…except that I thought it was kind of cool and interesting…

I’m a bit of a history nerd sometimes.  Sorry.  But watch this…it’s only 90 seconds long and it’s…cool and interesting…

There are moments when I’m amazed and impressed by the guys I work with in the home. They can be some of the most generous, compassionate, entertaining guys you’d ever want to meet.

Then there are the moments when their…stupidity (for lack of a better word)…surprises and astounds me. This would be one of those moments. I’m not going to go into great detail (there’s no need to drag them all through the dirt) except to say that they pulled a stunt while I was in Canada that doesn’t impress me much. One of the guys felt guilty and confessed the other night. I don’t think he meant to confess for the entire group, but once he got going (and I started asking some pointed questions) he couldn’t really stop without lying to me…which would sort of negate the whole point of confessing in the first place. =)

So…after a long conversation yesterday, the guilty are grounded for a month. The also have to sit down and apologize to the volunteers who were helping at the house while I was gone (our two pastors, their wives and another lady who was volunteering) for their lack of respect and for breaking their trust.

I made it very clear to the guys how I feel about this. As much as I do love what God has called me to do down here, I’m not sure the guys understand sometimes, that it’s still a sacrifice to be here. It’s not easy giving up your family and friends and culture, to live some place foreign to you. I told them that if we’re going to start going down that road where I have to police them and constantly be handing out punishments and disciplines…we’re shutting down the place right now. That’s not the life I’ve chosen or expect to have to live with them. From the very beginning I was very clear with them that our house exists based on mutual respect and trust. They clearly understand what they’re receiving and what’s expected of them.

Now before I get a dozen e-mails telling me that I have unreasonable expectations, let me just say…I know they’re not perfect, and that they’re going to mess up. And yes…I’m fine with that. But what happened over the summer was a group decision to be disobedient and disrespectful to the people that are trying to help them. And that I’m not so cool with…

Here’s the funny thing that God’s teaching me through this, however…

Man, grace is a pain sometimes. Seriously. Those are maybe not His exact words to me, but that’s the general idea. I was pretty angry when I found out what happened. They guys definitely chose to disrespect me and the volunteers who were here giving of their time and effort…not to mention all the other people who believe in them and are trying to help them. Trust me…that’s frustrating…and I’m angry about it.

But way back when I first came down here, the thing that God impressed on my heart more than anything else, was that I was to be an example of unconditional love and unconditional grace. These guys have never really had that in their lives. So how do they understand God’s love and grace for them, if no one here has ever demonstrated that. Let me just say, however, that it’s pretty easy to show love and grace to someone when things are going well. When you’ve been sinned against and you’re angry…that’s a whole other story. I was pretty clear with them that I was angry and disappointed. What it meant…the choices they’d decided to make. Then we decided on a punishment…what the consequences would be for their actions. And then…then I had to forgive them and move on. I told them that as Sons of God, they were forgiven for what they’d done. And if God had forgiven them, how could I not do the same.

But the thing is…if you’ve chosen to forgive someone, you’ve also given up the right to stay angry about it and hold it over their heads. That’s tough to do. There’s a part of me that thinks I’m letting them off too easy if I just move on…if I don’t make sure that they know, every couple of hours or so, how badly they messed up.

It’s not like we’re pretending nothing happened. There are consequences to their actions…consequences they’re not thrilled with for sure. But if I’m trying to be an example of God’s grace and love…well, then I have to let it go. He does that for me every day…

One of the things the guys struggle with a lot here, is the feeling that God is always angry with them. I’m sure that’s because, in their lives, most people they know have been angry with them for their bad decisions. But how do you function in a relationship when you’re convinced that the other person (ie. God) is constantly angry with you?

