Asi es...en Volibia

Help wanted...blog writer needed:)

2010-10-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

October....almost November....seriously? I have been a very poor blog updater this year.

An endless amount of big things and little things have happened in the last 5 months. Ups and downs, good times and bad, but overall we have been blessed through it all.

In June/July, Ruan and I got to visit the States for about 5 weeks. We went to Michigan camp meeting in Cedar Lake and then to the 2010 GC Session in Atlanta. Both were huge blessings and we are so glad we were able to attend. After the GC Session we went to the GMI leader retreat in Tennessee. We all joked that the only people who are tired after a "relaxing" retreat are a bunch of Type-A personalities who can't stop working even for a little bit:) That, too, was a blessing and we all experienced a renewed dedication to "finishing the work."

Back at the school Keila and Lyli held down the fort while we were gone. Lyli also dog-sat for us since Boesman stayed at the school.

In late July, the students and staff had a short mid-term break and we started up classes again at the beginning of August. With the new semester, we had some staff changes. Jason and Carrie joined our team. Jason teaches English and does the accounting, and Carrie teaches Math and Science. Jenny also joined our team. Jenny previously worked in Rurrenabaque at our sister school, but came to Guayara "just passing through." She came just as some other staff were leaving, filling a huge need. Praise God! Josh, Jose Luis, and Grace decided to go to Santa Cruz to work on the new TV station construction there.

We had a week of consecration with our staff and students in August. Since then we have been studying the topic of "True Education" weekly as a staff. Our staff is becoming more and more unified in mission and vision and we are moving forward as God opens the doors.

A couple weeks ago, we had an amazing experience in which several students (and staff, too!) rededicated their lives to Christ. Tears filled my eyes as I heard the heart-felt prayers of our dear students.

Time has marched on and we are just 3 weeks away from graduation 2010. Please keep our Seniors in your prayers as they decide where to go and what to do after graduation.

5K - Michigan Campmeeting

Ruan came in 2nd.

Then he came back to find me. I always walk. He always finishes the race and then runs back through the course to come in with me :)

Sabbath lunch at the Heslop's. We both had multiple layers on even though it was in the low 80's.

Dessert - yum:)

Spotted the Bolivian flag at Campmeeting.

Visiting Camp AuSable where I worked during the summer of 2000...wow, 10 years ago! That's why all of my campers are in college or working in the "real" world!

Getting ready to board the ferry to Mackinac Island.

On board the ferry

Another ferry with the famous Mackinac Bridge in the background connecting Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.

Fudge - gain weight just by smelling:)

Then rent bikes to burn off that fudge. I was actually a "good" girl and spent the whole day on the island without even tasting the fudge.

Ruan and me:)

Self-portrait while "driving" on M-185. Bikes and horses only:)

Beautiful M-185

Celebrating nearly 9 years!

Sabbath at the GC session - nearly 70,000 people attended the church service in the Georgia Dome.

Hanging out with my friends at the Weimar booth...looking forward to seeing Weimar in Bolivia in March!

GMI missionaries

When we got back to Bolivia, it was really cold (low 50's)!

Before you start teasing me for being a "Michigan girl," remember that we have no where to hide from the cold when it is 50.

Sabbath lunch - all bundled up!

Getting ready to walk to Yata!

Our first classroom/cafeteria/chapel/everything building. It finally came time to tear it down.

Jenny (mini-me), me, and Nancy.

Silly girls!

Jenny and I wearing the same shoes.

Jenny, Keila, me, Nancy, and Lyli.

Up to no good :)

Gabriel, Nancy, Ruan, me, Keila, Jenny, Lyli, and Kody.

Students' Day - balloon toss.

Check out the purple balloon in this picture.

Game time

Special meal with our Seniors - Nancy and Samuel.

Jenny ready to get some yummy food!

Grecia, Max, and Carla

Kody and Alcides

Some teachers and most of the Seniors

Baptisms - these are 3 of our upper grade elementary students.

Flying to Manaus on my way to Michigan for Melanie's wedding. This is a tributary to the Amazon and the shore of the Amazon.

Amazon river - absolutely huge!

Banana market - Manaus, Brazil.

Flying to Miami. North shore of South America.

Beautiful clouds

Stay tuned. I will try to post some pictures of Melanie's wedding here (as soon as I get pictures!)

God Bless!

Can May really be almost over?

2010-05-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

So, I have been wishing to write this blog update for...well, just about as long as we have been back in Bolivia. Most of you probably assumed that we have fallen off the edge of Planet Earth. Fear not, we are still faithfully occupying our little corner of the jungle here in Bolivia. We are just managing to keep busy as usual. Ruan is continuing as the director of the mission project here. He is also teaching Junior and Senior History/Geography/Civics. I am still educational director of the school (i.e. - principal). I am teaching Freshman - Senior math classes, as well as mixed choir and mens' choir. I'm doing the school's accounting while patiently waiting for a real accountant to come:) I am also happy to mention that my administrative assistant, Yaneth, arrived last week, so I will have some help in the office.

We have welcomed a few new staff members this year. Josh, a mission pilot in training, has joined us this year from the U.S. to teach English. He is also giving violin lessons to some of our students. Salim has joined us from Puerto Rico to teach Language Arts and to make life, in general, a touch more entertaining:) Nancy has joined our team from Colombia. She is teaching primary grades 3-4 and has been helping me with the school paperwork . Jose Luis and Grace have joined us from Ecuador. Jose Luis is teaching Physics, Chemistry, and Health. Grace is teaching primary grades 1-2. Jerry is back with us this year after spending a year at Familia Feliz in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. He is in charge of the boys' dorms and is teaching Religion to our Juniors and Seniors.

I always say this, but it is so hard to believe how fast the first several weeks (now months, really) of the school year have gone by. I know it's hard for all of you living in the U.S. to think about the beginning of the school year in May when everyone is gearing up for summer vacation, but here we are finishing our first trimester of classes. We started the year with 62 secondary students and 19 primary students. We were expecting near between 70 and 80 in secondary, but were actually pleased to not be at capacity. For the first couple weeks of the school year, our 62 young people were jammed into two over-sized huts that we have been used as dormitories since the school began in 2004. The sardine-conditions helped encourage our boys to put in time and overtime to get the new girls' dorm done enough to live in. The girls moved in to their new dorm at the end of March, and the boys got to spread out between the two older "hut dorms."

I am excited to share that we are finally using our new classrooms this year. It's so nice to be in big classrooms with real cement floors. We don't have windows or doors put in yet, but they are so much nicer than any other classrooms we have ever had. Hopefully we will get the roof insulation done this year so we can still teach when it is raining! The rain is so loud on the tin that you cannot hear anything. So, in essence, I guess we have "rain days" instead of "snow days." :) Fortunately the majority of the school year is pretty dry as dry season lasts from April until October.

Like every year, this year has started with its new set of challenges. Though we started with 62 students, we are already down to 50. A few have been expelled and others have chosen to leave voluntarily. We are always sad to see the students go, but with the vast majority, we know it's what is best for the rest of the students. It's a challenging program, and we don't require any student to stay who doesn't want to be here. It's so sad to see the hearts of parents breaking when they see their children opt to give up the opportunity of a good education and moral training. Even after they leave our influence, we continue to pray that a seed was planted in the short time they were with us.

At the end of April, we had a visit from a mission group from Brazil! Brad Mills, director of the Luzeiro Project on the Amazon River, brought a group of 11 volunteers from the Luzeiro project to our project. What a blessing it was! The group set up medical and dental clinics in the communities close to the school. We were blessed as they shared testimonies each evening about the ways God has worked in the Luzeiro project and in their lives. Brad was actually the first director of our school in 2004, so it was really special to have him on campus. Because of this experience, our Seniors are now planning to do a class mission trip.

So, we continue to move forward. Each challenge and trial helps us rely less on ourselves and more on our Heavenly Father and His guiding. Please keep this and other mission projects in your prayers:)

Aerial view of the school. The white square in the middle is the new girls' dorm. The white roof to the left of the square is our house. The rectangles to the right of the dorm are the cafeteria and new classrooms.

Front of the new girls' dorm. Still some work to do, but getting there.

Moving day - the girls getting settled in to their new rooms.

New classroom! This is my Freshman math class.

Rice harvest 2010

Brad Mills, director of Luzeiro project in Brazil, and Bruno.

Medical clinic in Yata. Our students helped register the patients, take vital signs, translate (Portuguese/Spanish), and distribute medications.

Ms. Francisca - She talked and talked to us in Portuguese even when we told her we had no idea what she was saying. She just repeated it - louder:) She bought decorations for our little chapel.

Mindy and Susie working at the medical clinics.

The "pharmacy."

Ruan with Dr. Ricardo

The "new and improved" airport in Guayara. It's an asphalt runway in the middle of nowhere about 4 miles from town. Completely inconvenient...but as long as we are advancing:) This is the airport's communication tower:)

Steve on one of his village flights.

Tree fallen over our entrance road. Ruan, Jerry, Salim, and Noel (one of our Seniors) hacked at this thing for quite a while one morning so we could leave campus and get to town.

Keila and me.

Salim

Staff worship

Jerry likes the snakes.

Boesman doesn't:)

Steve, the pilot, and Jose Luis.

Abby and her monkey, Georgy, taking the clothes off the line.

Bridge jumping. This is Josh showing the boys how it is done:)

The boys jumping.

Primary school kids peeking out of the classroom.

Kody and I enjoying some music time with a couple of the students after church.

Nancy, the tarantula, and me.

Jacqueline, Jose Luis's daughter, and Paulina, our student from Las Amalias.

The fumigation crew. They blow a thick smoke all over campus at dusk to kill the mosquitoes.

Kody and Lyli at Lyli's birthday celebration.

If you aren't carried to the river on your birthday, the river is carried to you. One of our Juniors gets a special birthday surprise.

Lizeth, one of our Freshmen, wants to learn to play the guitar.

Teacher Josh with some of his students.

Max is practicing the piano. Kody gives lessons to two of our Seniors.

Sleepy Ruan with me playing the guitar. This was late one Saturday night. I would like to learn to play, but my time is somewhat limited right now.

All of these pictures are from other people's cameras. I used my camera for the first time today. I know, it's terrible. So, hopefully for the next blog I will have some more pictures of Ruan and I together. I charged our camera's battery, so really I have no excuse now:)

I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Furlough 2009 - 2010

2010-02-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

Well, our time here is rapidly coming to a close. We are sad to leave, but at the same time, we are glad to be getting back to the school. We are here much later this year than we normally are. In fact, we celebrated Ruan's birthday yesterday here in the States for the first time since 2005. We will begin our journey on Tuesday. We are taking two days to drive to Miami and we will be flying from Miami to Bolivia on Thursday evening, February 25. Keep us in your prayers as we travel.

We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with our friends and family. We only regret not seeing more of our dear friends who live so far away from our mid-western base:) We also enjoyed making some new friends. For some of you, you may have never read this blog before. Please take the time to look over past pictures and stories.

We worked hard gathering resources and materials for the school. The Lord blessed in many ways. We will be taking down some new textbooks for our math classes (my favorite books, and in Spanish, too!) and we purchased a number of resources for our English classes. We also found some great DVD's that will help our history teachers (especially Ruan) prepare for their classes. We will be purchasing an inverter and some small solar panels that David or Jeff can fly down to Bolivia in the small planes as they have the space.

Slightly disappointing for us, we were not yet able to send a container to Bolivia. We still have pallet-loads of Spanish books for literature evangelism, boxes of donated clothes, school supplies, power tools, equipment, desk/chairs, a 6-wheel drive truck, trailers, and more here waiting for the moment that we are able to ship the container. We will continue collecting funds for the container shipment and Ruan's family here in Michigan will help load and ship everything as soon as all comes together.

