I woke up last week with what looked like a rug burn on my elbow. I laughed and said to a missionary friend later that day, that I must have rolled over really fast or something in my sleep. She replied, “Actually, there’s this bug here that burns you when it pee’s on you. It was probably that.”

Just when I think I have this crazy country figured out….

There were blockades the other day. I’m not sure what it was all about, but they’ve become a part of life here. I had a meeting in Santa Cruz, so I had to turn around, park my truck, walk across the blockade and find a truffi headed for the city. Truffis are usually Toyota station wagons that run like the buses, but are faster and don’t stop as often. There were two people in the front seat with the driver, and I was in the back seat between two ladies. They weren’t very impressed when the driver stopped to pick up a fourth person…a little Grandma…who loudly and with great animation, put forth her argument for being allowed to join us. It’s normal to put four people across the back seat, but these ladies figured we were crowded enough. I was just trying to keep my head down and be as small as I could manage. Which wasn’t that small. When the driver didn’t listen to them, one lady angrily got out and little victorious Grandma, with a big smile, got in….along with some other guy. So now I have grumpy lady on one side of me and Grandma and some other guy on the other side of me. Grumpy lady protested silently by not moving over an inch. She had one third of the seat while the other three of us had the other two thirds. Grandma summed up the situation brilliantly when she leaned over to the other guy and said loudly, “We’d have more room if the crazy lady would move over!” You might think that would be the end of the adventure, but… We also stopped for a guy selling ice cream…and his cart. We put them in the hatch. Then we pulled over and our driver hopped out and helped his friends push another truffi out of a lot and onto the road. We proceeded to tow this other car behind us. At one point our driver was so occupied watching the car we were towing that he drove through a red light and made it halfway through the intersection before he realized what he’d done. Somehow he thought it would be a good idea to slam on his breaks and stop in the middle of the intersection…which caused the car we were towing to ram into the back of us and everyone else to swerve around us.

Really, I’d forgotten how entertaining public transportation is here….

For reasons I’ll explain later, I don’t have my truck right now, and so I’m still using public transportation. Yesterday I was once again jammed in the back seat with three other people…the one beside me also being a little Grandma lady. I can’t really stress to you how little room there is. When we stopped to let a guy climb into the hatch again, Grandma and I both looked back to see what was happening. Unfortunately we both turned our heads towards each other and I came within a hair breadth of kissing her. It was kind of traumatic….

Life has been an interesting mix of good, bad and crazy these past few weeks. We’ll start with the good. Last time I wrote, I told you about one of the guys who had decided he wanted to talk about some of the issues from his past. He’s always alluded to some things, but refused to talk about them. Anyhow, we’ve been meeting each week and working through some of the stuff. I’ve been proud of him…he’s been really honest which has been difficult for him at times. Already I can see God at work though. But please pray for him. It’s a fairly serious issue, and while God is bringing healing, he has a long road ahead of him. You can pray for me as well. I need wisdom to know how to help him through some of this. As well, I can feel myself coming under some fairly intense spiritual attacks some days, so please pray for protection as well.

I’m not sure if you remember Andres, but I’ve talked about him before. He’s the fellow I went with to visit his mom’s grave last year. He took off after that for a couple of months, but showed up back at the home in August. We started a Bible study together in September after I got back from Canada. That’s become a highlight of my week. We have such a great time and you wouldn’t believe the maturity in him. It’s been really encouraging. We’ve almost finished the book we’ve been working through (the first book he’s ever read from beginning to end) and we’ll be starting on another soon.

Please continue to pray for him. Classes have started up again, and with that, the level of temptation jumps as well. Most of the other students at the school are pretty much all about the drugs and drinking. So it’s tough for our guys. But Andres has been doing great so far. He says he’s never experienced this kind of peace and joy in his life, and he doesn’t want to lose that. =) He and I are also doing another Bible study with two other guys, Diego and Jesus. Both these guys struggle a lot in their relationships with God, but they liked the idea of getting together (I bring Coke…that probably helps). I can see them take steps forward, but often that’s followed by difficult days. Please pray that they’ll continue to grow and begin to experience freedom from their pasts.

One other fellow you can pray for, Juan (not his real name, but God know’s who we’re talking about!). The girls from our home in the city were visiting us last weekend, and I busted Juan and his girlfriend making out pretty hard core. Both he and the girl are good kids, but both have pretty rough backgrounds. All the girls from our girls home come from very abusive families. All have been sexually abused and many were prostituted out by their parents. Almost all of our guys became sexually active at a young age as well. So you can imagine the issues.

