Some good and bad today…

First of all, the good.  Tonchy and Noelia, Jorge and Viviana (our pastors and their wives), Isabel, the team from Emmanuel Bible College (who are here helping us for a month) and Andy (a short-termer from Wheaton Bible College in the States) all came over tonight for some singing and a Bible study.  It’s something new we’re planning…I think we’ll do it twice a month or so. 

It went really well.  After the singing, Noelia had a really great activity for us and then gave us the opportunity to have some small group discussions.  That’s important for my guys…they need the opportunity to think through and talk about what they believe, not just be preached at (which is sometimes the teaching style here).  After everyone had the chance to share with the larger group, Noelia had a short teaching time.  I was just saying to Isabel today, that both Jorge and Tonchy, and Viviana and Noelia really engage the guys when they preach or teach.  I noticed in church this morning that the guys were paying close attention to what Noelia (who preached this morning as well) was saying.  All four have all have great preaching/teaching styles, as well as excellent content. 

After we were finished, we ate cookies and drank pop….something my guys never seem to tire of.  Then we all just hung out…it was a lot of fun. 

Afterwards…

Jesus…

Learning some Spanish songs…

Jesus and Noelia…

Tonchy, Noelia, Jorge and Viviana…

I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again, but…the people from my church are a real blessing to us.  Especially Tonchy, Jorge and their wives.  They’ve gone above and beyond when it comes to helping and serving us.  God’s given them a heart for this ministry and for the guys.  It’s pretty cool…  =)  I feel blessed for sure.

And then the sad news…

Jimmy called me this morning to let me know that he wouldn’t be making it to church (he was home visiting family) because a friend of his had died.  I didn’t get more information until he came back this evening.  We sat down when he got home and he told me what happened.  His neighbour, a twenty-five year old father of two, committed suicide over the weekend. 

No one seems sure what happened, or why he did it.  From what Jimmy told me, it doesn’t seem like anyone really saw it coming.  The saddest part, and what I think will be the most difficult for Jimmy, is that his friend was talking about Jimmy Friday morning and saying how he’d like to talk to him.  Jimmy said that this friend was on his mind as well, all day Friday, and one of the reasons he went home was to see him.  Jimmy went home Saturday, but sadly this young man took his life Friday evening.  He left a wife, a four year old son and six month old baby daughter.  The funeral was this afternoon.

This is the second time in as many weeks that death has touched the lives of the guys here.  There’s no easy way to explain these things, or why they happen.  Obviously Jimmy is pretty sad tonight.  But in both situations, the guys and I were able to talk about God’s healing and peace in the midst of painful circumstances.  Please pray for Jimmy (and for Jose Miguel) as they work through all of this.  And for myself as well…it’s not easy to find the words or to always know the best way to help the guys through this process.

Thanks, as always, for praying for and thinking about us!  Your part in this ministry makes a huge difference here…
    

This has nothing to do with anything, but if you have a little time on your hands (and being that most of you live in Saskatchewan and it’s probably still snowing out), go to this web page.  It’s the craziest thing ever…

Think of a person/animal/character…it doesn’t have to be real…and then answer the questions.

I guarantee you, it will freak you out…

Seriously.  Freak.  You.  Out.  Craziest thing ever.

http://en.akinator.com/ 

The more creative you get with your character…the weirder it gets.  After a while you just sit there and shake your head…
  

And Kendra wins the prize!  Good job Kendra!  I don’t know what your prize is yet, but it’ll be cool.  Philip gets an honorable mention for at least trying.  The rest of you… don’t even get me started….   =)

Here’s the picture with names added….

For those of you who don’t know…Andres (in the red) is the same Andres who’s birthday we celebrated a few posts below this one.  That’s his brother, Jose Manuel.  Roberto Negro is in the front row and Roberto Mairana is in the back.  Also in this picture, for those of you from years past, is Saul (Ticua’s brother) in the front row, sitting down on the left…and Feliciano in the back row, in the white t-shirt (the tall kid, next to Roberto Mairana).  He’s Sandro’s younger brother.  I’d say little brother, except that he’s nearly twice as tall as Sandro!  =)

Alan is at still at the home, but the kid in the back, Jose Carlos, lives on his own now.  He comes to visit us fairly ofthen though.  And again, Roberto Mairana.  And Kendra, you were right about the kid playing checkers…that’s Roberto Negro too.  But the other guy isn’t at the home any more.

