Interviews Coming Soon...

The final weekend...

When I woke up this morning and realized that this was my last day in Ixiamas, I rolled over and pretended like it was all just a dream.  There is no way that the time has already come to say goodbye.  I thought that if I didn’t get out of my hammock, that the day would not begin.  Finally after emerging from my cocoon, I sat on the roof until breakfast listening to a familiar song named Galliana (originally written about Juarez, Mexico; however the words strike right to the heart of here as well).  If we haven’t mentioned the splendor of the view from the third floor I would be surprised, but indulge me and let me tell you more of it’s beauty.  Sitting on the back side of the Internado you can see the mountains in the distance covered above by clouds of cotton balls in the soft blue sky.  Along the sides of the mountains are large patches of yellow, which is not barren land, but rather splendid flowers from the higher trees.  In the foreground trees of every shade of emerald creep along until you reach our property, which contains many of the same vegetation.  Rooster’s crowing in the distance and the melody of a multitude of birds harmonizes perfectly with the laughter and bustling of the kids below us preparing for the day.  To the front of the Internado, the sun slowly rises from behind the palms, bringing oranges and pinks to light the world in color.  Our Father’s creation glorified to it’s fullest in a matter of minuets.  The experience of it all is simply astounding.

This rush of emotion, though heightened this morning, was no less present yesterday.  As we prepared our hearts for our last weekend in Ixiamas, it was indeed a difficult task.  The day was spent doing odds and ends.  Some of the kids had school in the morning (and even some exams!), so the younger ones were left to do some chores until they returned, and joined in, on the cleaning of the grounds.  There was clearing of the weeds with machetes and making the volleyball court neat, along with various other tidying tasks to make the place look wonderful.  We did some laundry for the last time, played cards and domino’s with the girls while the boys played soccer, read a little, laughed and chatted, sang a lot, and made some final Recuerdos.  These Recuerdos are so dear to the girls and symbolize their love and friendship with one another (like writing in someone’s yearbook…only so much more colorful and creative than the elementary 2 good + 2 be = 4 gotten). We gave Maestro and Lucy (his daughter) the Bibles we had gotten for them and they were overwhelmed with joy…I was sad the others were´t able to experience the time as well. The word last surfaces more times than imaginable, only reminding us of our near departure.  We ended the evening with Finding Nemo together as a group before retiring to bed.

Today is El Dia de Amistad (friendship day!) so there have been many hugs already this morning in celebration of the beloved holiday.  As everyone headed of to different churches, Sarah and I went to Nueva Cannon as usual for our morning service.  We saw Lucy in town and she came with us which was so great!  The pastor even mentioned us in his sermon.  It is going to be so hard to leave this place we have grown to call home!  After our final lunch in town, we will prepare for the numerous activities of the remaining part of the day.  The dreaded task of organizing everything for packing and cleaning must be accomplished among the goodbyes and tears.  Hopefully we’ll even have time to make a treat for the kids for tonight to go along with the Twizlers we have for them.  Our bus leaves at 6:30 in the morning from Ixiamas and we will arrive in La Paz on Tuesday early in the morning to Rachel waiting for us at the hotel.  Our journey has reached it´s end, but will remain forever with us.  For the final time…chaio.

..Lorena..

7-20 and 7-21

The past two days have been somewhat relaxing, as there is little work we can do to help Maestro out because he’s down to the last parts of the projects which he likes to make sure are perfect. Yesterday morning was my turn for the devotion and it was on various Psalms that show us to make a joyful noise and sing to our King.  The kids here really have that down, and honestly I was more thinking of us as I wrote out what to say.  They constantly have a song on their lips or are playing some kind of instrument.  When the power’s on, they always have the stereo on.  It’s not simply the fact that they are so in tune with music that is so special, it’s the fact that they choose to sing praises to our Lord all day long, when they could very easily be consumed in the latest pop or rap that blares from the speakers in town.  Yesterday was filled with even more melody than usual, and I pray that it never ceases.  After the morning work hour we had some time to read and do some laundry down at the river.  It has been cooler the past two days (though sadly enough still no sign of rain) so the water was a tad on the chilly side.  That consumed most of the morning since a lot of the girls had the same idea to have some clean clothes, but as always, it is more fun.  After lunch the time was filled with playing with the younger kids and making paper airplanes and throwing them everywhere imaginable.  It doesn’t take much to amuse these kids, or us for that matter!  Eduardo has tightened the rein a little on the kids after having come back from break as they have been a bit rowdy, so now after dinner they are to do homework until bedtime, so Sarah and I have to entertain ourselves for the rest of the evening after 7:30 so we watched some Mr. Bean and it was indeed hilarious.