I was caught off guard at first when I caught them (I didn’t exactly expect it) and I was struggling to figure out what to say, which would be hard enough in English…much less in Spanish. So…I wasn’t saying anything. Poor Juan was desperately trying to fill the silence with every explanation he could think of. =) In the end, we did talk for quite awhile. I came down on him pretty hard I guess. I know he felt bad, but I wanted him to understand the seriousness of what he was doing. Because of their backgrounds, most of our girls equate relationships and affection with sex. Juan was just feeding this, even though he knew better. Plus, if she got pregnant, both she and Juan would have to leave the homes. Without family, where are either of them going to go? They both just turned 16.

The most telling part of this was how they responded. Juan, as I said, felt pretty bad. And while I felt sad for him, I admit I let him suffer for a bit. Everyone thinks I’m this nice guy…. =) But in the end, I put my arm around him and told him that no matter what he did, it couldn’t affect our friendship. I wasn’t happy with him, but he was still my friend. It surprised me how strongly he responded to that. Up until that day, I’d never seem him cry, but in that moment he pretty much lost it. The next day Marcee and I talked to his girlfriend as well. She was pretty stone faced until I got to that part as well. I told her that Marcee and I would always love her and that we forgave her. Obviously since that’s how God felt about her, how could we do any less. As well, what we wanted most of all was to see her set free from her past, and live the abundant life that God had for her. That was when she started to cry as well. It really spoke to me again, how none of these kids feel like they have anyone in their lives who will stand with them no matter what they do. I always wonder, how can they understand the grace of God when, in their entire lives, they’ve never had anyone extended grace to them in any kind of meaningful way.

That’s the good (actually there’s lots more, but I’ll save that for another time). The bad…well, my truck’s back in the shop for the third time since November. I won’t go into all the details, but it’s cost me a ton of money, and it’s been kind of discouraging. I’ve been without it for a couple of weeks now, and that makes life…challenging (ie. accidentally kissing old ladies among other things). Hopefully I’ll get it back this week sometime, but I’m not exactly holding my breath. The problems all relate to the crazy amount of rain we’ve had this year and the truck not being designed all that well. It keeps sucking water and dirt past the air filter and into the motor…which the pistons and whatnots don’t like so much….

The other struggle has been working with the leadership here. The home has gotten much more legalistic and kind of harsh lately (it’s been building for the past few months). It’s been pretty hard for both Marcee (my co-worker) and I. It’s hard to know how to function well and not get sucked into a fairly negative place. At times we agree that we just need to keep our heads down and do what God has called us to do here…but then other times I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do or not. I wonder if we shouldn’t be trying to speak some kind of truth into the situation. But that would definitely complicate things further. So….it’s difficult and discouraging sometimes. There are days when we wonder how we can keep going and working. We’d appreciate your prayers.

And finally the crazy…. =) The police seized my truck a couple of weeks ago (before it went into the shop). Yea….they said it was stolen (which it wasn’t). I had a family from Saskatoon visiting me that week, and they were waiting for me at their hotel while I argued and pleaded with the officers to at least let me use it to go pick them up. But no…. Eventually at 7 o’clock that night I gave up (after eight hours), ended up borrowing a truck from a friend and went to pick up the family. They’d only been waiting since 11 o’clock in the morning. In the end I got the truck back….after a week and paying $50 US for absolutely nothing (they didn’t do a check or give me any kind of letter or anything). And….they charged me a dollar a day for having it parked on their lot. That day was probably the worst I’ve had since coming here. But everyone tells me that I should just be happy that I got it back. Hmmmm….

So there you go. Life is never dull. Once again, thanks for praying! I’ll be home soon, so it’ll be good to see all of you. I’ll be heading for Canada sometime the end of May. If you or your church would be interested in having me speak about Bolivia and what I do here, just let me know. I’m trying to put together a schedule of preaching, so give me a shout if you have a moment.

Have a great day! Thanks especially to the folks at Avalon for their generosity and thoughtfulness. All the gifts you sent down with the Epps were GREATLY appreciated. The two cases of Oh Henry chocolate bars were especially fun…as were all the letters and cards. I weigh 10 lbs more, but I’m happy….

Talk to you soon,

Ken

PS Update on the truck….I have it back now, but somehow the mechanics put a dinner plate sized dent in the hood. So tomorrow we’re off to the autobody shop.