Wonder

Brennan Manning tells a story of a dying rabbi who said, "Never once in my life did I ask for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder and He gave it to me." I had just read this line in The Ragamuffin Gospel when I needed it.

Yesterday, was my first frustrating day in language school. I seemed to have lost my Spanish. I told this to my teacher in my 4th class and she playfully asked, "did it go on vacation?" I felt kind of like the prophets of Baal, when Elijah asked, is your god on vacation? "Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”* No matter how loud I shouted I could not seem to wake up my brain's linguistic system.

On my 40-minute walk home from school I was talking to God about what to pray for. In the morning, I had prayed specifically to be a light, to reflect His glory, even at school. And shortly after, I sat in my first class of the day recognizing, almost as if I was looking from outside myself, that I was cranky. So, after a disheartening day I was contemplating how I should approach my attitude, when I remembered the line about asking for wonder. I'm not sure if I had even finished the thought, when I saw the

cutest little boy, no more than 4-years old, flying a kite all by himself in the park that I was walking through. As I walked by admiring Him and admiring God for sending such a small wonder into my day, his kite sank to the ground. Without missing a stride I picked it up and tossed it smoothly back into flight. A man walking toward him thanked me and I answered, "de nada," but what I really meant was "gracias." Gracias a Dios for taking such good care of me.

(The kiddo in the picture is not the kite-flier, but a niño from the church I've been attending. He is raised by his ~12 year-old sister, because his mom is the sole bread-winner for 5 kids. He repeatedly dropped these treats on the ground, but of course picked them up within 5 seconds before putting them back in his mouth.)

*1 Kings 18:27 NLT

Don't worry today my español was back on track.

A Few Things are Different Here

(Some of my fellow language school students at a Cochabamba Day party.)

One of my teachers asked me to keep a journal of cultural observations so I can process through why things are the way they are here. Since language school isn't providing a lot of exciting stories I thought I'd share with you some of the things that have surprised me.

• In Bolivia there are no interstates, expressways, or freeways, so a half hour plane ride is an overnight bus ride.
• Everyone from outside of the U.S. seems to associate KY with KFC.
• I was introduced to carbon pills as a toxin absorber, for digestive issues that are common among newbies like me.
• Bolivians really do greet everyone in the room with a kiss when they enter.
• There are very few street signs, which makes map reading hard, but the lack of stop signs is a whole 'nother story. You just honk and proceed hopefully through the intersection.
• The buildings all have walls around the outside for protection. I already knew this, but I've recently learned that the plants decorating the walls are thorny as well.
• Toyota seems to have reserved some cars from the U.S. market. Have you ever heard of the Sprinter or the Starlet?
• It is acceptable to call others fat, in fact I'm told that it is culturally preferable to be plump. I'm still running though, haven't quite embraced this idea.
• You will need a knife to eat soup. In the States we would usually cut the meat off the bone or the corn off the husk before putting it in the soup, but that is not so here.
• Everyone has to get out of the car to have it filled up with natural gas, but not gasolina.
• I have seen four people riding on a motorcycle, parents carrying a car-seat on a motorcycle, parents wearing helmets while their kids ride helmet-less, three people with a tuba, and three people with a goat.
• When a woman commits a crime here, there is usually no one to take care of her kids, so she takes her children to jail with her. However, there are organizations that help take care of those niños, and organizations to help those women. I'm looking forward to serving in such places soon!

Many are the Plans in Man's Heart

Sometimes I struggle to think of things worth writing about on a weekly basis, and other times, like now, I feel overwhelmed by the idea of summarizing such an eventful week. As most of you know, my plans to start language school as soon as I arrived in Bolivia were thwarted by the necessity to start my one year Visa process. So I spent eleven days in Santa Cruz with the Janeckes, (right) the world's most hospitable family.

The Message version of Proverb 19:21 says, "We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but God's purpose prevails." Brainstorming ways to get to language school is exactly what I was doing, but the Lord had many plans for me in the mean time.

Talita Cumi has a quarterly birthday party for the orphans. Saturday, I got to participate in that wonderful celebration of nine children with cake, balloon animals, clowns, a piñata, presents, and swimming. Later that night, I was awed by a Spanish comedy version of Hamlet, with an underlying Michael Jackson theme (don't ask I don't think I

could do it justice if I tried.)

Tuesday, I was able to help my co-worker David host a pizza lunch for about 100 hungry students at the vet school to launch the semester for the VetRed Bible studies. Then, I had the pleasure of joining 57 women in the potluck kickoff of their new Beth Moore study on Esther. The voices of all those ladies praising the Lord accompanied only by a quiet acoustic guitar was a beautiful sound. Last night, after finally arriving in Cochabamba I caught the end of an International Dance Festival at the former house of one of the richest men in the world in the early 20th century, Simon Patino. The house and grounds are gorgeous, and when you visit I'll take you on a tour. Two men from Argentina danced yesterday, and tonight I hope to head back to see the Bolivian element of the show, but not until after my first language classes this afternoon!

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12

The Least, the Last, and the Lost

Today, the campo (Spanish for the countryside) became one large petting zoo. At 6:00 this morning David and Bill--

the two vets who work for World Concern--and I headed out to San Julian for a training workshop on parasite prevention and treatment, injection techniques, and hog cholera. I was just along for the ride, as I'm still in a bit of a holding pattern until my documents are cleared and I can travel to Cochabamba for language school. As I had, virtually no expectations for this event, I took the decision that the training would be cancelled due to rain, all in stride.

Since we had already driven 2+ hours to get to the village, we decided to give the Land Rover more of a challenge and take it off the paved road to visit some farms in the Berlin Zone. This gentle giant to the left was part of the Gather project's model farm where missionaries try to show ways farmers can improve their production through pasture rotation, fish breeding, elevated housing to avoid flood waters, gardening, etc. One part of the project demonstrates how much can be done with one hectare of land, so the locals will recognize there are opportunities even with few resources.

The poverty in the campo is clearly evident, and it would be easy to get overwhelmed with the needs that greet one so quickly upon arrival. I'm so thankful to have such an established organization, with strong leadership, a heart for Jesus, and a vision for making a lasting difference in the lives of the poor. It has been such a relief that everything I've heard since I arrived about World Concern and the people I'll be

working with has been confirmation that this is where God wants me to be. They are so intent on serving the poorest of the poor that they're restructuring their entire micro-finance program to shift over the next three years from micro-loans to savings communities, because those have been proven more effective in areas of extreme poverty. I love the idea I just learned this week, that World Concern seeks to create sustainable futures for the least, the last, and the lost. You really can't go wrong following Jesus' pattern of ministry.