So…we’re moving on. They know that they have a long road ahead of them to rebuild the trust that they’ve damaged. Maybe some of the guys think they got off easy and aren’t that concerned about what happened. I hope not. But in the end, that’s between them and God. Time will tell wether they’ve learned anything from this experience or not. I guess I have. Although…I’ll tell you right now, if it happens again, I’m getting a big stick and beating them all silly…

How’s that for grace? =)

Feel free to continue praying…

I took Jesus to the doctor yesterday to see about his jaw. For those of you who don’t know, he has a lump on his jaw that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger…and more painful. After a borage of tests and whatnot, we finally saw a specialist. It was kind of entertaining…this doctor is a teaching doctor and we saw him in his classroom. So poor Jesus had to sit there as a classroom of medical wannabe’s poked and prodded his cheek. In the end it was determined that he has an abscess that needed to be drained. The grumpier news was that the doctor was of the opinion that the abscess might be a result of tuberculosis.

If true (and we’re getting him tested now) that would be the second case of TB in the house (Franz was diagnosed in July while I was gone). Obviously, this would not be good news. As a precaution, we’ve moved David out of the room he shares with Jesus and Franz. Just the night before, I was getting after the guys for not being careful enough with this. Franz has special plates and silverware that are just for his use, but we noticed that night, that he wasn’t using them. When I got grumpy about that, the guys kind of thought it was a bit of a joke and that I was overreacting. It’s not that I don’t appreciate being vindicated and able to say “I told you so!”, but it’s at a bit of a cost. I would rather be wrong about this one. So hopefully, we’ll find that Jesus’ tests come back negative.

In the realm of medical news, my neck seems to be healing fine. It doesn’t hurt all that often…just if I’m doing a lot and not giving it much of a break. I’m still getting headaches and it seems to creak and crack a little more often than before…but that could just be old age and not getting enough sleep…

A couple of other prayer requests…I was pretty angry with one of the guys last night. I won’t go into details (and it’ll be fine in the end…it was just a bad judgement call on his part), but today we have to work through it and come up with a reasonable punishment. As well, a couple of the guys are still working through various personal issues, and wisdom and patience for them would be a good thing.

As I write this, the girls from Saskatoon that were visiting here and helping out this past month, should be arriving home in about half an hour. Please pray for them as they adjust to being back in Canada. They’ve both got busy schedules to jump into as soon as they get back, and sometimes it takes a bit of time to adjust and re-engage North American culture. A sad note to their time here was that they were robbed one night just outside of my friend Corina’s ministry, El Jordan. That’s a tough thing to work through as well, so pray for healing and wisdom as they deal with that. They were a great help here, and a lot of fun. No doubt the guys will miss their crazy Canadian antics…

That about covers it these days. We’re working at getting everyone into their various classes and working out their schedules. Once again I’m very thankful to Isabel for handling most of that. I tend to get kind of confused when it comes to what they need to do in order to get enrolled. The system here differs a lot from Canada, so it’s a bit overwhelming some days. Isabel knows pretty much everyone in the city =) so she handles it well. I just have to randomly say, “So I was thinking about this…” and two days later she’s like, “Okay, I know this guys and I so I called him and he can help you out with that…” For all those of you who’ve prayed for many years that God would provide an administrative person for me…you have no idea… =)

As a side note, both Franz and Sandro passed their entrance exams for the school they want to study in. That was a bit of a surprise and probably should be entered into the “somewhat miraculous” category. Not so much for Sandro…he was mostly ready. But Franz was completely unprepared and no one (including him) knows how this happened. But who are we to question….

Thanks for praying everyone and for faithfully checking out the blog even when I haven’t been posting that regularly for awhile. I appreciate that!

Talk to you again very soon!

Ken

Oh yea…my piece of randomness for the day. I was thinking last night as I sat at an intersection waiting for the light to change, that some of our street entertainers need to rethink their strategy. It’s warming up here (we’re coming into spring) which means more street performers. They’re kind of gypsy/hippy-ish kind of people and I think they travel around and support themselves by providing various forms of entertainment at major intersections throughout the city.

As I sat there and pondered this…my thought last night was this… If someone can lessen my boredom for 60 seconds as I wait for the light to change…that’s great. I’ll pay you the normal 20 cents or so, that’s customary. So juggling guys on stilts and the flaming torch juggling guy…you’re all good. No problem. But flag waving girl…sorry, it’s just not doing it for me. I’m not against flag waving in general if it’s done well. But this girl just stood there and “artistically” waved her flag in a circle for the whole time and then seemed offended when no one gave her anything. Across the street a guy was sitting on another guy’s shoulders and juggling daggers. Come on…now that’s entertainment.