Ticua’s not in any of these pictures because he didn’t arrive until the year after this.  Same with Rudy…

Jose Manuel and Andres now…

Thanks for playing…Philip and Kendra…  =)

It’s been fun (and a bit sobering) looking back at these pictures and remembering where the guys came from, and who they were.  It’s more evidence of God’s goodness.  Not too long ago Andres was walking home from university (near the bus terminal downtown) and heard someone call his name.  He looked back, and standing there was his best friend from when he lived on the streets.  This fellow had never left that life.  He was dirty and unshaven.  He and Andres talked for awhile, and this fellow couldn’t believe that Andres had finished high school and was studying at university. 

Andres told me later that he suddenly realized what God has saved him from.  That could have been him.  Many of the young guys in these pictues left the home and went back to the streets.  It’s still a battle some days for my guys, even now.  Thanks for praying for them and standing beside them.  I (we) appreciate it… 
  

C’mon people…give it a try.  If you’ve ever visited here, you should be able to name at least one kid in the picture below…

It’s staring you right in the face!  =)
  

Here’s a photo from my first trip to Bolivia…

Recognize anyone?  Other than me of course…

A few other pictures from that first trip.

Maybe I’ll have a prize for the person who can name the most guys…  Make the blog a little more interactive!  =)
  

I went over and hung out with Jorge last night.  We had a great time…  I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to him since the accident, so it was good to hear how he’s doing and how God is working in his life.  It was encouraging for sure.  

You can still tell that he’s been through a lot, but every week he looks a bit better.  He’s pretty skinny though!  =)  But they seem to have solved the problems he was having with his stomach, so that’s good.  He’s been able to eat normally for the past couple of weeks.  And as far as I know, his cast came off today as well.  No doubt that’ll help.    

He showed me pictures of his car after the accident.  Once again, all I can say is that it’s a miracle anyone survived.  It’s funny…if he’d been wearing his seatbelt, there’s not much doubt he’d have been killed.  The force of the impact threw him across the car and through the passenger window (and literally knocked him out of his shoes…they were still sitting on the floor of the driver’s side).  If he’d been wearing his seatbelt, it’s likely he would have been pinned and crushed by the truck that hit them.

Please continue to pray for Jorge and his wife Vivi.  There’s no doubt that God is healing his body.  But there are a few long term issues that will need to be dealt with.  From the impact of his head hitting the window, he’s lost much of his hearing in his left ear.  He’s an amazing guitarist, but he’s also lost the ability to use at least one of his fingers on his left hand.  That ability may come back with time, but I don’t think anyone is sure.  As well, there are a few other health issues that need prayer.
 
In the course of our conversation, Jorge said an interesting thing…except for the suffering that his wife and family went through, he said he would consider this experience (the accident and recovery) a blessing, because of what God has taught him throught it all.  In my mind, that’s an incredible thing.  Once again, it demonstrates to me the faithfulness and goodness of God.  That was something I really needed to think about. 

Jorge asked me to express to you all his and Vivi’s thanks for your generosity and prayers.  I know that was a huge encouragement to them, to know they had (have) people praying for them from around the world.  Thanks from me too!  =)
  

If David’s “Happy Grandfather’s Day!” comment a couple of posts back made you laugh…this is going to kill you…

Today we celebrated “Father’s Day” at church.  After the service, our pastor and his wife invited all the fathers to come up onto the stage. 

“Come on up brothers” Tonchy (our pastor) says, “David, Jesus, Jorge, Edwardo…Ken…”

Ken?

Yes, that’s right…I was invited to go up to the front on the platform with all the other fathers because “I have ten sons”…

When my name was called, I was…rather surprised.  I responded in a…shall we say, somewhat confused manner.  And louder than I meant to.  And at the exact same moment of my response, Tonchy (and, for some reason, everyone else in the church) stopped talking.  The timing was perfect.  In that moment of silence, for everyone to hear, I was like, “WHAT?!”  Of course, once agian, everyone laughed at me…

At any rate, I wanted to be a good sport, and it was really good of them to acknowlege me (even though I’d have been quite content to sit quietly in my chair), so I went up with all the other dad’s to be prayed for.  I guess I’m now officially considered a father.  Yay… 

Oh…I did get a nice coffee mug out of the deal. 

So that’s nice.    

“God bless you Dad.  Congratulations! 
With love: Kairos (our church’s name)”.
      