Please pray for us as we start a new school year. We have accepted more students than we originally wanted to, so it appears that we will be right at capacity, around 80 students. If all the volunteers show up who have committed to come, we will actually have all the teachers we need to start the school year. Some of the teachers will be slightly overloaded until mid-year when additional volunteers plan to join the team, but we feel so blessed to begin the year with the team that God has given us.

I included a spattering of photos from our furlough this year. I hope you enjoy them. I will try to get a beginning of the year post up as soon as the beginning of the year rush is over! :)

My 3rd and 4th grades from my first year teaching (and one from my second year teaching). My first class will graduate in May:)

Jared - I taught him typing when he was in the 5th grade. Now he's studying aviation. Maybe he will be a mission pilot in Bolivia :)

Winter fun with the doggies. Katryn, now 14 years old, got a new lease on life when we came home with Boesman.

Katryn, Boesman, and the newest doggy "cousin", Kindassie

Quick photo stop on a Sabbath afternoon walk in the woods:)

Drew, my nephew, just before Christmas

"Family portrait"

Another photo at the Heslop abode, compliments of Darren. He actually managed to catch Ruan with his eyes open for the photo.

Lazy, lazy dog

Gingerbread castle at the hotel lobby at GYC

Main auditorium at GYC in Louisville

Keila, Monica, and I at the Gospel Ministries booth at GYC

Lots of DVD's at the GYC booth.

Song service

Friday night - singing in the hotel lobby

Overlooking the Ohio River from a friend's balcony

Walking to Lake Michigan, St. Joseph, MI

Keila - barely surviving the Michigan winter

Visiting the Athearn's and their giant animals. This is Rocky, the cat...

...and Natasha, the Great Dane.

Working on the living room in Ruan's parent's house.

Piece by piece, putting down a rustic maple floor.

Almost there...

Several weeks later...the finished product.

We drove south to meet winter. There was an ice storm at Laurelbrook Academy in Tennessee that knocked out the power for a day.

But it was pretty:)

Super Bowl 5K

Ruan placed 3rd in his age group. I walked it...but I did walk fast:)

Ruan, Dr. DuPreez, and Melanie all medaled in their age groups.

My new nephew, Brayden, born on Super Bowl Sunday:)

Mike and Drew sledding behind the new house.

My nephew, Drew, and me

Such hard work:)

New little nephew, Baby Brayden, and me:)

Cute little nephew:)

End of the year photos...

2009-12-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

A busy end-of-the-year made for zero time to blog. We are now back in the States. We arrived in Atlanta, Georgia on December 2. For those who are interested, the following is our confirmed schedule:

Dec. 26 - Mt. Pleasant SDA Church, Mt. Pleasant, MI
Dec. 30 - Jan. 3 - Generation of Youth for Christ Conference, Louisville, KY
Jan. 4 - Indiana Academy, Cicero, IN
Jan. 9 - Lansing SDA Church, Lansing, MI
Jan. 16 - Kalkaska SDA Church, Kalkaska, MI
Jan. 23 - Hannibal SDA Church, Hannibal, MO
Jan. 30 - Toronto, Ontario (tentative)

We are happy to share with other groups during mid-week gatherings, but our weekends are pretty much booked. Hopefully we will get to see most of you! For the sake of not giving away some of our newest adventures, I will only post pictures in this blog. For those of you who haven't heard the Lear jet story, I will have to post it after we are done touring the mid-west:)

The following are some miscellaneous photos from the end of the school year.

Road construction in front of the school entrance. They are currently widening the road between Guayaramerin and Riberalta with plans to pave next year. Since this is our only way to town, a new road will mean a whole new way of life!

Lyli, our volunteer who was in the plane accident one year ago, with Savana, Jeff and Fawna's premature baby girl. Both are doing great and are constant reminders of how God cares for each one of us.

Ruan "bike-pooling." The preferred method of transportation in Guayaramerin.

Teacher Lyli with her students in Kindergarten through 4th grade.

K-4

Christmas in October. We celebrated Christmas this year with our students in the month of October. Since our students are not in school during the Christmas season, they have a very limited exposure to the holiday. It is a time when their parents get drunk and the locals parade through the streets in a half pagan/half Christian (if you can say that) ceremony. Most of our students do not know any Christmas carols, even though they are right there in the hymnal. And very few knew the story of the birth of Jesus. So during one week in October, all of our group worships centered around the birth of Jesus. We also shared some Christmas traditions from each of our countries. I made sugar cookies and apple pie. OK, so apple pie may not be a Christmas tradition in every American home, but it is Ruan's favorite dessert, and I wanted to make some for him.

My "Christmas" present - a fan. What a difference it makes! I feel spoiled! It's such a blessing to finally have enough electricity to use one.

The sugar cookies. Without a refrigerator to chill the dough and rolling pin to roll it, they looked more like peanut butter cookies, but they still tasted like good ol' sugar cookies. It was so fun that day. I got done with my classes, had Christmas carols playing on my computer, turned my fan on high, and just enjoyed baking.

The finished pie - Ruan's Christmas present:)

We taught the kids some Christmas carols and they went caroling around campus in groups. We handed out the goodies that we made and shared more of the story of the birth of Jesus.

About 5 months after her accident, Keila can bend her knees almost completely normally. What a blessing!

Boesman with Lyli the day we left to come back to the States. Boesman got a bath and an American flag handkerchief around his neck. He was so concerned as we packed our bags and very excited when he was told to come along.

A view into the plane.

Pilot and "co-pilot"

The "economy-class" section.

And the "first-class" section:) Boesman was the most comfortable passenger during the whole trip.

A Long-Awaited Update:)

2009-09-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

Wow…time just doesn’t stop! So much has happened since last time I was able to post a blog. July started out as a very difficult month financially for the school. Many of you, our family and friends, responded with your prayers and economic support. God is good and we were not only able to purchase the food and fuel we needed for the month, but we were also able to take care of Grecia’s medical needs, move forward on our construction project preparation, and finish some basic maintenance on our truck. We also got a gift to buy a much need keyboard for the school.

Examining the new keyboard. A huge blessing for our choir class and church services!

In early August, the students worked very hard with Ruan’s dad to get the construction site ready for the mission group coming from Texas. A few times they worked well into the evening hours using a generator and light bulb to provide the necessary light for the work site. By August 5, the site was mostly ready and we all traveled to town to march in the Independence Day parade. We have learned in our previous parade experiences that it is just not worth it to spend the entire morning waiting for our turn to march. (You can refer to the blog post “Potpourri” from 2008 to read about the exciting parade day in Guayaramerin – it’s probably not anything like what you are picturing). Since we are always the last school to march, we always have to wait about 5 hours for our turn. This year we decided to take all of our students to Itauba, a small hotel/resort on the edge of town to wait for our turn:) There they have “beach” volleyball, a lake in which one can swim or canoe, and a variety of tropical animals in a small “zoo.” Ruan and I monitored the parade progress while running last minute errands in town. New flag poles….check. Mattresses for mission group arriving next day…check. Shoes fixed for student…check. New skirt for Albricia…check. Around and around town we went, always checking to see which school was marching. Finally we rounded up our kids from Itauba and brought them to town to march. Overall, it was a much more pleasant way to spend parade morning.

Pre-parade activites at Itauba

Mindy and Clint - Jess, this one is just for you:)

Ruan with the Senior class

Snow cones...nothing tastes better when it's 100 degrees outside.

That evening I flew to Santa Cruz with Grecia. Grecia had to go for her second surgery on her collar bone. The bent nail that was holding her broken bone together had finally punctured her skin. I picked up our friend, Paeter, from the airport that evening and our long-awaited mission group from Texas the next morning. Just like that we were back in Guayara.
The following week we cancelled all classes. Students and staff joined together with our Texas group and in just 6 days we put up all the walls on the new girls’ dorm. It was amazing! We know God will continue to bless so that we can have the building ready for use at the beginning of the 2010 school year (February). Our kids are slowly, but surely, stuccoing the interior walls now. Doors, windows, roof, plumbing, and floors still left to go. You can check out the group's photos at www.flickr.com/photos/kejay/sets/72157622004148347/ . I got to be on the clean-up crew until I started a small burn pile that went slightly out of control. I got nervous long before anybody else did. "No pasa nada, teacher," my students kept telling me. After burning a bunch of dry brush the little fire turned big and started moving toward the water system and tank. Fortunately, it only burned a small leak in one pipe before the students and other staff came to help put it out. I then retired from clean-up crew and made my way to safer work in the kitchen. 300 tortillas in 3 hours:)

Much, much safer in the kitchen:)

August also brought us a new teacher, Kody. Actually, Kody has been here before. He was a student missionary when Ruan and I arrived in 2005. After finishing his teaching degree at Walla Walla, he decided to join our team for another round. We are super glad to have him at our school. In addition to Kody, Paeter joined our team. Paeter has been working in the garden. The challenges of the fierce heat and scorching September sun take their toll on anyone, but Paeter has been a real trooper in that garden. You can check out more of his experiences at his blog, http://www.waeter.blogspot.com/.

Teacher Kody (middle)
Green beans
Tomatoes
Peppers

Unfortunately, we also had some hard experiences during the month of August. Every year there are challenges, and every year the challenges are different as God refines our characters. Teenagers here are much like teenagers in other parts of the world…the hormones are a-ragin’. We had to expel 6 kids – 3 guys and 3 girls – who had been sneaking out of the dorms at night to meet and “chat.” Two of the kids were our two Seniors. Sadly, we won't have a graduation this year. One couple, a Junior and a Freshman, was particularly rebellious and had been warned multiple times to change their course of action. They chose not to and we were left with no choice but to let them go. The girl has a pretty bad relationship with her mom and was not very interested in returning to her house. As some members of our Administrative Committee were taking her to her house she decided to jump out of the moving truck. She wasn’t badly hurt, just a couple bumps. But that started quite the drama with her mother who spread the rumor that the driver of the truck pushed her daughter out. Long story short, she then began various lawsuits against the school through different departments of the government. Her ultimate goal was to close down the school and get Ruan in jail. The District Office of Education and Child Protective Services both came out to the school to investigate how we do things. The District Office was impressed by what they saw. Child Protective Services was working closely with the girl’s mom, but could find nothing of which they could accuse us. We had an open meeting at the school. Church members, parents of current students, and parents of ex-students all came to hear what was happening. In the end, by the testimony of staff and students at the school, God was glorified and we gained even more support than we had before. Though we have heard nothing more of the situation, we are working closely with our lawyer should anything else surface before it’s all said and done.
I have to admit, it can be a little nerve-wracking to start dealing with legal issues, not to mention legal issues in a different language. But we just had to continue trusting that God was ultimately in control of the situation. I was then blessed to find this little passage in the Bible that brought me a lot of comfort. In Deuteronomy 19:15 – 19, Moses writes:

A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Though I have casually read the passage before, it sure held more significance during this experience.

Retired - I no longer teach 4th year math since there are no longer any 4th year students:(

All in all the last two months have been full of blessings and learning experiences. We are grateful that God has led us in the ways that He has. Though this month is starting with some financial challenges, we know by previous experiences, that God will provide.

In the mean time, we will continue to enjoy the scorching sun and insanely high temperatures while we long for enough electricity to run a fan and make ice:) And we will dream of the "winter" days when the temperature dropped into the upper 50's and made us nearly freeze. :)

Oh...and the cherry on top, on September 7, guess who turned 30. I think this last decade has gone faster than all previous decades.

Officially 30 and very busily working on this blog:) (Thanks, Allison, for the shirt.)

Just for fun...
This is what Tuesday looks like at the internet cafe on the main plaza in Guayaramerin, Bolivia.

And, last but not least, our cat's mother had yet ANOTHER litter of kittens. Cute, huh? No, we don't plan to take another one home. :)

Signing off for now from beautiful Guayaramerin:)

Tara & Ruan (and Boesman, too!)