This morning was Sarah’s turn for the devotion, and she was extremely nervous, which is very much out of character.  She had translated it into Spanish and was going to try to do it all in Spanish herself.  It took a little convincing, but she did indeed go forward with her plan.  Her devotion was on being the light of Christ, but I think the kids took away from more than just her message.  They were all so excited to see her trying to speak their language that it didn’t matter if she pronounced something wrong or didn’t use the right verb, she was trying so hard because she loves them, and that was shining through in every word she said.  Our work time was spent helping the girls pick beans from the trees and then shelling them together as we sang.  The girls that helped Rachel’s mom with the sewing have taken over the job and are in the process of sewing shorts for the boys.  It’s so exciting to see how much they have learned and how happy they are to have the knowledge!  I know they can’t wait to show their families what they can do.  I envision this afternoon being much the same as yesterday, playing with the kids and just getting to spend some time with them and love on them.  I know tomorrow is going to be full of fun since they don’t have classes, so I think we’re all pretty pumped about that.  Until next time…chaio.

..Lorena.. 

7-18 and 7-19

Yesterday and today have been filled with lots of food, cards, and laughter…basically just a ton of fun!  Yesterday morning the girls had their chores in the garden while the younger ones went to school (which yes, they actually did have class yesterday which was pretty amazing to us all).  It’s amazing to see how much the garden has grown in the short amount of time we have been here; all the plants are so big now!  I can remember when we watched the girls make the bed and helped them transplant things from the nursery, and hopefully soon some of the vegetables will be ready to eat.  After a few chores of our own, Sarah and I were ready for our adventure.  Stella and Franci picked us up around 2pm to head off to their land where they are planning to conserve animals like monkeys and birds in the future.  They have a house there on the property and a few things planted already, but they still are far from their goal.  The four of us walked to the nearest river to fill up bottles with water to cook and clean for the night and next morning, carrying three each for our needed supply. After gathering some wood and making a stove out of bricks, our fire was ready to cook over. The menu for the evening was spaghetti, and was absolutely wonderful.  We had small noodles and the sauce was made from onions, carrots, tomatoes, oil, and garlic.  I must admit I have been inspired this summer to cook everything from scratch for now on.  Around 6p when the sun was setting we ventured down the road a little ways on foot to hear the birds.  Now you may be slightly perplexed by that statement, as Sarah and I were too at first, but it was probably one of the coolest experiences ever.  There is an area on the road where around two thousand birds nest, and return home to every night around that time.  The bird is called a Tojo and is a black bird with a yellow tail that makes the most amazing noise.  The sound is so hard to describe and I know I can’t even begin to do it justice, but it sounds sort of like an electronic water drop…you’ll just have to believe me when I say it is incredible.  The birds fly in from every direction making their call and they were so close to us that we could hear their wings flapping as they swarmed the trees.  It was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie (only they weren’t attacking us thankfully).  We watched and listened in awe for over thirty minutes God’s amazing creation.  After the short journey back, we lit some candles (they didn’t have electricity) and sat under the stars and played cards.  It definitely felt like a girls camping trip.  We played Loba, which is a game Franci taught us, and then several rounds of Golf and Speed as well that we taught the two of them.  We stayed up laughing and exchanging stories before eventually calling it a night.  The sky was so clear and since there were no lights within sight, the stars were perfectly clear amid the black background.  At one point we spotted a falling star that, though quite slowly, gradually disappeared into nothing.  The Milky Way was more visible than most nights and it was simply gorgeous.  Praise be to the Creator of the universe, how awesome and wonderful is He?

We slept in a little this morning and had some time to just relax and read before we made some tea for breakfast and had some bread and peanut butter, which Sarah had randomly brought in her bag (thanks Cowboy for the mini Jiff’s…they are so yummy!).  Franci made lunch while Stella, Sarah, and I talked for a while and played some more cards.  Lunch was a spicy mix of veggies and rice and was muy rico y picante.  (Rico means rich and is a very complimentary word with regards to food having a great flavor and picante is spicy).  Of course we finished the afternoon off with a few more rounds of Golf (which if you have never played before you should because it is extremely fun…however I do place a disclaimer that it is quite addicting!) before returning to the Internado for the evening around 3pm.  We were greeted as if we had been gone for days, and it’s hard to believe that in less than a week we won’t be returning once we walk out of the gate on Monday.  However, that time is not here yet, so no time for tears, only fun with the wonderful kids!  Until next time…chaio.

