Church Mission Trip

Last Saturday we traveled with our local church to a small village way up in the mountains north of Cochabamba. The trip took 4 hours, each way, and the views were amazing. The purpose of the trip was to put on a dental clinic for the villagers. Everyone in the village speaks Quechua so our spanish was pretty much useless. We did have three translators from our church with us so we were able to communicate a little bit. Mostly we spent our time there playing with the kids and handing out food. It was an absolutely amazing experience. Cochabamba is poor but appears rich compared to these small villages. Quite an eye opening experience considering this is how the majority of Bolivians live. Here are some pictures from the trip.

View of another village from the altar of the village we were in. The mountains surrounding these villages are massive and very majestic. The views made me pretty homesick for Crested Butte, especially since we saw a fair amount of snow. The altar that we hiked to is where they used to do animal sacrifices. They still do animal sacrifices but they no longer use the altar. Out of the whole village there are only two Christians.

This picture shows the village that we visited. People came from the surrounding villages as well.

Close up of some of the buildings in the village.

We made salvation bracelets with the kids and some of the moms that wanted them.

Here is our friend Danee and Natalie with two of the women from the village. The one between Danee and Natalie is 100 years old and she became a Christian when she was very young because she had a dream about God where he told her about Jesus. She can't read but carries around a Spanish bible with her wherever she goes.

Besides the mission trip our last two weeks have been full of administrative work and playing with kids at various orphanages. Natalie has started tutoring one of the Timmer girls, Grace, every weekday morning in English and math. She is enjoying it but is definitely challenged as she is not used to working with younger kids. On Thursday of this coming week our good friends Ben and Tenesha Baker will arrive here in Cochabamba for a two week visit. We could not be more excited as we really miss them and they will be the first people from home that we get to share this experience with. That is all for now. We probably will not make another post until after the Bakers leave on Sept 14th, but that is going to be a big post so make sure to check back in in a couple weeks. Hope everyone is doing well back home. If anyone has any prayer requests please let us know.

Our Jobs

Sorry it has been so long since our last post, but we have been busy. This post will be short and is mostly to let you all know what our jobs are at this point down here. First we will start with Natalie. Natalie is the communications director for the team down here. Mostly this entails sending out the team prayer requests every week, typing up the meeting minutes and planning group outings and get-togethers. My job is the short term team coordinator and accountant for IOU (International Orphanage Union). Basically this entails tracking the finances of the eight orphanages and the construction and maintenance costs as well as helping coordinate short term teams when they are here. So far we have had no teams, and I am in the process of setting up the accounting system.

Other than our official jobs we spend a lot of time volunteering with another orphanage called Casa de Amor, and we are in the middle of starting a new ministry with another one of the families that is down here with us. We will give you more details on that as we get it setup. Natalie is also helping to tutor the Timmers' youngest daughter in reading twice a week. Starting next week we will be helping tutor two other missionary kids where I will be helping with Algebra and Natalie will be helping with English.

We spend our off time exploring Cochabamba and establishing friendships with a few Bolivian couples that we really enjoy spending time with. If you are praying for us, we could use prayer for health, as Natalie had amoebas again this week. Natalie's family also lost their dog of 17 years this week, and it is really hard for her to be so far away from her family during this process. We've definitely experienced more home-sicknesses this week than any of the weeks before, so pray that we can enjoy the time that we are here.

Thank you for your support and prayers! Below are some pictures of some of the kiddos at Casa de Amor. They have 17 children currently with five full-time workers, so they are definitely overwhelmed and have appreciated the extra hands. The kids are all under the age of four, and ten are under the age of one, so it's a busy and exciting place!

Jaier teaching Rolando to ride one of the scooter toys.

Scott flipping Brayan while Benito watches with his coveted backpack.

Natalie's heart-throb Josue.

Brayan and Benito.