Blog Mania!

2009-07-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

So, since it has been forever since I have actually posted a blog...and since I am in Santa Cruz with actual high-speed internet, I decided to share some bits and pieces of the last two months. You will find nine new blogs with photos below!

Getting ready!!

2009-07-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

In August a group from Texas will be coming to our school for a little over a week to help us build our new girls' dorm. We can't wait and we are working hard to get the site ready for their arrival!! Follow their trip at http://boliviatrip2009.wordpress.com/

Classroom Construction Project

2009-07-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

In April, Ruan's mom and dad and Tim, one of the members of their church, came to Bolivia for a couple weeks to put the floor in our new classrooms. We are now getting the wood ready to construct the rafters and put the roof on. We are looking forward to the day when we can use the new classrooms!

Bakery

2009-07-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

Outreach and income! We have recently started a bakery at our school. The bread is sold to the students and to the people in the village of Yata. We have now expanded from just simple white bread to wheat bread recipes as well. We are hoping that through the ministry of the bakery, the people in Yata will be able to learn more about healthy living. The pictures will tell the bread-baking story.

Pan dulce (sweet bread) in the foreground and simple wheat bread in the background.

Keilita

2009-07-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

Most people on our contact list have heard that Keila, Helen, and one of our students, Grecia, were in a motorcycle accident at the end of May. Keila injured both of her knees severly. Her right knee collided with the oncoming bike. Both knees were ripped up by the rough dirt road. She was flown to Santa Cruz where she had surgery to clean and repair the damaged muscles, ligaments, and tendons. After spending a month in Santa Cruz, Keila returned to the school for a week. We have started vacation she is back in Santa Cruz for physical therapy. We are praying for effective therapy and a complete recovery.

In the plane getting ready to fly to Santa Cruz from Guayara. She had to lay down in the plane because her knees were unable to bend.

Helen with Keila in the plane.

Grecia (broken collar bone) and DJ, the pilot.

Post-surgery in Santa Cruz.

The evening she returned to the school for her week-long visit. All of the students met the taxi and serenaded Keila.

You can keep Keila away from Yata, but you can't keep Yata away from Keila. The Sabbath that Keila was at the school she was unable to go to Yata for her weekly Bible study since our only form of transportation right now is by motorcycle. So, the majority of the people came to the school on motorcycle and Keila told the story of Moses in the afternoon.

Listening intently

The pictures on the left were taken the day after Keila arrived at the school (one month after the accident). That was the most she could bend her knee. The pictures on the right were taken exactly one week later. Since vigorous therapy cannot start until six weeks after surgery, she had only hydrotherapy and massage two times each day. We were all amazed at how much she improved.

Nursing class - Practice and Real life!

2009-07-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

We believe that education should be practical. That is one of the main reasons that we offer technical training classes at this school. Susie has been teaching our students health and basic nursing this year. Some of our 3rd and 4th year students are getting lots of practice putting their learning to use in "real life!" Most importantly, these students are learning to overcome the superstitions of their culture and put into practice the laws of health given to us by our Creator.

Cleaning and dressing wounds - 2nd year

Susie has no fear. Here she is allowing the students to use her arm to practice "stitching" with the staple gun.

And, of course, once it is in...it has to come out:)

Injections - 2nd and 3rd year

Can't practice on just citrus fruit, can you?

One morning Ruan went to Yata fairly early. When he returned he pulled three frozen chickens out of our backpack. I thought he had gone mad. Apparently the folk in Yata also found it strange since everyone nearby knows that the people in the "internado" don't eat meat. In any case, Ruan went on to tell me he had purchased them for Boesman. At that point, I really thought he had gone crazy. Actually, they were for Susie's class. It was time to practice how to put in stitches.

Ok, so not everybody is vegetarian:)

Boesman waiting patiently outside of the classroom. He got a big treat after nursing class was over:)

And why do we practice? Joel and Jhunior sewing a machete wound on Erika's hand. Joel (left) is our 4th year boy. He plans to continue studying medicine so he can be a medical missionary.

Susie supervised while the boys took care of Erika from beginning to end. They gave the shots of anethesia, stitched the wound, and cleaned and dressed it.

Primary with Lyli and Sary

2009-07-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

Lyli was finally able to return to Bolivia in early June. And she was even able to bring another missionary teacher with her! Sary and Lyli arrived June 7 and hopped right into the primary school. Keila had been substituting for Lyli since the beginning of the school year. When the bike accident happened, Keila was flown to Santa Cruz leaving us with only our secondary students to teach in the primary school. Our 4th year girl, Albricia, spent two weeks planning and teaching classes...good practice since she would like to be a teacher. Lyli is currently teaching grades K-3 and Sary is teaching grades 4-8. We are so happy to have Lyli and Sary here as part of our team!

Lyli helping one of her students.

Grades 4-8 with Teacher Sary

Sary and Lyli waiting at the entrance on their day off.

Recess!!

Sary with our cat, Bestia

Rice Harvest

2009-07-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Here are several pictures from this year's rice harvest. We planted 6 hectares on our neighbor's property. Our neighbor's part was one hectare, three hectares were for the school, and 2 hectares of rice were harvested for people in need. Our three hectares of rice lasted just under three months. We are currently clearing land to plant rice, beans, yucca, and more. One of the best ways to cut our monthly expenses is by growing the majority of our food.

The grains are removed and dried in the sun on big tarps.

Removing the chaff from the rice. Look closely at how the fan is being turned;)

Bags and bags of rice...a job well done.

Wedding

2009-07-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's really difficult to get a one-year visa in another country. Susie and Cornelio have had an especially difficult time getting their one-year visa to be in Bolivia. They were married in Belize about 14 years ago. In order to get a one-year visa, you must present a copy of your marriage certificate legalized by the Bolivian Consulate in the country of origin. It just so happens that there is no Bolivian consulate in Belize and the consulates in the nearest countries (Mexico and Costa Rica) didn't want to be helpful. They wouldn't legalize the document. The consulate in the States legalized the paper, but immigration here wouldn't accept the paper. As a last resort, they decided to get married in Bolivia so they would have a Bolivian marriage certificate. These are the pictures of their "wedding."

Though the wedding was a lot of fun for all of us, and the source of much laughter, it didn't really help them in the end. Now they have been in Santa Cruz for a little over a week and their paperwork is finally coming together. They can't say the visa process hasn't been fun!

Hodge Podge

2009-07-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a mixture of different photos that I wanted to share with everybody. They didn't seem to fit into any of the other blogs:)

Reading with Lyli. Primary teachers love story time. It doesn't matter how old we get:)

One of the mission planes...I love the sound of the mission plane flying over the school! I almost feel like a real missionary when I see the mission planes!

Here's my little motorbike. Keila and I rode to the end of our entrance road to meet Susie and Cornelio one morning. The bike is now in town where I ride (very slowly - like 18 - 20 mph) next to Ruan:)

Friday night circle to welcome the Sabbath.

My poor dog tolerating the kitty;) He hates it when she jumps on his bed. In fact, if she jumps on his bed in the night, he will wake me up to get her off. Unbelievable:)

Brrrr...cold motorcycle ride into town. Must have been down to 68 degrees F, but that windchill is killer;)

Butterflies on the clean shoes and other laundry. There have been zillions of butterflies everywhere recently.

2nd and 4th year students playing the hand chimes for Teacher Day

Walking back from Yata in the rain.

Singing with Ruan for the special sharing night right before vacation.

Potpourri 2009

2009-05-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

Wow...time just flies! I really don't like to let so much time pass between blogs, but "asi es la vida!" This blog sort of overlaps the last one. But I wanted to share the pictures.

David's wife, Becky, was with us for about 2 weeks. She helped relieve Keila's stress in the elementary school while she was here. We really appreciated all her enthusiasm and energy. The kids loved her! Keila is running again, teaching classes in primary and secondary, working as the school psychologist;), and running all the religious activities.

We've said good-bye to one of our Bolivian missionary families that has been with us since the very beginning. They feel they have been called to work with the churches in town and they left this week. That leaves us minus one Chemistry/Biology teacher and one Primary teacher.

The super good news is that 2 more missionaries will be arriving in just 2 weeks. LYLI is planning to be back at the school on June 7. There are some last minute details she must take care of in Mexico before coming back, but her ticket has been purchased and we are looking forward to seeing her really soon! Traveling with her is another young lady from Mexico who will also be working in the primary school. Keila is counting the days until they arrive.

Becky and Keila

The rice harvest was beautiful this year. It is satisfying to eat the rice from your own field. We didn't get nearly as much rice as we would have liked, but God is good. Having our own rice saves us nearly $75 each week. Yes, as a school we go through about 25 -50 pounds of rice per day. That's why it's the last thing I want to see when I am in the States on "summer break!"

Rice ready for harvest. It reminds me of all the harvesting imagery Jesus used when talking to His disciples.

At the end of last school year, we finally imported a portable sawmill that was donated to the school. Ruan had a lot of fun learning how to use it and cutting boards before school started. Unfortunately, he has been running around doing all the paperwork for visas for all of the volunteers and has not had a chance to use it lately. He's looking forward to getting through the paperwork tunnel and back to the great outdoors to do some cutting. The sawmill will be a huge blessing to the school. Not only can we cut the wood needed for our own construction projects, we can also cut wood to sell as an industry for the school. Just one step closer to becoming more self-supporting.

Ruan cutting with the sawmill

In April we did an evangelistic series in Yata. Our truck was sent to Santa Cruz for an overhaul just two days before the series started. This left us with one choice – walk. So, we all walked to El Yata and back every night for the week. The students learned to enjoy the 4 mile walk there, and the 4 mile walk back. Even though April is normally the beginning of dry season, it rained every night on the way there and back, but would stop for the outdoor evangelistic series. After the evangelistic series, 10 of our students and 1 woman from El Yata got baptized. More are studying for baptism. The community was able to see the positive attitudes and dedication of our students in spite of the long walk in the rain every night.

Wet road to Yata
Keila walking barefoot through the puddles
Keila and me after arriving in Yata

Our "convention center"

Mother and son

One of our students

After a long day of work, the boys love taking a walk to the river just a kilometer from the school. They love to bridge jump and swim and just chill for a while. I always watch happily from the bridge. I wouldn't jump if you paid me. Boesman came with us this time and loved to watch the boys jump. He ran from the bridge down the bank to the water and back over and over again. He loves the water!

3....2....1....Jump!

Swimming in the flooded river

Boesman watching the action.

While Ruan's parents were in Bolivia, my father-in-law decided that Joel needed some practice in the medical field, so he cut his leg with a machete;) Joel is one of our 4th year students and would like to be a medical missionary. He stitched up my father-in-law's leg under the supervision of our nursing teacher, Susie.

Nursing class:)

Last, but not least, our kitty - estilo Mexicano:)

God Bless!!!!

Ruan & Tara

And a little extra...

2009-04-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

I seem to forget that people want to see that Ruan and I are still alive and well. Here a couple extra pictures. I don't tote the camera around with me as much as I should. And Ruan and I are rarely clean, dry, and awake in the same place long enough to remember that a picture should be taken.

Campus sunrise

Our new pet. We got this kitty to deter the rodents...and it's working. Haven't had a single rodent visitor in our house since this little black cat came home to live with us. She's had three different names so far....long story. She started out as Ebony, but proved too bratty for that name. It was changed to "Bestia" (Beast) until she got sick and turned into a nice kitty. Now we just call here Little Bitty Ditty. Boesman merely tolerates her presence, but doesn't complain at all about milk being served three times a day.

School's 5th anniversary. Some of the students put on suits and ties, so we dug through our wardrobe to find the nicest stuff we have here in Bolivia. Camera lens was dirty and the picture doesn't show that the electricity was already out that night, so we didn't do the usual round of photos.

