for taking the time, and spending the money, to come down and visit us.