Update from Urubichá

 I left Santa Cruz on Monday, with Emilio.  He had come out to share at a church and have a meeting with his pastor.  We made it in one piece with no problems, and all the stuff arrived safely!

What's more, I have internet here.  I'm currently sitting on my borrowed bed with the laptop on a toilet box, because I didn't bring any furniture.

This is what the house looks like on the outside:

 This is the kitchen:

 Looking the other way.  This is the living/dining room:

Me, with all my stuff in the living room!  We were thankful to find out that there is a 4th room that they are willing to rent us for an extra $35/month, that we will mostly use for storage and maybe office space.  That brings our little house up to almost 850 square feet!

The big plan is to get this place painted and put in a bathroom.  Emilio has been helping me.  Here he is scraping the ceiling, knocking down the dirt and nastiness that has collected there, as well as the old plaster that someone put there to try to control it.  We are just going to staple up plastic sheeting to cover it.

Yesterday, a funeral procession went by.  My internal language/culture learner wanted to rush after it with a camera and notebook, but I was hot, sweaty, tired, and very dirty.

This morning, Emilio and I drove out to Ascencion, our "big town."  It's about 25 miles away, but it takes almost an hour to get there on a dry road.  He took me to his regular hardware store and I was amazed at how much stuff they have.  I really should be able to get whatever I need there.  I bought plaster, drain pipe, portland cement, and chicken wire.  Then we went to a sawmill and bought wood for building the bathroom.

Expecting the Unexpected

Our big task for this week is to move our little family to Santa Cruz.  Then, after spending a couple days buying supplies, I plan to go out to Urubichá to do some improvements to the rooms that we are going to rent.

I have a plan (you can see it in this post on The Tinker Thinker).  I am confident in my ability to turn 615 square feet of empty rooms into a useable space for us.  I know what materials I need and have a rough idea of how long it will take to finish.

That's all well and good.  It's easy to plan things and have expectations for physical things that we can understand, prepare for, and control.  But what about the unexpected?

What about the people?

We have met a small handful of people in Urubichá.  We know next to nothing about them.  Even Emilio and Marlen, our coworkers, are relatively unknown to us; we have spent less than 2 weeks total with them, a couple days at a time, spread out over more than a year.

What will they think about a family of gringos moving into their town?

What will they think about the way we live, the things we eat, the things we do?

Spinach?

We were told recently that when Emilio and Marlen planted their garden and someone noticed their spinach growing, they were told, "We only use that for witchcraft!"

I bet they didn't see that coming!!

What are we going to experience?  We don't know, but we do know that it will be unexpected!

Transitions

We are still in a time of transition and although we have a newsletter written up with our coming plans we are still not quite ready to send it out. In the mean time this is what's keeping us busy:

 The beginning of the school year: First grade and preschool.

Attending church with our local church family.

Drawing up potential floor plans for our temporary home (3 rooms, about 615 square feet) in the village. 

We're not sure exactly what the inside looks like and the bathroom doesn't exist currently.

The building we'll be living in.

Getting reacquainted with Biscuit!

Spending time with Nathan's brother and family (food is always a good reason to hang out).

Sickness, yup, a few weeks of rest. . .and sickness hits. . .we're thankful for the time we had without it!

Meetings, phone calls and emailing with our leadership and local church ministry team.

Sharing with some local college-age men and women about missions. 

Getting used to shopping in the local market and stores again.

And running miscellaneous errands.

We've hit a few hiccups in our planning but continue to move forward. Please pray for unity amongst those involved in decision making and supporting these transitions and wisdom as we make decisions.

Back to it!

Well, here we are.

 After a fun-filled and altogether too-crazy summer in Montana, it's time to put our collective nose back to the grindstone. This afternoon we leave Bozeman and will arrive in Bolivia on Tuesday, Lord willing.

 I put up some more photos of our summer fun in our online photo album. Here are some of the highlights:

 Swimming with cousins:

 Denver zoo:

 Massive sandwiches from Pickle Barrel:

 Awesome scenery:

 More fun with cousins:

 Fun with gubs:

 New books:

 VBS:

 Fourth of July with cousins:

 Fishing (and more awesome MT scenery):

 Father-daughter camping with friends:

 Feeding ducks:

While we have enjoyed being back in the States, it has been far from restful.  We've been running like crazy to see people and visit churches.  That said, it has been refreshing  to be in our home culture again.  Our last Sunday here in our home church was particularly enjoyable.

Now we are packed up and ready as we'll ever be!

Four Weeks, Four Places

During our four weeks back in the US, we've spent time in Denver, Billings, Bozeman, and Cody.  Now we're heading over to Dillon to see Kaylee's mom.  We're having fun, but it's CRAZY! :)

As promised in my last post, I have uploaded some photos of our time.  Click here or on the slideshow to see them:

Two weeks down. . .

As of tonight, we've been in the US for two weeks!  At times it seems so long and at others so short, but 1/6 of our time has passed and it has been a whirlwind.  We've spent time with lots of family in 3 different cities and seen lots of friends at church. This week, we're in Bozeman doing VBS at our home church.

Please continue to pray for our girls as the strain of continuous activity and (especially) meeting new people is taking its toll.  Addi, the most introverted of the 3, stayed home from VBS this morning with Kaylee, which was good for both of them.  Lydia went again today and says she enjoys it, but is unusually clingy and gets pretty nervous if I'm not right next to her.  Anne is handling it the best and is genuinely enjoying VBS, but the strain is coming out in other areas, especially in her pride and unwillingness to take correction (she gets that from me).

Kaylee and I are soaking it up.  Although it is difficult for us at times too, it is SO wonderful to be spending time in a place we know so well, with good friends, speaking English!  Kaylee had a very productive day yesterday buying homeschool material, getting a routine medical checkup, making phone calls, and shopping.  I've been enjoying the food and had a great time shooting through a case of clay pigeons (click for video)with my dad, brother-in-law, and nephews while camping on Friday.

I'll try to get some photos up here soon, but for now you can see a couple on Kaylee's personal Missionary Wife blog.

Change, Disruption, and General Craziness

Our life is never dull, that's a fact.  Here's what's going on around our house:

No more classes! Kaylee finished her formal Spanish study at the end of April, officially closing the latest chapter in our long road to tribal ministry!  Anne finished her year of Kindergarten the following day.  Kaylee has a few words and photos at her personal blog: Life of a Missionary Wife.

Packing!  For the last two weeks, we have been slowly sorting and packing our things to get ready to store them for our trip to the US in June.  We're still sorting out the details of how that's all going to work out, but it is coming together.  In the meantime, our house is a shambles:

Planning!  We have a full itinerary for our summer in Bozeman and are trying to work out the details of our move to Urubichá when we return.  It is coming along slowly, mostly due to the wide variety of options and opinions that we have to work with!  Please pray that God would give us wisdom as we inch forward.

I had the opportunity to give a presentation at our church here about our plans a couple weeks ago:

Civil Unrest!  Please pray for Bolivia right now as the government and workers' unions are having difficulty resolving an issue regarding salary and retirement pensions.  There have been blockades on and off over the last few weeks (including one where miners blew up a bridge west of here), but this week they have started blocking non-stop and things continue to escalate.  Please pray for safety for those involved and that the situation would be resolved peacefully.  If it does not resolve soon, it may affect our travel plans.

This is a local news photo of one of the blockades between us and the city.  Blockading at night is very uncommon, a sure sign of escalation.

Click here for English news article with photo