Time flies...

2009-04-02T11:51:00.001-07:00

A month of school is already over and it just doesn't seem possible. I am nearly done sailing through my ocean of paperwork. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Becky, David's wife, is here with us for a few weeks to help in primary until Lyli can return. Becky has been a huge help while we are short-staffed.

Lyli is preparing to return. She is still undergoing physical therapy, but now has the OK from the doctor to travel in late April. We are looking forward to having her back in Bolivia with us...and she can't wait to get here!

We are "down" to 52 students. One girl decided that she just didn't want to be here. School work too hard...manual labor too hard. We don't force anyone to stay, and though her mother tried and tried to convince her, she just didn't want to be at our school. Her mother was in tears, knowing it was a lost opportunity. The girl is from a small town where most girls receive a very poor or no education and get married (maybe) and pregnant while still in their teens. Her mom is participating in Bible studies with Keila and is praying that her daughter will choose a better path.

In any case, our dorms are still packed to near capacity. It's amazing how full 20 more students can make a school. We are having a great time getting to know each of them...and for that reason we are glad that we only have 52.

In December, before Ruan returned to the States, a small group flew to Ingavi in a more remote part of Bolivia. The team provided medical care and basic health training while they were there. Ruan spoke of our school and some young people decided they wanted to come. There were also some people from an indigenous village about 45 minutes up the river from Ingavi. They, too, became interested in sending their kids to our school. When we got back to Bolivia in January, we started the process of interviewing and accepting students. Ruan flew to Ingavi again to interview some of the students. A week or so later, it was time to let them know who was accepted. Ruan tried multiple times to contact the community by radio, but was unsuccessful. So how do you get acceptance letters to the middle of the jungle? Well, we decided (with the help of our mission pilot) to buzz the communities in the little airplane and drop the letters down to the village. Of course paper doesn’t drop all that well, so we tucked the letters into little black bags and put some lemons in the bags to weigh them down. DJ, the pilot, Jeremy, the co-pilot, and Ruan, Keila, and I took off from Guayara and flew toward the little villages. Jeremy prepared to drop the letters from the airplanes little window. We circled down to the villages. Down, down, down…lower and lower…low enough to drop the letters at just the right time. We dropped three copies at each village since we weren’t guaranteed to drop the letters on target. A couple weeks later, the kids got through to us by radio and said they had decided to come. DJ flew back to their villages to pick them up. It’s fun to watch the indigenous kids learn to fit in here. They came with virtually nothing. They rarely even wear shoes back in their village. We have been helping them buy clothes (even underclothes), their uniforms, shoes, mattresses, everything. They are getting used to our diet here at the school, too. Back home, their meals consist of whatever they can find or plant in the jungle – rice, plantain, bananas, jungle pig, monkey, etc. We pray that these students will see a bigger picture of the world and be able to take the Gospel back to their communities.

I am teaching math and music again this year. I "get" to teach 1st year math again this year. It's the one class that Ruan will not let me give up. We are trudging through basic operations. It always makes me so sad to think that these poor kids barely know how to add when they come to us. I think I have spent at least 4 class periods on division. And yet, I know it will come...little by little they will learn how to think. In every class our goal is character building and critical thinking. The education here is just a little more than rote memorization. We are definitely swimming upstream in this society.

Next week we are doing an evangelistic series in the little town of Yata near our school. Please pray for open hearts and minds as we share the good news of the Gospel with the village. There are about 5 adults from Yata doing Bible studies with Keila. Every Sabbath they come to our little church on campus. With 50+ students, all the staff members and their children, and the visitors from Yata, we overflow our little chapel every week. It's so wonderful to worship in the full little church in the jungle.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. Enjoy the photos that follow!!

Ingavi's airstrip - We didn't land because we were not in the Cessna 182 that can do jungle strip landing.

Village of Las Amalias - Indigenous village (Ceja people)

Preparing to drop acceptance letter

On target?

Our little school...notice that it is bigger than the average jungle "village." If you click the picture to make it bigger you can see the little blue water tower (10,000 L tank) toward the upper left, and the new construction near the top of the photo. Our house is the white roof just off the center of the photo.

Class - this is where I teach math every other day.

Boys' dorm - wall to wall beds.

Capacity - 26

Number of occupants - 27

Primary building

Kindergarten and grades 4-8 in one room.
Grades 1-3 in the other room.

Our little church - packed and overflowing every Sabbath.

Growth Spurt

2009-03-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

Just a note to let our readers know that we are still alive and well. I am now drowning in the sea of paperwork that the government needs at the beginning of the year. I don't think a person can really understand the true meaning of paperwork until he has worked in this country.

I try to remember that the real reason I am here is to teach, not do paperwork:) Therefore I am choosing not to worry about any more papers until Sunday. In the mean time I am catching up on my classes, the school accounts, and housekeeping. Someday soon I plan to catch up on sleep as well.

The school year is off to a great start. As anticipated we are ripping at the seams this year. We have 53 students in Secondary and 16 students in Primary. This is a huge difference from last year when we had only 34 in Secondary and 7 in Primary. God is really blessing this school.

We have started harvesting the rice we planted last October. We already have a ton of rice and there is a ton more to harvest still. We're looking forward to eating from our garden as well, which is starting to grow nicely.

I hope to post some pictures soon. Perhaps in another three weeks when we have our first break from classes.

Thanks for you continued prayers and support!

God Bless,
Tara & Ruan

"Summer Break" 2008-2009

2009-01-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of our time in the States during our "summer break!"

Mom, sister, and baby Drew - my precious nephew!

I donated my hair this year.

Mexican treat on the way to California for the Generation of Youth for Christ Conference. :)

Gospel Ministries booth at GYC

Main hall on Sunday morning. Over 5000 people attended on Sabbath.

Going over the Sierra Nevadas in California on I-80..."Chains are required on all vehicles..."

Michigan winter - lots of snow this year!

Ruan and Katryn - she'll be 14 this year and she still loves to play in the snow!

Do you ever get to old for this?

Christmas brunch at Rojane's house.

Rojane's baby girl, Kindassie...she's a character!

My favorite nephew, Drew!

One week in Mexico...

2009-01-17T13:20:00.000-08:00

This week I had the opportunity to travel to Mexico. In fact, I'm here in Mexico as I write this particular blog. I don't love Mexico just because it's Mexico...although the food does a pretty good job at convincing me to love the country:) I am not here to tour. I love Mexico because I have precious friends from this country. I am here to visit my friend, Lyli, who is in the tedious recovery period. Lyli was released from the hospital one week ago, and this has been a week of major accomplishments. Before I came, she did almost nothing independently. A physical therapist came to visit her the morning that I arrived. The therapist taught her to sit up on her own, stand up on her own, lie down on her own. She is now walking slowly but surely with a walker. She no longer is depending on diapers, she can now use the bathroom. She does need assistance in many things, but she has improved in so many ways. In all reality, her recovery is nothing short of a miracle from our loving Creator!

The first day I was here our friend, Jerry (who works with us in Bolivia) and I took Lyli out to a couple of bookstores and then to the library at the university where Lyli used to work. I think the sunshine and fresh air did a lot for her. The next two days it rained, so there was no way to get out of the house. But Sabbath, we went to church...not just one church...but two! When we left the university church, she wanted to show me another church that she attended regurlary while she attended University of Montemorelos. Being at the university church was a positive experience, even though she was hurting. It was also an emotional experience since the last time she was there was during the mission congress just before the plane accident. I sat by her side in church. The church publically welcomed her and praised God for the progress He has helped her make.

Saturday night, Lyli's PT came to do some exercises. I learned how to guide Lyli through the routine. It's awful to have to hurt her during the exercises. It makes her cry, and scream out in pain. Sometimes it makes me want to cry, too. But each time I did the exercises with her, I assured her that I loved her so much that I didn't want to see her stuck in a wheel chair for the rest of her life. She understands, but it hurts her so much right now.

It was hard to leave Lyli...but I told her I would see her soon back in Bolivia, she just needs to trust in God and put everything she has into her recovery.

I haven't gotten to know Mexico during my visit. I barely know more than the inside of the house where Lyli is staying. But, I wouldn't trade this time I have had in Mexico with Lyli for anything. I pray that God will give her the patience to endure this painful trial in her life.

The Butterfly Lesson and a Lyli Update

2009-01-01T19:24:00.000-08:00

One day a small opening appeared on a cocoon. A woman sat and watched for the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no further.

So the woman decided to help the butterfly. She took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The woman continued to watch the butterfly because she expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the woman, in her kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening was God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes stuggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly.

I asked for Strength...........And God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for Wisdom...........And God gave me Problems to solve.

I asked for Prosperity.........And God gave me Brain and Brawn to work.

I asked for Courage...........And God gave me Danger to overcome.

I asked for Love.........And God gave me Troubled people to help.