So flag waving girl…either light your flags on fire or come up with something a little more engaging….until then, flaming dagger stilts guy gets my money.

 
There’s a program online that does this.  So one night I just plugged in all the words I could think of to describe what I do here…and this is what I got.  I thought it was kind of cool…

When I was a kid, I remember my parents always saying, “Be careful or you’ll break your neck!”  Who knew that could actually happen?  As it turns out I didn’t (break my neck), but for a day or so, the doctors thought I’d put a hairline fracture in one of my vertebrae. 

So…here’s the story.  Saturday night I was heading back to my house after dropping Isabel off at her place.  I was driving on the second ring (Santa Cruz is made up of a series of concentric rings around the city), and suddenly I saw an older gentleman crossing in the middle of the street.  He was just looking straight down and wasn’t paying any attention to traffic (this is a major road of four lanes in each direction).  I managed to skid to a stop to avoid hitting him, but the fellow behind me wasn’t paying as much attention, I don’t think.  He slammed into me going at least 70 km/h and knocked me forward into the older guy. 

It was pretty horrible.  The older gentleman must have flown a couple of metres before he landed unconscious on the pavement.  I jumped out of my truck to see if he was okay…fortunately he regained consciousness right away.  But wow…was he mad!  =)  He was pretty drunk and out of it…and he was also pretty convinced I needed to pay him 100 bs (around $15).  I told him I was more concerned that he was okay, and that maybe we needed to get him to a hospital. 

The driver of the other truck (realizing that a lot of this was his fault too, for not paying better attention) was trying to be as helpful as possible.  So he gave the old guy 50 bs and sent him on his way.  I wasn’t very happy with that, so after I exchanged info with the other driver and he left, Isabel (I called and asked her to come help me) and I went searching for the guy I hit.

We found him sitting in front of a 24 hour gas station.  He had a big lump on his forehead were he hit the pavement, and obviously wasn’t feeling very well.  But we couldn’t convince him to come with us to the hospital.  Eventually we asked one of the gas attendants to watch him and call us if he seemed to get any worse.  Then it was off to the police station to file a report.  In the end, the fact that I tried to help the fellow I hit worked very well in my favour (not that I knew that at the time of course…I was just trying to make sure he was okay).

Here in Bolivia, there are two types of accidents.  One is for accidents that only involve other vehicles, and the other is if a pedestrian is involved.  It doesn’t matter what happened, if you hit a pedestrian, you are automatically at fault, and your vehicle is impounded until which time you can secure a lawyer and go to court to sort out what happened.

I didn’t know that.  But about halfway through giving the police officer my report, I could tell that something was wrong.  He started to talk quickly to Isabel and he started to put away the form he was working on and look for another form.  As it turned out, he was saying that we were filing the wrong report and that he needed a form for a pedestrian accident.  Isabel (being the great girlfriend that she is) started talking even faster than him.  She explained again, that I wasn’t even moving when the other vehicle hit me, and that we went back and searched for the fellow that was hit to try to help him.  That we talked to someone, to ask her to watch out for the guy.  

In the end, the police officer agreed that I did all that I could, and he agreed to write up the accident as vehicular and not involving a pedestrian.  On one hand, I do feel bad…if that older gentleman had been anyone other than a street person, I’m sure I’d be in court right now, without my truck.  But on the other hand, I feel like I did everything I could for the fellow.  And fighting my way through the court system is not something I would relish at this point.

Anyhow, after dropping Isabel off at her house once again, as I was heading back to my place when I started getting a weird burning sensation down the back of my neck.  I’d agreed (at the insistence of Isabel) that I’d go to the hospital…but in the morning….I was too tired right then.  But with the weird feeling in my neck, I figured I might as well get it over with.  So I grabbed David to go with me, and we were off to a 24 hour clinic.

