Thursday, December 31, 2009

Lapiani

For the skeptics out there who presume that I've been having too much fun the past four months (you're right by the way), and failing to fulfill the missionary obligations of eating weird things and lacking a proper bathroom for extended periods, I want to reassure you I finally started moving in this direction.

This week over thirty people from my Bolivian church ventured out of the city for a three day mission trip to a Quechua "village" called Lapiani. As you can see our backdrop was fabulous. So, I still haven't been deprived of gorgeous views, but we did give up electricity, running water, cell phone coverage, and let's just say the outdoor option was often preferable to the one outhouse-style baño.

Small teams broke off for medical and dental care, hair cuts, foot washings, cooking, games and a puppet show with clowns and balloon animals, clothing, food and toy distribution, and my personal favorite the veterinarians.

Myself and two other vets hiked around the countryside led by farmers to the pastures where animals were tethered to stakes in the ground. With the help of the locals, trees, some fancy rope work, and often some fancy footwork we "restrained" many large animals well enough to prevent any injuries. We injected over 300 local cows, sheep, pigs, goats, and horses with vitamins and dewormer. I rounded up as many dogs and cats as I could find for Rabies vaccines. And to top it all off we did a little wound management on a cow with a deep laceration from its halter, and a castration on a donkey.

All in all, I think the trip was a huge success. Last year a team from our church visited the same city, and this year their confidence in us had grown so there were many more people to share God's love with. On the last day, the people brought us a couple of their sheep for a going away lunch.

It was a great experience for me to get to know some of the people from my church better, work on large animals in such different conditions, and practice my Spanish. Is it a bad sign that I often didn't notice when they'd switched from speaking Spanish to Quechua?

Friday, December 25, 2009

La Noche Buena

Here, Christmas Eve is much more celebrated than actual Christmas, just another thing to add to the list with heat, humidity, fireworks, Spanish, and a surrogate family to turn the holiday upside down. Last night, in Santa Cruz, at a candlelight service in the International Church, over one hundred ex-patriots from all over the city gathered for a bit of nostalgia. Whether they've lived here for 30 years, or merely four months like me, it seemed comforting to sing Christmas songs in English, to have a bit of home so far away from "normal."
This church, similar to my Bolivian national church in Cochabamba, had a bit of an American Idol episode for a Christmas service. As everyone took their turn "performing" and every possible technical and transitional difficulty interrupted the program I was struck by the irony that I've spent the last four years working in churches where excellence is the minimum standard, and now it's odd and a little refreshing to leave the snow machines and perfection behind for a simplicity, and almost innocence that reminds me somewhat of a Christmas in Whoville.
As we greeted other gringos over Christmasy treats after the service in English, I started to miss Spanish a bit. But that longing was soon satisfied as we made our way over to Taliti Cumi, the orphanage to share a fiesta with the kids. Apart from home, I can't think of a better place to spend my favorite moments of the year than with kids who have so little, but an overabundance of love to share.

This Christmas morning, as the war of fireworks continues to subside, but before the rush of festivities begins, I can't help but feel peaceful and content. In the absence of a mountain of presents and a swarm of giddy family, it might even be easier to recognize the true meaning of this birthday celebration.


"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" -2 Corinthians 9:15

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Blessed Beyond Measure

"For some people a reward is like a red or a gold ferrari. They often think in static terms, like the best the Creator can come up with is a car that needs an oil change. Reward, in Jesus language, is always a dynamic presence in reality." -Rob Bell, Mars Hill Bible Church

I've struggled since I started the blog, and for that matter joined Facebook, to keep my left hand from knowing what my right hand is doing. The idea of publicly declaring what you're doing with your life seemed, and still does sometimes, narcissistic. Starting a blog with such a theme as 'spending yourself' has lead me to question my motives for doing things more than once. Fasting from blogging has come up, but I've promised to update you regularly with my happenings, so whether you're really reading this or not, I'm going to. Maybe I'm rationalizing, but I hope that writing about the opportunities I'm blessed with has become a bit of a ministry in itself.

I say all this because it weighs on me sometimes, and especially upon hearing Rob Bell's recent sermon on Matthew 6, "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven." But as I started to feel convicted Rob said the line at the top about God's reward being His dynamic presence. I may not have a ferrari, or any personal transportation at all, but God's presence and love are so apparent in my life.

Of all the people that God uses as conduits of His love, two scenarios stand out this Christmas season:

Last Sunday, I had the really fun privilege to Skype-in to Mosaic Christian Church's service and tell them about my work here and their mission trip next summer. Among people's reactions to the surprise, the warmth of their reception, and sharing a prayer with my hero--Jim Elliott, one of my favorite parts was being called "Mosaic's missionary." And just last week they proved those words weren't idle by sending extremely generous Christmas gifts. Mosaic, thank you for allowing me to be your missionary; it's an honor, a pleasure, and a blessing.

The angel in my life this Christmas, and always, is my lovely momma. Not only is she my confidant, counselor, recipe book, friend, mother and POA but she's also been a bit of an elf for the past couple months rerouting dozens of gifts and cards to and from me via Kentucky. In her devotion to serving altruistically she made the ultimate sacrifice of stepping on the scale to weigh some text books I wanted sent, before she remembered she had postage scales she could have used. Thanks Mom, I know you don't want announcements with trumpets, but your offering has been part of my reward!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Would You Rather?

During the long Landcruiser rides between adventures in the Salt Flats a few weeks ago, car games became normal conversation. One of the most amusing being the infamous, ¨Would You Rather...?¨ Most of the time people´s answers seem fairly reasonable, but when faced with the decision to give up the ocean or the mountains for the rest of your life, and everyone else chooses to relinquish the mountains I can come to no other conclusion than these people are CRAZY! (Putting their sanity further in jeopardy they´ve moved to one of the few countries that has no beach...)
Today, I returned from a little more traveling with my first visitor from the States. Exploring a bit more of the Andes made me even more sure of my choice to sacrifice la playa for las montanas if need be, but when you can have both, that's even better.

I also learned that I would rather have God´s creation over man´s most spectaculor, as was confirmed even in the awe of Machu Picchu.

To assuage my mild guilt upon leaving language school behind for a bit, my traveling companion commented that I'd probably get more practice with Spanish outside of Cochabamba at this point. As you will probably agree from my last post I have, for better or worse, made many many English speaking friends in Coch, so he was probably right.
I enjoyed putting my knew abilities to use, and I was blown away once again by the underrated beauty of Bolivia.

"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?" -Isaiah 40:12