I asked for Favors........And God gave me Opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted. I received everything I needed.

~~~Author Unknown~~~

LYLI UPDATE:

I have had many, many people ask for an update on Lyli's situation. I have promised to write it down and send it to everyone, but I actually decided to do it in blog form.

Lyli was flown from Nicaragua to Mexico in an air ambulance. The Lord really blessed and after many hours on the phone, we were finally able to find an air ambulance that could do the trip immediately and for only $18,000. (All other quotes were in the $25,000 - $27,000 range.) A generous doctor paid for the air ambulance...another huge blessing! He wanted us to use whatever donated funds received to go to Lyli's medical expenses while in Mexico.

Lyli had an MRI done in Mexico soon after she arrived. It showed that the tip of her spinal cord had been rubbed and enflamed by her broken sacrum. This was causing the local paralysis she experienced. Just a couple days later, they did a surgery to decompress the spinal cord. Since then, she has started to regain sensation in her legs and other areas. We are still praying for a complete and rapid recovery! Right now, she has a bit of cabin fever but is improving daily.

Ruan is flying back to Bolivia on the 13th. I will fly to Mexico the same day to spend a week with Lyli and do school planning...nothing better to make time fly;) Then I will be heading back to Bolivia.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support! We know God has a special plan for Lyli and for our school!

Changed Plans

2008-12-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

As I talked to Jeff Sutton on the phone just about a week ago, he quietly said, "This has definitely been a year of changed plans."

For those who regularly read our blog, you probably know that Jeff and his wife, Fawna, abruptly left our little jungle school in February on an emergency flight to Santa Cruz. Fawna was 26 weeks pregnant and her water had broken. Jeff took off - at night and without permission - from the little dirt runway at the local airport. When they arrived in Santa Cruz, little did they know what God had in store for them. After three months of hospital care, in and out of the ICU, baby Savana Miracle Sutton was able to go home with her mom, dad, and big sister, Sierra. During those three months, God showed the Sutton's that He had a different plan for them. Jeff is now working for/with all of the Bolivian projects and He is based out of Santa Cruz. Changed plans.

Ruan and I had changed plans this year, too. We spent the entire month of April in Santa Cruz during the school year. We were there for various reasons, none of which really qualified as a vacation. I can hear the teachers reading this thinking what a nice break to get during the middle of the school year. But teachers know that often times it is much easier to teach the classes than to plan the classes for a substitute teacher to teach. Again, at the end of June, we found ourselves traveling again. This time to rescue one of our graduates from an unsafe situation. She talked to us and the next day we were on a plane to Cochabamba. Two more weeks away from school, and definitely nothing we had planned on. Changed plans.

Missionaries came to our school, others left...leaving a constant change of class schedules as we lost and gained teachers. Changed plans.

And now, once again, plans have changed. After school ended in early November, a small group of missionaries from our school, Familia Feliz - the children's home in Rurrenabaque, and Red AD Venir - the TV station in Santa Cruz, left for a mission congress in Mexico. They flew a plane that had recently joined the Gospel Ministries "fleet," a Piper Malibu. I remember the day the plane landed in Guayaramerin, the Kim family aboard and ready to experience Bolivia. Just a few days later, I left to fly to Santa Cruz on my way to the U.S. Jeff and company left the same day. We "watched" them make their trip from Guayaramerin to Mexico as Jeff pushed a special button on his GPS that sent his location to my email account. The mission congress was successful. Many people committed their lives to Christ and His work in these last days.

The small group again boarded the plane after the mission congress ended. They left Mexico and flew to Guatemala. From there they took off again, but were only in the air two hours when the plane's engine started having problems. Jeff tried various methods to solve the problem, without success and asked for permission for an emergency landing. The coordinates for a runway were given, but it was nighttime and the runway was unlit. Continually losing altitude, Jeff told the passengers to fasten their seatbelts as they would be making an emergency landing. And so they did. They came down just meters from several houses near a small town in Nicaragua. Miraculously, nobody was killed. And now, almost 2 weeks later, only one of the passengers is still in the hospital. Lyli, our dear friend and "daughter," who has lived with us in Bolivia for 1 1/2 years is being flown by air ambulance from Nicaragua to Mexico to receive further treatment. Initially she was treated for internal injuries. After the first surgery became infected, she was transferred to Managua, the capital, for additional treatment. There they also discovered that she has a broken sacrum. Just this week, something happened to cause some local paralysis, thus the trip to Mexico. Please keep her in your prayers as her situation is somewhat delicate at the moment. - Changed plans.

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isa. 55:9.

Our plans are not always God's plans.... In His loving care and interest for us, often He who understands us better than we understand ourselves refuses to permit us selfishly to seek the gratification of our own ambition. . . . Often our plans fail that God's plans for us may succeed....

In the future life the mysteries that here have annoyed and disappointed us will be made plain. We shall see that our seemingly unanswered prayers and disappointed hopes have been among our greatest blessings.

We are not now sufficiently advanced in spiritual attainments to comprehend the mysteries of God. But when we shall compose the family of heaven, these mysteries will be unfolded before us....

Then much will be revealed in explanation of matters upon which God now keeps silence because we have not gathered up and appreciated that which has been made known of the eternal mysteries. The ways of Providence will be made clear; the mysteries of grace through Christ will be unfolded. That which the mind cannot now grasp, which is hard to be understood, will be explained. We shall see order in that which has seemed unexplainable; wisdom in everything withheld; goodness and gracious mercy in everything imparted. Truth will be unfolded to the mind, free from obscurity, in a single line, and its brightness will be endurable. The heart will be made to sing for joy. Controversies will be forever ended, and all difficulties will be solved.

All that has perplexed us in the providences of God will in the world to come be made plain. The things hard to be understood will then find explanation. The mysteries of grace will unfold before us. Where our finite minds discovered only confusion and broken promises, we shall see the most perfect and beautiful harmony. We shall know that infinite love ordered the experiences that seemed most trying. As we realize the tender care of Him who makes all things work together for our good, we shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

We honestly don't know what God has in store for Lyli, but we can trust Him...simply be still and know that He is God.

http://www.interamerica.org/users/index.php?type=news&id=1208&language=es

http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/34019

http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/34157

http://www.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2008/diciembre/02/noticias/ultimahora/

http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/33986#top

2008 Class Photos

2008-11-03T10:27:00.000-08:00

Pre-photo session haircut. I really don't have any idea how to cut hair.

First Year Class (i.e. Freshman)

Second Year Class (i.e. Sophomores)

Teacher Tara with the second year students.

Huge Third Year Class (i.e. Juniors)

Everybody!

Fourth Year girls (i.e. Seniors) with Teachers

Damaris, Tara, and Carola

Keila, Tara, and Lyli

Family Photo:)

Potpourri

2008-10-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

Much has happened in the last month. In fact, the last week has been packed with interesting events. Last week was so packed that it is hard for me to look at the pictures and think that they were all taken from Sunday the 12th to Sunday the 19th. It seems like a whole year of excitement. All in all, God blessed...and we saw His hand working this week.

Sunday, the 12th, we went back to El Yata to march in yet another parade. This time it was for El Yata's anniversary. Mostly we stood in the hot sun and waited for the small town politicians to get done making promises so we could eat snowcones. :)
Ruan didn't wait for the politicians to finish. He went directly to the snowcone man.

This is our neighbor's property. He is a cattle rancher and moved to this property last year. (Until he put his fence up, we had continual run-ins with cattle at the school.) This used to be a pretty jungle trail...not sure if this is defined as slash and burn farming, but it sure looks like a wasteland now. Fortunatly it is not a wasteland, and our neighbor is nice enough to share. Not only can we plant on his land, but we can remove all of the firewood we want for free. God's timing is perfect. The week before last our chainsaws arrived from the States, after waiting nearly two months. The neighbor burned down the grassy overgrowth the same week. This past week we cancelled classes and everyone, students and staff, have gone out to the land to clear out the wood. We have sold several truckloads of wood and we have a lot more wood to get out. All week long we cleared the land, and on Thursday we planted 2 hectares of rice. That is enough rice to feed us for half of next school year. (Think 150 pounds of rice each week.) God blessed our efforts and kept the ground dry up to planting day and then sent the rain just a few days later. It is imperative that rice-planting be done in dry season, just before the rain starts. And, as always, all worked out in God's perfect timing.

Dirty, dirty clothes. Ruan coming back from the "chaco" after a long day's work.

Moving firewood.

More exciting times...our garden is starting to produce. Our new agriculture director has really been putting the kids to work, and the work is starting to pay off. Things are really starting to grow. Last week we harvested a pile of sweet potatoes from the garden!

Peek-a-boo! Susie and Cornelio's parrot is spying on them!

Sunday the 19th, we had our Exposition Day and we celebrated Columbus Day (known as Dia de la Raza in Central and South American countries). We celebrated a week late so that our students who went on the medical boat trip could be back to participate. In the picture above, the primary students are singing the song of Christopher Columbus.

Chime choir - my baby. I haven't done nearly what I would have liked to this year, but I am so happy for my students who are learning to play music. The people in this culture are not the most musically talented (we joke about our kids singing in 35 part harmony as each starts on his or her own note when we sing during church services), but they are learning to appreciate and make beautiful music. Our high-tech bell tables are just our old cafeteria tables with Therma-rests camping mats on them to give the bells a "soft" surface. We use last year's graduation table clothes for a pretty blue look during performances. My dream is to get a real set of bells and bell tables down here if it is God's will. But at the tune of $15,000....I'll keep dreaming:)

Parade of missionaries. In order of appearance....USA, Guatemala, Colombia, Canada, South Africa, Belize, Romania, and Mexico. There is something special...almost indescribable....that happens when you hear your national anthem after an extended period out of your home country. I don't consider myself extremely patriotic, but I definitely appreciate my country...and the Star Spangled Banner is awfully neat to hear here in Bolivia.

After our celebration we enjoyed an international food fair. We all prepared foods from our own countries. Above is Belize.

The Mexico group with me!

Mexicans invading the Canadians teepee.

Keila in her traditional Mexican dress.

USA and South Africa combined. (South Africa, of course, has nothing to do with the discovery of America, but we had to make koeksisters - Ruan's favorite South African dessert. That in itself is a whole other story. Did I mention that you buy cream of tartar in a pharmacy here? Perhaps that shouldn't surprise me since you buy rubbing alcohol in the liquor store.) For U.S. food, I made blueberry muffins (thanks to Betty Crocker muffin mixes), scrambled eggs (tofu), and hashbrowns.

All in all, everybody enjoyed the food and had a great time. We even had a visit from the staff from the local office of education in Guayaramerin. They were so impressed by what they saw that the new District Director told us that she would support us in anything we needed. God's perfect timing again....as we are working to reform the school and start a teacher training institute for our graduates interested in education...we receive the support we need to make the vision a reality.

Some of the maestras!

Ruan, me, and Lyli.

Dia de la Raza 2008.

After a fun-filled day, we had a fun-filled evening, too! The physics students flew their hot air balloons.
Getting the air inside hot, hot, hot!
Filling with air...
Flying!

I hope you enjoyed our little update. We have been amazed over and over again this week at how God's timing is perfect! Keep trusting in Him...

Tara & Ruan

A Day in the Life of a Missionary...

2008-10-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's actually several days in the life of a missionary. In the past few weeks I just haven't taken the time to take many pictures. But, it dawned on me that I haven't posted a blog in quite a while. So....I dug the camera out and I took a bunch of miscellaneous photos. Nothing too terribly thrilling:)

Ever wondered how cashews grow. They are all over this part of Bolivia, but almost nobody here eats the nut, only the fruit. The nut is extremely hard to get to. It's a very complex process to get that thing out of its shell. The nut is protected by a shell that has a toxic liquid in it. (they use the "oil" to make brake linings and other heat resistant materials). The nut is heated to explode the shell so that the toxic liquid can drain out. Then the nut is removed by hand. Needless to say, we haven't figured out just how to get that silly cashew out of it's shell, so those who can tolerate it eat only the fruit and the poor little nut gets thrown away!

Off to Riberalta (45 miles from the school) to do special music on Sabbath. Ruan and I also went on our motorcycle. (Don't worry, Ruan and I wear helmets on our motorcycle rides.)