Things were fine at first…I wasn’t feeling good for sure, but I figured they’d x-ray me and send me home with some good pain-killers.  When, after my x-rays were finished, they came in and started fitting me out in a ridiculously huge neck brace…well, I started to get more nervous.  As it turned out, there was some kind of line on one of my vertebrae, and they suspected that I’d hairline fractured it. 

Long story short…shorter…I ended up going home with the promise that I’d go to a neurologist the next day.  They sent me home in a bit of a silly neck brace (made out of cardboard and gauze and masking tape) because the good neck brace I was using was the only one they had. 

I was pretty tired on Sunday (I got home at 4:30 AM and then from 6:30 AM on, I had to get up every 30 minutes to get different groups of guys organized for the day (some were writing exams…others had to go to church, etc).  I planned on going to the neurologist on Monday since finding one on Sunday afternoon seemed like a bit of stretch.

But then Isabel and her sister showed up at the house after church that night, and said that they had a friend who was a neurologist and was willing to see me right then.  Off we went…  The doctor saw the same marks that the emergency doctor saw, but said the only way to know for sure was to get some ridiculously expensive x-ray (the one where you put your head in a doughnut and the camera spins around you). 

When I asked him what was going to happen if it turned out not to be fractured, he said I’d just have to wear the neck brace for the next month.   WHAT?!  Then what would happen if it was fractured?  Well, then I’d be checked into the hospital immediately.  That didn’t go over well in my head.  I have a fairly pathological hatred of hospitals (goes back a few years to spending three months in one).

In the end, there was no fracture (just a weird line) and they gave me those good pain-killers I was looking for.  I pretty much hate the neck brace (it’s not one of those nice comfy ones that wrap your neck in a little pillow).  It’s big and annoying and goes right up to my chin so my whole head can’t move. 

All in all, though…things could have been much worse.  The guy could have hit me much harder.  If I’d swerved to avoid the old guy, I’m sure the guy behind me would have ploughed right over him.  So…things to be thankful for.

Some of you have asked if I was driving my new truck.  Happily, no.  It still hasn’t come yet, and for once I’m kind of thankful for Bolivian bureaucracy. 

Thanks for praying everyone.  Once again, your prayers have made a difference.  I’ll be fine, but feel free to pray for a fast recovery and for patience with the guys.  They’re being amazing for sure, but my frustration level is growing and it’s hard not to be grumpy over dumb things that don’t really matter that much.

Anyhow…that’s my story…

Thanks again for praying!

Ken

Oh…but before signing off, let’s just take a moment to summarize the life of my current truck…

I banged into another truck driving it off the lot the day I bought it and put a big dent in the door.

The police impounded it the second day I had it, as I left the auto body shop after fixing said dent.  I had it for 15 minutes.

The rear left tire came off while driving in the mountains.

The police thought it was stolen and impounded it again.  They kept it for a week…did nothing…and charged me $50 for parking it on their lot.

A pig I was hauling tried to escape and put big scratches all over the tailgate.

The front left tire came off while driving in the mountains.

And finally… I got severally rear-ended and, for the first time in my life, hit a pedestrian.

Rest in peace dear Hilux…rest in peace….

For those of you who are getting two e-mails from me today…that’s because then I sent some of you the first update on Saturday, but then lost my internet connection before I could send it to the rest of you.  So now some of you are getting that first one and now the second one.  But this one is short…so don’t worry…

I just wanted to give you a quick update about what happened with the vote on Sunday.  Our president survived the confidence vote, as did the governor of the Santa Cruz department.  A few others didn’t (Cochabamba and La Paz both lost their governors).  But for the most part, life continues normally here.  We did have a concern about possible fighting in the city, but for the most part, things were quiet.

Something I did forget to mention on Sunday was that, once again, I came back to fuel shortages.  When I first got back, I was worried that we were going to have a repeat of last fall when we didn’t have diesel for nearly four months.  This time not only were there diesel shortages, but gasoline shortages as well, which made the line ups even worse. 

Those shortages didn’t last too long, but right behind them arrived a propane shortage.  Since everyone here cooks with propane, it’s a bit of a serious situation.  Every day there are more reports on the news about the growing desperation of the people here in the city.  Fortunately we went and lined up last Saturday and replaced our two tanks.  We had to wait in line for an hour or so, but at least we made it before they ran out (it was close).  So we should be okay for awhile.  Hopefully by the time we need more, this will have passed.