..Lorena..

Nueva Idiamas

After waking up early, we headed off to Nueva Idiamas around 6:30 in the morning to spend the day there.  The ride is around three hours full of bumps through the jungle.  We had breakfast on the bus which consisted of bread and marmalade and cheese as well.  We received a warm welcome from the pastor (who is the dad of two of the kids at the Internado, Raquel and Luis) once we arrived before beginning the service.  We alternated singing and speaking from both the community and the group and then the kids from the Internado presented the drama that Cowboy and Eduardo had taught them (in case you don’t remember which drama I am talking about, it is about Jesus and is about His passion.  They presented it for the team on the night they arrived.)  The people of the community were so thankful for the drama and the fact that the kids put it on really touched them. 

After much thanksgiving we shared a lunch of soup, yucca, and plantains together under the pavilion.  Once we finished our meal we had Bible school for the kids.  Trey used a beach ball globe to show them where we live and where they live and let them keep the ball to play with.  Sarah told the story of the lost sheep, and heaven rejoices when one person is saved.  We sang a couple of songs that had motions (they really like one that says “Mi Dios es tan fuerte, grande y poderoso y no hay nada que El no puede hacer” <which means…my God is so strong, big, and powerful and there is nothing that he can not do> because they get to see us flexing our muscles and that is quite an amusing sight).  We had coloring sheets with sheep on them to go along with the story and even the adults (and our bus drivers!) wanted to color so that was a lot of fun.  We also got each of the families together form the community and took Polaroid pictures of them so they could have a family photo.  The pictures came out underdeveloped and looked like they were several years old (the x-rays in the airport had apparently messed up the film), but these families cherished the only picture they have probably ever had as if it was perfect.  You could see the gratitude overflowing from their hearts as they hugged us to say thank you for the short time we were able to spend in their community.  It was hard to tear everyone away from the new friendships, but around 3pm the bus left.  On the way back, we stopped by Two Trees (the property that SIFAT owns and grows cocoa among other items for agricultural development) to show the team the area. 

We arrived in Ixiamas close to 7pm so once we began the program for the evening it was a little later than normal, but you could never tell by all the energy.  School was supposed to begin back today (but as we expected, there were no classes again today…we are beginning to wonder when they do go to school!) so a lot of kids came back yesterday during the day in anticipation of having to go to school today.  It was great that the team got to meet a lot more kids and for the ones who had been here before, see some old faces.  All the kids were really excited to have another program in the evening and had prepared several songs to sing for the occasion.  The boys even did a small drama to a song about Samson and his strength.  All the kids love the song “Yes Lord” and Blake was able to write the words on the blackboard so they could teach them when we sang it.  Among the testimonies for the evening, one was especially touching.  Rachel’s mom went forward to speak (accompanied by her husband was there to take over when she couldn’t hold back the tars any longer).  They poured out love on their daughter and expressed how proud they are of her and all the things she has accomplished in this country that is so far from home. It was hard for everyone to hold back the tears, and despite her greatest efforts, Rachel’s mom had to hand it over to her husband to finish.  There is so much love in her family and it was so touching to see it in their speech and the hugs that followed after. I would be lying if my eyes weren’t a little watery as well as I thought about how much I miss my own mom and brother. At the end of the night, we circled together as one family to pray for the final time for the evening giving thanks that we are one family in Christ and though we may be apart in distance at some point, we will always be united in spirit.

This morning Sarah and I had breakfast with the team in town (which I must say we picked a wonderful day because we had “egg pizza” which was absolutely wonderful) and then walked over to the school to show the team where the kids have classes.  The rest of the morning the team just played with the kids before lunch.  Soccer, board games, volleyball…you name it.  Rachel’s parents did some finishing touches on Eduardo’s curtains as well.  These guys on this team have done such a wonderful job with the construction, but it was a great opportunity for them to get to spend some more time with the kids and invest in them.  After one final lunch in town, we sent the team and Rachel’s family off to Rurre where they will be spending the night and then going on the Zip Line tomorrow before leaving for La Paz tomorrow.  Cowboy’s team will fly out on the 20^th while Rachel and her family will do some traveling before they fly back to Indiana on the 25^th.   Sarah and I are going tomorrow to spend the night at Stella and Francine’s land so we are quite excited about that since everyone will be gone.  Ok, I believe this is lengthy enough for the time being…chaoi until Wednesday.

..Lorena..