In route to Riberalta, we passed this poor truck that went off the road. Auto insurance is unheard of here, so it's really hard for the people and their families when their vehicles are damaged in this way. This truck went into the very deep ditch that you see in the bottom right hand side of the photo.

Nothing like traveling to town in the back of a truck when a little nose comes through a hole in the bag next to you. Poor little piggy....I think he was going to market:(

New puppies at the airplane hangar. Pictured here at 1 day old...complete with umbilical cord.

I went to the supermarket in search of a snack and I was amazed to find Cracker Jacks...straight from the U.S. I decided to splurge and get them (even though I had to pay twice the U.S. price of 99 cents.) Apparently I was not the only one who couldn't resist the bag of Cracker Jacks!

New little kittens at the airplane hangar. Animals here are baby factories. The kitty at the hangar has two or three litters of kittens each year.

Gas shortages...This is the gas line in town. You park your vehicle in the morning and wait for them to start selling gas in the late morning or early afternoon. Get your 0.5 gallon ration after a 4-hour wait. We doing the tedious paperwork process to be allowed to buy more gasoline and diesel than is normally sold to an individual.

Pet bat? Almost every evening we see or hear this little bat fluttering through our house. Here he is hanging in our bathroom.

Bolivian Independence Day

2008-08-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

Another year, another Independence Day celebration, another parade...but in all the fun, we were strangely lacking a fireworks show. Surely there are traditions worth celebrating. This is my third Bolivian Independence Day celebration. I still remember the first parade we participated in. I kept thinking it must be getting ready to start...after all...we had been lined up for about 3 hours ready to go. The students kept disappearing to buy snow cones and refrescos and I kept getting really nervous because I was sure we would be marching any minute. I learned that day that a Bolivian parade is not the same as a U.S. parade. When one thinks about a parade in the U.S., one imagines streets lined with happy people and children standing with their plastic Wal-Mart bags ready to catch flying candy. The parade advances through a designated route. When all the different groups marching in the parade pass by, candy bags are full, and the spectators go home.

Not so in Bolivia. Here you line up in the parade line and, inch by inch, you move closer and closer to the plaza and the town hall. We happen to be an Escuela Particular (there are 5 such schools in the Guayara area) and the Escuelas Particulares get to march last. This year we were school number 44 out of 44. After the short patriotic ceremony we found our place in the parade line....last....and waited for the next 4 hours to get to the plaza. When you finally reach the plaza, you march in front of the town hall....exactly one block. And then the parade is over:) I don't get nervous now when the kids disappear in search of snowcones. I simply look at my watch and sigh...knowing we have another 2 hours before it's time to march.

After marching in Guayara on the 5th of August, we then went to the little town only 5 kilometers from our school and marched there the next day (the "real" Independence Day). It's amazing to see the difference between Guayara's parade and El Yata's parade. We marched with Yata's only school. We lined up in front of the Town Hall (on the dirt road south of the plaza..) for the patriotic ceremony. Jerry and I (as directors) were called out of line to go sit with the "important officials" of the little town. After the ceremony, the kids went around the block and marched down the dirt road they had just been standing on for the ceremony...very official:)

Multicultural school - Mini flags to represent all the volunteers at our school

Patriotic ceremony (Acto Civico)

Three of our volunteers: Miriam (Guatemala), Monica (Guatemala), and Helen (Canada)

Lyli (Mexico), Keila (Mexico), and I with the Mexican flag

Ruan and Jerry (Mexico) with the Mexican and South African flags

Keila and I with the Romanian flag (Viva Gheorghe!)

Too cute. Danitza (aka Negrita o Choquita), one of our primary students

Marching...

Unidad Educativa Tecnico Industrial "Richard Gates"

"Las de Cuarto" - Our 4th year students

Faculty and staff

Mindy (Canada), our photographer, can't escape the photo session

Directora Administrativa and Directora Academica - TROUBLE!!

Ruan and I with our Mexican "daughters," Keila and Lyli

Parade day #2

Lined up and ready to march in El Yata

Keila and one of our students, Alberto, with his family

Post-parade fun - girls celebrating Independence Day

Viva Bolivia!

Short Gringo Report: Jonathon and Nate enjoy the freedom of overloading a motorcycle during their stay in Bolivia.

Savana Miracle Sutton Update!

2008-07-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

Savana is home from the hospital and is doing well. She keeps mom and dad super tired since she needs to eat every three hours to keep growing healthy and strong. She weighs over 5 pounds now and the doctors say she can see and hear just fine.

Big sister, Sierra, likes having a baby sister around, but is also adjusting to not being the only little one in the house:)

Climb Every Mountain...

2008-07-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

...Now, if only I wasn't scared of heights.

On Sabbath, we all piled in the micro (little bus) that Jeff has here in Santa Cruz, and we drove a few hours outside of the city to a little town in the mountains. We planned to be there in time for church, but a flat tire and a temporary road block prevented us from reaching our destination on time. We decided to have a little road-side service where the road was blocked. We sang hymns and Jeff had a short sermon. By then, the road was free and clear and we continued on our way.

We arrived at a cute little Adventist Church just in time for the closing hymn and fellowship meal. After lunch, we had the opportunity to climb some of the surrounding mountains. Some of us were more ambitious than others:)

It has been a long time since we have climbed mountains. We decided that the next time we come to Santa Cruz, we will have to bring our camping gear and enjoy a little more of God's creation.

Road-side church service

Adventist Church in the mountains

The view from the front door of the church

Going up...

Ruan walking down a trail to another mountain.

Pardon the shadow on my face...I wanted to prove both that the mountains were beautiful and I was there...but the sun was blinding me;)

Visit to the Highlands

2008-06-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

Last week, we flew to Cochabamba to visit some of our students who graduated last year. One was attending a technical school in Cochabamba, the other is studying Theology at the Adventist University in Vinto (about 30 minutes from Cochabamba).

Center campus on Sabbath morning.
We nearly froze. The highlands are dry and cool in the winter. The mornings are downright cold. It was even colder than 5 in the early morning.
The University Church on campus.

We met a 3rd year Theology student while we were in Vinto. Part of his ministry is a portable climbing wall that he built and uses with the Conquistadores (Pathfinders). He was really excited to meet us and wanted us to climb his wall. It's been a looooong time since summer camp 2000. I opted out of having pictures taken of my climbing (or lack thereof). ;)

Cafeteria at the University.

Just before our departure to Santa Cruz.

Promised Translation

2008-06-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

Trust, daughter, Trust.

The school year is moving forward, the problems, struggles, and trials, too, but at the same time our faith, our commitment and our character is strengthened as we walk hand in hand with God.
We have seen the hand of God working every step of the way, even when the money to buy food has been used up, we put our faith in God and soon we see the gifts from the community or from the students’ family members supplying our needs - even when they were not aware of them. One hundred pounds of rice - perhaps it doesn’t mean anything to you - but for us, when the food is almost gone and there is no money, it is like a waterfall of refreshing love from our God.

What would have happened if…?

Sometimes I ask myself, “Who would I be if I wasn’t here, what would my faith be like? Would I have experienced so many miracles?”

What would have happened if I only conformed to the comfort of a home and a stable job? Would my heart be as full of love, happiness, and peace?

What would have happened if I selfishly saved money for myself, or if I had decided not to give every part, my whole being to God?

I won’t ever know and I have no interest in finding out what would have happened.

[Here I have the opportunity...]

...to feel the gentle breeze of a southerly wind, carrying within it the very essence of the jungle.

...to see the sunsets that decorate the heavens with their explosive colors, something that is not possible to see in the cities full of buildings and smog.

...to wake up at 5 in the morning, listening to the songs of the students during their morning devotion that ascend as a prayer to God…songs that are sung with all their might.
...to see the night sky packed with stars as I have never seen before.

...to observe the wonder of the moon so perfectly full and bright that even at 11 o’clock at night you can read the Bible without the aid of any light, just the warm light of the moon.
...to feel the hugs of 9 children at the same time, while you direct your primary classroom.

...to receive the unconditional love of the secondary students who come from destroyed, dysfunctional homes, or even without a place to call home, who adopt you as part of their family, they love you, they look for you, and they make you feel at home.
...to enjoy the warm days and the cool nights, to forget the agitation, the noise, the music in the streets, the artificial lights, and to dedicate yourself to work for God, to look for what you can do to serve, serve, serve without receiving anything in exchange, without waiting for a reward, just for the pleasure of serving.

Definitely not, I would not change it for anything.

What would you do?

2008-05-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

This is an e-mail that my co-director, Keila, sent out just a week or two ago. It touched my heart as I have often experienced the same thing. She captured my own feelings so well, that I asked if I could post it on my blog. For those that don't read Spanish, fear not, I will have an English translation up in a few days.

Confía, hija, Confía.

El año escolar sigue avanzando, los problemas, luchas y pruebas también, pero al mismo tiempo nuestra fe, nuestro compromiso y nuestro carácter se fortalecen con el caminar de la mano de Dios.
Hemos visto la mano de Dios a cada instante del camino, aún cuando el dinero se ha acabado para comprar alimento, nuestra fe espera en Dios y pronto vemos los regalos de la comunidad o de los familiares de los alumnos supliendo las necesidades que ni aún ellos conocían. Un costal de arroz, pueden no significar nada para ti, pero para nosotros cuando el alimento se está por acabar y no hay dinero es como una cascada de refrescante amor de nuestro Dios.

¿Qué hubiera pasado sí…?
A veces me pregunto ¿Quién sería yo si no estuviera aquí, cómo estaría mi fe? ¿Habría experimentado tantos milagros?.
¿Qué hubiera pasado si sólo me conformaba con la comodidad de un hogar y un trabajo estable? ¿Estaría mi corazón tan lleno de amor, alegría y paz?
¿Qué hubiera pasado si egoístamente guardo dinero para mí? ¿O sí hubiera decidido no entregarle cada partícula y esencia de mi existencia a Dios?
Jamás lo sabré pero no quiero averiguarlo, Sentir la brisa suave de un viento del sur con la esencia de la selva en su interior, el ver las puestas de sol que decoran el cielo con sus explosivos colores, algo que no es posible observar con edificios y gases tóxicos en la ciudad. El despertar a las 5 de la mañana escuchando los cantos de los alumnos en sus matutinas que se elevan como una oración a Dios, llenas de todo su corazón y entonados con todas las fuerzas que ellos pueden usar.
Ver los cielos nocturnos cargados de estrellas como nunca antes los había visto. Observar la maravilla de una luna llena tan perfecta y clara que aún a las 11 de la noche te permite leer la Biblia sin ningún tipo de luz artificial solo la cálida luz de la luna.
Sentir los abrazos de 9 niños al mismo tiempo, mientras te diriges a tu salón de clases de primaria. Recibir el amor incondicional de los alumnos de preparatoria que al venir de hogares destruidos, disfuncionales o aún sin hogar, te adoptan como su familia, te quieren, te buscan y te hacen sentir en casa.
Disfrutar de días cálidos y noches frescas, olvidar la agitación, el ruido, la música en las calles, las luces artificiales, y dedicarte a trabajar para Dios, a buscar en qué ayudar a servir, servir, servir, sin recibir nada a cambio, sin esperar una recompensa sólo por el placer de servir.

Definitivamente no, NO LO CAMBIARÍA POR NADA.

por Keila Valenzuela (mayo 2008)

Road Trip

2008-05-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

Ruan and Jerry returned from their adventure a week ago with many stories and fun photos. Here is the adventure from Ruan's perspective...

Wednesday, May 14

Dear Tara,
So we are in Rurre. We are going to leave on motorcycle for Apolo tomorrow. It was raining there today and Jeff couldnt fly in.

On the way to Riberalta one of the bearings on the rear wheel completely broke. So we limped to Riberalta where we convinced a mechanic to get up early and put in a new bearing. We went on, not realizing that the hub got really damaged. Well, we made it to about 70 kilometers from Puerto Yata when the hub broke. After some thinking we decided to cut some spare wire from a farmer’s fence and wire the sprocket back onto the hub. We went really slowly and it lasted for about 25km. So we did it again and got another 25 kilometers. By then the hub was too destroyed to do it again so Jerry went to Puerto Yata, which was now only about 20 kilometers away, to buy rope and pull me there. I broke down at about 11A.M. and we made it to Yata at about 5P.M.. After taking the rear wheel off, I left the bike with a guy that seemed trustworthy and hopped a bus coming from Cobija that was passing through town. By then the sun was setting. Jerry drove on to Santa Rosa in the dark and arrived at 10 P.M. He called Jeff to order all the bike parts and then stayed the night there. My bus got to Rurre at 3A.M. this morning.

So then this morning I went for a little walk while waiting for Jerry. He got here at about 10 A.M. and we went to the orphanage. Jeff got here at noon and we found out that he couldn’t make it to Apolo. After talking about all our options we decided that it would be best for us to bike up to Apolo. Right now it looks like Steve will go with us on his bike, I will ride Jared´s, and Jerry will go on his. We will stay there over the weekend and return on Monday or so. Then I will take my newly fixed rear wheel, hop a bus, go put the bike together, and go home. So I should be home about a week from Friday, but we will see, of course.