A couple of other things to pray for.  Franz and Sandro have another entrance exam to write on Sunday, to get into the university where they want to study.  It’s important that they study this week, but I think they’re feeling a bit distracted.  Some of the guys are on vacation right now, so it’s hard to get everyone going in the same direction.  Pray that they’ll be able to accomplish what they need to do this week, and that they’ll be prepared for Sunday.

As well, Ovando has started studying.  It’s an amazing university…it’s completely focused on his area, communication (he wants to work in radio or television).  I think he was feeling pretty overwhelmed on Monday after his first day (two of the girls in his class already work at a TV station on the air), but since then, he’s seemed to settle in and is enjoying it.  But please pray for him as well.  He’s kind of jumping into the deep end of the pool so to say, and it’s important that he’s able to keep up.

We’re still looking for a place for Juan to study.  He wants to study Agricultural Engineering, but there are only a few universities that offer that.  So we’re continuing to look for the right place.  Please pray that we’re able to find a place that’s a good fit for him.

Finally, a couple of the guys are working through some personal issues.  If you could pray for patience and wisdom for them (and for me) that would be great.  It’s a bit challenging at times for sure.

And on a finally happy note (at least for me), my new truck should be here tomorrow…which makes me happy.  My truck is kind of limping along and I really don’t want anything to go wrong before I trade it off on the new one.  Yesterday I was trying to turn on the hazard lights, and they wouldn’t work.  I was kind of annoyed since they died two days before I was about to get rid of the truck.  I even banged the dash a couple of times to see if that would help.  It didn’t.  Of course then I realized that I was punching the air conditioning button and not the hazards button, so that wasn’t helping.  As it turned out…the hazards worked fine, but now I’m waiting for the air conditioning not to work…

 Thanks for praying everyone!  I appreciate it (as do the guys).  Thanks for the many “Happy Birthdays” as well!  I think I got over 50 messages on my Facebook account as well as lots of e-mails.  So that was fun!

Have a great day.  Talk to you again soon!

Hi everyone!  This is just a quick note to let you know that I’m still alive and safely back in Bolivia after what was possibly the worst series of connections in the history of air travel.  I’m sure you don’t care, but I feel the need to share.  Let’s see…leave house for the airport at 4:30 AM.  Get checked in by grumpy Air Canada lady (granted it was 5 AM and we’re all grumpy at the time of the morning…but still, she was being paid to be there).  Fly to Toronto.  Sit in Toronto for 4 hours.  Fly to Washington.  Sit in Washington for 5 hours.  Fly to Miami.  Sit in airport for 8 hours.  Technically I didn’t sit much.  I got there too late and had to leave too early to get a hotel.  So mostly I walked around because I was too scared to sit in case I fell asleep and missed my 5 AM flight.  Seriously.  5 AM. ..  Fly to San Salvador.  Yea, I didn’t know where that was either.  Surprisingly it’s in El Salvador.  Which makes sense, I guess.  Sit in the airport for 3 hours.  Fly to Lima, Peru.  Sit in airport for 9 hours.  Waste time and money shopping in the one shop in the airport (but I don’t care…I like what I bought).  Fly to Santa Cruz and arrive at 2 AM.  Collect my luggage and make it too my bed by just after 3 AM.  Get up in 4 hours to go back to the airport to pick up two Saskatoon girls who are visiting and helping out for a month.  They left Saskatoon 24 hours after me and arrived in Santa Cruz only 4 hours after I did.  All in all it was a 47 hour trip…

Before I get a million e-mails asking me why in the world I booked such an…entertaining…series of flights, let me just say.  Plata!  Or money, if you don’t speak Spanish.  It was all about saving a buck.