Steve is really excited about the project. Hhe wants to support it from Rurre as well. That is why he wants to go along. We met a lady from Apolo in town here today. She gave some good information about the communities around town. Sounds like life in the communities are even worse than the town, since she said that town is really nice. She did say that there are lots of fruits and that the water is clean enough to drink. She told us to go to a little town called Santa Cruz del Valle and look at that as a base of operations for medical work in the outlying communities.Well, we have some pictures of the adventure and will be sure to take more along the way.

Love you,

Ruan

Sunday, May 18

Dear Tara,

So Steve, Jerry, and I left Rurre at about 7:30 Thursday morning expecting a 12 to 17 hour drive to Apolo (I am riding Jerry´s old bike). Well, needless to say, that was a little on the optimistic side since we just got here at 4:00 Sabbath afternoon. I wish I could get some photos from Jerry´s camera to show you but he doesn’t have his USB cable. The trip was about 500 kilometers and it took us 36 hours of actual driving time. It is 600 kilometers from Guayara to Rurre and only takes about 10 hours.

We got to Yucumo around 9:30 Thursday morning, then to Caranavi at about 4 PM. On the way, a rock flying from Jerry´s bike´s tire knocked out Steve´s headlight and we spent a couple hours trying to find a new one before finally giving up.

So we left town around sunset with Jerry and I shining our lights so Steve could see the road. It was kind of crazy…we crossed some creeks and mud holes where vehicles were stuck while winding up and down a mountain dirt road. We got to Guapai at something like 10 PM that night. After eating we found a hotel and left the next morning at about 8:30.

It was raining and the road was steep and slick. We have really awesome pictures. We arrived at Mapiri at 4PM and left right away to try to get as far as possible before dark. When we left Mapiri, we had to cross a river in a dugout canoe.

The road was really bad, wet and slick, and up and down and by 8:30 Friday night we made it to the first little town along the road about 20 kilometers out of Mapiri. We stayed the night there, since we couldn’t cross the river at night. Sabbath morning early, we crossed the river on two dugout canoes tied together to form a pontoon.

Up to that point the people were very friendly - super friendly and trusting. They were super hospitable. After we crossed the river on pontoons we drove until we found a river that we had to push the bikes through. Then around 2PM we came to a river where a landcruiser tried to cross and started being carried downstream. With the help of 3 of the passengers we carried the bikes across the river using sticks stuck through the wheels that we put on our shoulders. Imagine carrying a motorcycle through a mountain river that is waist deep. It was nuts.

We arrived at the first Indian village right after the river. The difference in the people is amazing. They are still kind of friendly, but not nearly as much. And they are really, really pagan.
So we got to Apolo at 4PM - just in time for 4:30 JA (AY for English speakers). We spoke to the church of 8 or 9 people about our ideas and they are really excited. They want to start an orphanage because they say that in the communities outside of town, the young girls give their kids away as indentured servants. Tomorrow we are going to Santa Cruz del Valle to see if that would be a good little town to use as a base. It is about 1.5 hours from Apolo and near a bunch of little communities. The town of Apolo itself seems nice enough, but the surrounding areas need a lot of education, medical and preventative care, etc. So far I can see a need for two very distinct projects, one in Mapiri serving the communities in the jungle, since they are very poor, too, and one in this area serving these people. The area is just too vast for one base to cover it all.

I love you lots and can’t wait to see you. We want to leave here on Monday. We will see how it all works out. So far it has been much more than we planned for.

Love,
Ruan

**After some thinking and praying, the tentative plan is to start a mobile clinic in this area that will meet the medical needs of the people. As trust grows, the mobile clinic may also pick up orphans and send them to our sister school/orphanage in Rurrenabaque. We would also like Bible workers to join the medical team to do health and religious education. There is just so much need all over the world and we believe that Jesus is coming soon! Please join us as we pray for wisdom in how these people can best be reached for His kingdom!

Glimpses of Santa Cruz

2008-05-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

When we first got here, I barely took my camera out of my bag. The first day I took it out (when we were all wrapped up in coats during the "sur") I found I had two dead batteries. I charged them up, and forgot to put the camera back in my purse. During our last week in Santa Cruz, I tried to take a few pictures as I ran around town. The pictures hardly tell the story of Santa Cruz, but I was glad to get some:)

We have been back at the school for three weeks now. Well, I should say that I have been back for three weeks. Ruan left a week ago with Jerry to check out some potential places to begin new projects. They have apparently had quite the adventure. Fortunately they took a camera! Hopefully they will be back sometime this week. I will try to get a blog up about their adventure shortly after they get back.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the spattering of pictures from Santa Cruz!

Gotta love the market in Santa Cruz - 50 tangerines for $1.

Can you believe we walked through this entire building in the market, stopped to take a picture and still forgot that we needed potatoes and onions?

All of the grains and pastas.

Huge variety of fruit and veggies - one of the only things I miss about Santa Cruz.

Traffic - absolute mayhem!!!

Plaza 24 de Septiembre

Cathedral on the plaza.

Near the plaza with Karina.

Karina and I - not ready...take another one, Ruan:)

Cathedral in the background.

Fridolin - new favorite place for smoothies and yummy dessert in Santa Cruz.

Park near Mercado Los Pozos

Palacio de Justicia (Palace of Justice)

One of Those Days

2008-04-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

It was one of those days...

The kind of day when you don't want to get out of bed, not even to tiptoe to the bathroom, because of the ice-cold tile that awaits your feet.

The kind of day when you snuggle deeper and deeper into your blankets and wish that the day really didn't need to start.

The kind of day when your puppy dog is super cuddly and would be under the blankets if he could be.

The kind of day when you can hear the wind howling through the trees outside and you can see the raindrops splashing outside on the patio.

The kind of day when you race to your hot shower more to get warm than to get clean.

The kind of day when you are happy to have a hair dryer because you are quite sure wet hair would freeze the moment you exit the house.

The kind of day when you feel like baking...the oven, after all, is a good source of heat.

The kind of day when you bundle up in multiple layers and pull on the SmartWool socks - even when you are inside the house.

The kind of day that is cloudy and gray outside and the wind bites at your skin even through your jacket.

Yes, it was one of those days when the cold front arrived...60 degrees in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. :)

Savana Miracle Sutton

2008-04-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Jeff and Fawna's baby girl, Savana, was born in Santa Cruz on March 17, 2008. Fawna's water broke Friday night, February 29 at the school in Guayara. Jeff did an emergency flight out to Santa Cruz that night where they have been ever since. Savana was born at 29 weeks and she weighed 2.5 pounds. After losing some weight, she has recently gotten back up to birth weight. :)

I know that many people want to see pics of the little girl, so here are a few. If you have ever seen a preemie diaper, you can imagine how tiny she is as it nearly goes up to her chest.

Paradise lost...

2008-04-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

For not ever leaving the school during the school year in previous years, we are sure getting our travels in this year. Circumstances have led us to Santa Cruz. It looks like we will be here anywhere between another week and a month. I'm not super fond of the city. In fact, I wake up each morning really missing my students and my quiet place for morning devotions at the school.

We are currently working on year-long visas for all of our volunteers. This responsibility, along with plans to start a university and other expansion projects at our school, has fallen on us...so here we are in the big up-and-coming city of Bolivia.

Advantages of city life: high-speed internet around the clock (almost), a supermarket where one can find both tortillas and tortilla chips, really cheap fruits and veggies in a really big market, a variety of different restaurants just waiting to be visited, Jeff and Fawna are here with their little baby, Savana.

Disadvantages of city life: constant traffic and constant noise, restaurants are WAY more expensive here than in Guayara (we can eat for $2.50 total in Guayara...but the two of us pay just over $10.00 for a meal here...OUCH!), miss my home and my staff, no students and no math classes (A month of plans for a substitute...ugh!) :(

In any case, we will make the best of our time here, and hopefully we will have plans for the university well under way when we head back to Guayara in about 30 days....and counting.

Buzzing our school on the way to Santa Cruz.

Flood waters near Trinidad, Bolivia - capital of our "departamento."

No leg room...snuggled in the back of the plane reading "Piloto Misionero."

U.E.T.I.R.G. turns 4!

2008-04-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

Unidad Educativa Tecnico Industrial "Richard Gates" celebrated it's 4-year anniversary on March 28, 2008. Four short years ago, the first students were enrolled in the little jungle school. Last year some of those first students graduated in the first graduation at U.E.T.I.R.G. It is exciting to be a part of the story of this little school. What will this year hold? We trust that God has an awesome plan!

We celebrated the school's anniversary on Sunday night. Some of the students did a skit depicting the beginning of the school. It was very funny to see the students acting like the different people we know and love. We even got to see ourselves in the skit! Keila and Lyli worked together to decorate the cafeteria. Our two volunteers from Guatemala, Miriam and Monica, planned a very special dinner. We had special music by the students and I made a slide show of the four years that have gone by. It was a special night for everybody.

Lyli and Keila - our Mexican "daughters" and dear friends!

Drama - Franz and Paola as Ruan and Tara. Every American in the play had a backpack when they came in...very funny!

Watching "ourselves" in the play.

Lyli, me, and Keila

Viva Mexico...I'm an honorary Mexican...heehee!

Enter South Africa

Second-year students

Third-year students

"Las de Cuarto" - our enormous 4th-year class

Ruan and some of our boys. Alcides (far left) is our adopted "son."

Group of staff and students posing with Bolivian flag.

Home, Sweet Home

2008-04-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

Home never felt so good after so long on a bus! Familiarity...

Rainbow on road between Guayara and school - I will try not to ever complain about this road again!

Friday night tradition of welcoming the Sabbath - love it!

Beautiful flowers on Sabbath morning...all real! The one that looks like a red pine cone is really interesting. Feels almost like it is made of wax.

Suggestion...

2008-04-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

If you want to get the whole story...and in the right order....read "Time to Travel" first and then follow up with "Back to Guayara."
:)

Back to Guayara

2008-04-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

The beast we could almost call "home."

Returning to Guayara was a whole new experience...one that convinced me to NEVER travel by bus during rainy season again...heehee. Ruan decided to take Helen's bike back to Guayara. (Helen is one of our volunteers who used to be at Rurre and who is currently our girls' dean.) I traveled by bus with 4 volunteers from Rurre and one student from Rurre who decided to enroll in our school. Ruan planned to leave in the morning just after our bus left. We all had to be at the bus station in Rurre between 8:30 and 9:00 in the morning. Departure time was set at 10:00...which came and left.

Bus station in Rurrenabaque

We continued waiting....11:00....noon....1:00....Finally, Ruan decided to set out on the bike. His plan was to get to a little town about 4 hours away and spend the night. He would then look for a truck who would be able to carry him through the difficult river crossings. The rest of us continued to wait...2:00...3:00. The bus arrived from La Paz around 3:30. We eagerly boarded the bus (though if we had known what awaited us, I'm sure our feelings would have been different) and got ready to begin our adventure. I was sadly disappointed to see that our bus was not nearly as "luxurious" as the one we had come on. It was not as bad as the buses that run the local routes, but it wasn't a lot better. I sat with Steve, the director of Familia Feliz and being the Type A personality that I am, I decided to make a small graph in my notebook depicting our adventure. I marked out 35 squares to represent 35 hours. It took 29 hours to arrive. I figured it couldn't take more than 30 to get back, so I was being very liberal allowing 35 hours for our trip to the school.

We drove merrily along for about 5 hours. The road had clearly deteriorated since Ruan and I had made the trip just 4 days before. As we were approaching the town of Santa Rosa, we stopped abruptly...behind a bus stuck in a mud pit. All of the men on our bus disembarked and started to help push. After all, we couldn't go anywhere until they did. I, of course, took this stop as an opportunity to have a potty break. One never knows when the bus will stop again. Needless to say, I had no idea just how many potty stops I would take in the middle of the road. Really, one can learn to go to the bathroom in any circumstance. :)

After getting the bus unstuck, we continued on to Santa Rosa. Upon arrival, we once again met up with Ruan. Turned out the road was so bad on the other side of Santa Rosa that nobody was attempting to get through. After receiving about 4 different messages from the various bus drivers (buses always travel in packs in Bolivia) they finally decided that they would not attempt to drive beyond Santa Rosa. Verdict...we would stay in Santa Rosa all night long...adding a disappointing 7 hours to an already behind schedule trip. We also had the privilege of picking up a slew of young army guys (cuartel) who happened to be smoke stacks. They got to stay with us in Santa Rosa on the bus. Hot bus, jungle village, middle of the night, buzzing mosquitoes, with a slew of smoke stacks puffing away does not make for easy sleeping conditions. Ruan, after hearing only 3 of the 4 decisions made thought we were going to continue traveling, was off in a "hotel" in some other part of town awaiting morning and his chance to get through the muck.

Men out and about pushing stuck bus - sometimes it's nice to be a woman:)

Six o'clock in the morning didn't come soon enough. I was absoutely thrilled to hear the sound of the motor firing up again...we were finally moving again. Move, we did, out of town and right off the mucky road. Not 6 minutes into our new trip, we found ourselves sliding off the road, which was more like a slab of sheet metal covered in 3 inches of grease. It wasn't that big of a deal to go off the road. Just 50 meters in front of us was a line of buses and trucks almost a kilometer long waiting to cross "the bad spot." We were pulled out of the ditch and we took our place in the long line of vehicles. About an hour later, Ruan came zooming by on the bike. He was able to go back to Santa Rosa and get us some food and water. He then met up with an Argentinian guy who was going almost as far as we were. They decided to travel together which turned out to be a big blessing to each of them. They took off around 9:00am and we didn't see them for the rest of the trip.

20 hours on the bus - still in a good mood!

We finally got to sludge through the muck hole around 1:00 in the afternoon. "Hole," of course, is a relative term. Really it was about a kilometer of slippery, sludgy, slimy, clay and mud between a foot and two feet deep. I felt really bad for the bus helpers who were constantly in and out of the bus digging paths in the mud.

It only got worse...seriously.

Onward we traveled. Not 45 minutes later, we made a river crossing and popped a hole in our radiator. The drivers and helpers hopped out of the bus and proceeded to fix the hole with a combination of cotton balls and bar soap. Don't ask me how they did it, but it worked. An hour later, with a radiator plugged with cotton and soap shavings, we were back on the road. By 6 pm we arrived in a little town (pretty much the only town in a stretch of about 420 kilometers). This town is right on the river and seems to be perpetually flooded during rainy season. One word to describe it....Yuck!!!

"Ponton Yata" - perpetually flooded

Potty stop, anyone? Just follow the "trail."

We were in the amazing town of Yata just long enough to eat. Even the Bolivians traveling with us were scared to eat the food from this town. We begged the local restaurant ladies to boil us some potatoes and eggs. We reasoned that the boiling water would kill anything. And we talked them into letting us peel and cut our own potatoes. After eating nothing but sweet granola and granola bars for almost 2 days, we were happy to have a salty alternative. We grabbed our boiled goods and jumped back on the bus. I reasoned that we were just a few hours from Riberalta - familiar territory just 1.5 hours from the school. I imagined we would be waltzing into the school around 3 am.

But, alas, 3 am came and went. The sun rose and I tried to recognize the landscape from when Ruan and I traveled to Rurre. I thought I recognized it and starting counting the hours I imagined we had left. Seriously, it couldn't be much further. By 8:30 in the morning, we were at the infamous "triangulo" which our overly-optimistic bus drivers was only about 2 hours from Riberalta. This, I thought, was good news. After all, we had business to do in Guayaramerin, and if we arrived in Guayara before noon, we would be able to accomplish what we wanted to and still return to the school before Sabbath. Great plan!

40 hours on the bus...still with false hope and smiles:)

Unfortunately, this was not to be our plan. The road deteriorated even more between the triangle and Riberalta making a 2-trip into a 5-hour trip. But it gets better still...just after being dragged through the last mucky hole, just 10 km from the gate in Riberalta, a bad noise came from the engine compartment. Yep...radiator...again...more soap...more cotton balls...and 3 hours later, we were back on the road.

Perhaps leaving the road like this offers job security for the one driving the tractor.

This can't possibly qualify as a road, can it?

Well, needless to say, we did not arrive at the school before sunset. We arrived at the school entrance at 8:15 Friday night - 52 hours after leaving Rurrenabaque. Ruan managed to get home about 24 hours ahead of us. I guess it pays to take a motorcycle. Just a week after we got back, the road closed and is not expected to reopen until the 15th of April. All in all it was definitely an experience to remember...and learn from! Beware of rainy season travel...or just fly!

Time for Travel

2008-04-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

Up until now, Ruan and I have spent very little time traveling around Bolivia. We have always traveled directly from Michigan to the school and back, only stopping at the airports and bus stations that we absolutely have to visit to get where we are going. While working at the school, we have taken a day-trip or two - never venturing very far away. Last year I was able to boast that I had crossed the river in Rosario del Yata (a town about 3 miles away) for the first time ever. When it came time to go home at the end of the school year, travel was never first on my mind...I just wanted to get home.

Well....all has changed now. We took our first adventure just a week after the school year started. Off to visit the Familia Feliz (aka - orphanage that really isn't technically an orphanage) on a half-business, half-personal trip. We decided to travel the only economical way to travel - by bus. This is something that usually isn't recommended in rainy season, but we set out undeterred. After all, 4 student arrived just two days before we left, and they had no horror stories.

The trip turned out to be fairly uneventful. There were some parts of the road that were "questionable." We had to stop one time for about 4 hours to wait for a machine to arrive that could pull the buses through a pretty sloppy, deep, mud-hole, and we had to drive through 3 fairly deep rivers, but other than that, nothing super note-worthy. Unfortunately, both camera batteries went dead just a couple hours into the trip, so none of the excitement could be recorded. In any case, we arrived to the quaint little tourist trap of Rurrenabaque just 29 short hours after setting out. That's good time for rainy season....as we later found out.

While in Rurrenabaque (Rurre for short), we got to see mountains, we ate great food (vegetarian means so much more than a rice plate in Rurre), and we even got to go horseback riding. Overall, it was a nice experience. Getting back to Guayara, however, was a whole different story...

Micheal, this one's for you!

2008-01-26T13:54:00.001-08:00

This picture I actually had to "take" from Melanie's blog. It's the only picture we have together from the whole weekend! An early morning visit to Cracker Barrel on the way home....

Pics from a friend's camera reveal two other important folks from the GYC weekend. In fact, we would never have made it there and back without them. Thanks Paeter and Micheal!!

GYC 2007

2008-01-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

Ruan and I had the opportunity to attend GYC in December. This year, the conference was in Minneapolis and we had the privilege of taking one of our friends from Mexico along with us. If you haven't figured out from previous blogs, Keila works at the school in Bolivia with us. She went to Mexico for "summer break" and then braved a 2-day bus ride on Greyhound to meet up with us in Michigan.

The conference was excellent. I would highly recommend it to everyone! We were inspired and challenged! And now we are ready for another year of service in Bolivia. :)

Ruan, Keila, & Tara - in front of our school's booth.

Getting ready for the opening address.

Jerry - this one is especially for you:)

Downtown Minneapolis

Our hotel - the Hilton

Fortunately we only had to go outside a couple times. The hotels were attached to the Convention Center by the climate-controlled Skyways.

Hilton lobby - very festive!

Keila with her "goody bag" in the exhibit hall. While she wasn't manning our booth, she was collecting pens from all the other booths!

"Something is happening" report. If you havent' already, check out www.armyofyouth.com.

More GYC 2007!

2007-12-28T19:13:00.001-08:00

Bolivia School Staff reunion:)

David (President of GMI) talking to potential missionaries.

Tara, Phoebe (Fawna's sis), & Keila

Keila with David

Ruan with David

Sabbath morning - Keila's first time in falling snow!

Keila & Tara by the tall Christmas tree in the Convention Center just before our outreach adventure:)

Door to door outreach in the frigid cold Minnesota air!

New GYC Executive Committee - average age...27:)

Getting ready to leave Minneapolis!

Stateside

2007-11-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

After several days of travel, we've made it home for "summer break!" We will be here in the States until early February when we will head back to Bolivia for another school year.

House guest - This one is helping house sit while we are in the States.

A real puddle jumper - We fly in this 19-passenger plane to get to our state capital, Trinidad (no, not the island) from Guayaramerin.

The twisty, curvy Bolivian rivers.

Bus Cama - You could almost lay flat in this bus. Seriously, it must have been the nicest bus I have ever ridden.

Keila and Tara after all night on the bus.

With a civic stop (or protest) in Santa Cruz, our flights got canceled and we had time to shop...

Last run before long flight. It was colder in Santa Cruz than in Miami.

International airport in Santa Cruz...where you pay a $24 tax just to fly out.

Getting ready to get checked in...see the restaurant in the background?

Graduation 2007 - First Generation

2007-11-25T13:33:00.000-08:00

We graduated our first 9 students on November 11, 2007. It was a really great day and we all experienced answered prayers! We hope to see most of you soon to tell you the stories!

Class of 2007 with some teachers

First Medical Evacuation

2007-10-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, two of our students' mothers were in an accident. They were traveling on a motorcycle in town when a drunk driver swerved into their lane with his pickup and hit them. There were 4 people on the motorcycle; the two ladies, a young boy, and a 6 month old baby. One mom threw her son off the bike seconds before the truck hit them. The other mom wrapped her arms around her baby before they were hit. Praise God that nothing serious happened to the boy or baby. Both ladies right thighs were fractured. Ruan and I went to visit the ladies in the hospital Sunday afternoon. We found them with their legs in makeshift splints made out of cardboard. The only treatment they were receiving were some painkillers and antibiotics. When on Monday we found that their situation had not changed we started asking what plans there were for treatment. We found that the local hospital couldn’t handle the situation and that the family didn’t have the means to get them flown to better medical attention. We told them we would help them in any way we could and left to try to find a plane that would fly them. We first went to the local airlines but no one had enough room to take two ladies in stretchers. We then tried to contract a private plane but could not find anyone willing to fly. We spent the day praying, talking to people, praying some more, asking God to open the doors for these ladies to get to better care.

By Tuesday morning we had one option: a small plane was willing to fly the ladies to Trinidad, slightly better care, for $700. We spent the morning making the necessary arrangements for them to leave 1 o’clock that afternoon. There was one option we had not considered but God had already planned. Jeff, our director and also a pilot, was flying back to the school that very morning after being in the US for 4 months. He arrived at 12:30. None of us thought it was possible to fit the two ladies lying down into his little plane, but as we were unloading Jeff and Fawna’s luggage we all felt inspired that we should at least give it a try. After all, Jeff could fly them straight to Santa Cruz where they would receive good care in a modern facility. We immediately sprung into action. While some of us started taking out the seats of the plane Jeff, Fawna and Ruan drove to the hospital to explain the change of plans. After a few more trips back and forth between the hangar and airport the ladies were ready to be loaded in the plane. Praise God that with His help both ladies fit into the plane in comfortable positions. I personally couldn't believe that they fit. The plane was off the ground just before the 3:15 cut off time (to arrive before sunset). Praise God for the way in which he leads and provides. It was so amazing to see how all the different plans we tried didn't work out, and God provided something better than we ever imagined.
Since then, they have each had surgery in Santa Cruz and are recovering. God is good and before they were even off the ground, over 2/3 of the medical costs were already covered by a donor on the other side of the world.

Getting settled.
Looking in from the luggage hatch.
Family and friends saying good-bye.
Jeff, the pilot, in position.
Taxiing out to the runway.

Evangelistic Series

2007-10-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

During the last two weeks of September and the first week of October, we held an evangelistic campaign in a little town near our school. Each night there were at least 40 young people in attendance. The best thing about the whole series is that it wasn't the adults who preached, it was our students. Eight of our students prepared a 15-night seminar on prophecy....and the young people kept coming back each night. More than 25 people want continued studies.

It was amazing to see how God worked in spite of the difficulties that arose each night. Our big truck has been broken down since the middle of July, so each night we had to make the 5 kilometer trip on motorbikes and our little Land Cruiser. Back and forth, back and forth went the bikes hauling all of our equipment and people to and from the meetings. After the second week when the generator died, we ran the lights, computer, and projector using our LandCruiser as the power source. The rainy season waited to start until just after the meetings ended. Over and over we could see God working.

We had between 50 and 90 little rascals each night for the children's meeting...very high energy!
This little baby's name is Tara Katrina. Sound familiar? One of our former students chose my name for his sister's baby girl. It's a little strange to hold a baby named after you.
Damaris and Teacher Tara. I know teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, but sometimes it's hard not to. :)
Carola and Teacher Tara waiting for a ride to the meeting.