I arrived back to find out that for the most part, things were fine.  The house was still standing (it’s cement…what could really happen?!) and the boys were still well fed and happy.  Mostly.  One of the guys (Franz) was actually pretty sick.  Like walking dead sick.  He’d been to four different doctors and no one was completely sure what was happening.  Two said Tuberculosis, one said maybe lung cancer and one wasn’t sure.  The problem was that he was showing negative on the TB test.  But they decided to treat him for TB.  I wasn’t very happy with that at first (we’ve had a few of our kids get badly misdiagnosed on occasion) but since then we’ve seen him respond very well to the medication.  So now the hope is that the rest of us haven’t been exposed.  We belatedly marked plates and silverware for him to use (the “virus plates” as the boys call them), but hopefully we’ve seen the last of this.

Then one of the other guys (Jesus) came to me with a strange lump on the side of his jaw that’s been bothering him.  It’s kind of a weird one too.  So…off to the hospital once again.  The doctor gave us a list of tests that we needed to get (which aren’t done at the hospital but rather a series of clinics) so that took up the rest of the week.  We finally made it back to see her on Friday, but were told that she’s only in the office in the morning (we didn’t make it back until the afternoon).  So we’ll find out what’s going on, on Monday.  But feel free to pray about that one.

Sadly, the three guys who were studying for the entrance exam for the public university, all failed the exam.  I felt better though, when I found out that most of the students that wrote it fail…along with one of the guys out at the boy’s home.  He was the smartest kid in the school out there…so that put it in a better frame of reference for me.  We’ve found other options for the guys, so it’ll be okay.  For one of the guys (Rudy), it’s actually much better.  We ended up registering him in a great Catholic university that’s entirely focused on what he wants to study (communication).  It’s an amazing place!  After meeting with one of their people, I wanted to study there…  It’s a little bit more money than I wanted to spend, but it’s going to be an amazing opportunity for him.  It’s probably the best school of it’s kind in Santa Cruz.  So…  The other two guys (Franz and Sandro) are going to be going to a good university as well.  So it’ll be fine.  It’s just that the public university was free and the other ones aren’t.  That’s a bit of a challenge, but we’ll work it out.

A couple of other prayer requests…please pray for David.  He’s facing some personal things that are causing him some stress.  He’s trying to make good decisions, but for sure it’s a difficult situation.  Also for Sandro and Juan.  Again, some personal things. 

Feel free to pray for me as well.  I love the guys, and I’m happy to see them.  But it’s always a bit of a struggle to readapt to being here.  I’ve had to be the heavy a few times, re-instating some of the rules that were maybe not completely followed in my absence.  Pray that the guys will understand that, and…I don’t know…fall in line?  =)  That’s as good a way of putting it as any.

One fun thing is that August is definitely birthday month for us!  Of the eight of us in the house, six of us have birthdays this month.  Four this week!  So we went to a movie one night…I made pizza another, and tomorrow we’re having cake and opening a few gifts I bought for the guys.  I really want birthdays to be special, since most of these guys have never really celebrated their birthdays, even at the Home.  There were too many guys there for them to celebrate every kid’s birthday.  Sometimes a birthday would pass without anyone (sometimes even the kid himself) realizing.  So I’m trying to do that differently.

One other quick note.  We have another vote tomorrow…one of a series of votes that have plagued Bolivia this past year.  This one is a confidence vote on all elected leaders in the country…the governors of all of the departments (provinces) as well as the President.  Things could look very different in Bolivia on Monday.  Once again there will be the threat of violence and as a safety measure, no one is allowed to drive and the city is mostly shut down.  We won’t be leaving the house until we have a better idea of what’s happening.  So please pray for Bolivia, for it’s people…and for us.   

So once again, my quick note isn’t so quick.  Sorry about that.  I’ll try to get more regular with my updates and blogging, so that I don’t have quite so much to write each time.  I haven’t written much at the blog lately (www.kenswitzer.blog.com) but I will soon.  I’m trying to adjust a few things to make it a little more user friendly (mostly that it’ll load a bit more quickly).  I’ll keep you updated on that too.

Thanks again for praying and for thinking of us down here.  It was great to see those of you I saw in Canada, and for the rest…I promise we’ll grab a coffee next time I’m back.  It’ll be a bit more of a leisurely trip.  This one was fun but a bit of a rush.

Have a great August everyone! 

Ken