Saturday was Andres’ birthday…he turned twenty.  So that’s twice in one week we’ve eaten a celebratory cake.  It’s been a good week…  

This was Andres’ first birthday party.  At the boy’s home where he used to live, because of the numbers of guys living there, they just celebrated all the birthday’s of the month on one day.  I understand that…but it still makes me a bit sad.  I remember last year, I happened to be out at the home one evening and Andres came up and quietly told me it was his birthday.  I couldn’t believe it…no one knew or if they did know, remembered.  So I decided when we moved in here, that we would celebrate everything as often as we needed to (which makes August a fun month…seven of the ten of us have our birthdays in August!). 

And anyhow…I like celebrating.  We always have fun and it’s been great for helping us build community.  

A few pictures…

Andres and cake #2…

Blowing out his candles…

Getting his face smashed into the cake…

As a side note here, before you all send me e-mails telling me what a terrible person I am…this is not my fault.  This is Bolivian culture.  You’re supposed to take a bite of the cake without your hands and then someone “sneakily” (I’m aware it’s not a word…but it works…) pushes you face into the cake.  I’ve had my head smashed into various cakes more times than I can count.  Everyone says that this time they aren’t going to smash your head into the cake…and everyone lies.  And you know they’re lying, but you take the bite anyhow.  It’s just the way it’s done.

This was my first opportunity to be on the smashing the head into the cake side of things.  And I won’t deny it…it felt good…  =)  

Andres was a good sport about it…

Opening presents…he got jeans and a bunnyhug from me 
(both too small so we have to exchange them…ha ha),
and some nice cologne from Isabel…

All in all, it was a fun evening.  Friday night before we went to bed, we had a time of prayer and I told the guys we would be celebrating Andres’ birthday the following night because “he’d be a man” (no longer a teenager).  The guys all laughed and Andres just shook his head and said,

“Yea…tomorrow I’m a man…”
  

Happy Bolivian Father’s Day! Which was actually yesterday. Father’s and Mother’s Days here are pretty big deals. Especially Mother’s Day…this is a country that honours it’s mothers! Might even be bigger than Christmas. But Father’s are important too. =) Which is why I figured we needed to celebrate the father’s in our midst. We now have three…Jesus, David and Ronelo. Ronelo’s a new guy. He moved in a couple of weeks ago. He became a dad a couple of weeks before that. Somehow I missed that when I agreed he could live with us. I’m sure he told me that it was going to happen…I just…missed it (I have a tendency to smile and nod sometimes when I don’t understand something. Usually I get away with it….). But at any rate, it makes it even more important for him to study and have some kind of a future, so he can support his daughter. As well, Jesus has a one year old son named Jesus Sabastian and David has a two year old girl named Damery.

So we celebrated…with cake of course….

Ronelo, David and Jesus…

“Happy Father’s Day!”

I’ll just leave this up to your imagination…

Everyone watching and making sure the pieces are cut evenly…

It was it this point that I left to go to the airport to pick up our new interns that were arriving from Canada.  In my haste I left my camera out…

Remember at Jesus’ Birthday when he made the joke about smashing his own
head into the cake?  I guess it’s still funny….

I’m pretty sure this was staged…but it’s still pretty darn entertaining….

That green icing was some kind of hit…

Chocolate cake…chocolate icing…a glass of Coke…
Sadly this was supper. 

I’m the best Dad EVER! 

Wasn’t there a Dr. Sues story about this?

David and Ronelo and their “cool” look….

Later that night as we were all heading off to bed, I stopped David and Ronelo and shook their hands and told them Happy Father’s Day one more time.  David looked me in the eye and replied,

“Happy Grandfather’s Day!”

Sigh…I’m trying to take it as a compliment…
 

It started with the lizard who lives behind my bookshelf. He’s been there for awhile. He’s not a gecko…he’s too big. He can also change colours which is kind of cool. I was worried for him once when he fell off the ceiling and fell twelve feet to land on my tiled floor. But it seems he’s a tough little sucker, and he was back into hiding by the time I got up to see if I had something to clean up. I watched him eat a moth last night and he’s welcome to as many mosquitos as he can stomach. He tends to stay on his side of the room and I on mine. As long as we can keep that arrangement, I’m okay with sharing my personal space with him. He doesn’t say much and he doesn’t call me pingping…which is the current mocking name the guys are using on each other (and me) here at the house. I have no idea where it came from. Frankly…neither do they.

As a side note, the only time I got angry with a lizard/gecko was when one fell off of my ceiling in my old house and landed on the open magazine I was reading on my bed. Scared the daylights out of me. I warned him if he did it again, we’d be having a little lizard funeral. He actually did do it again, but being that I’m a missionary and all, I had mercy and I just caught him in a plastic margarine container and threw him out the back door.

The next critter to come visiting was this parrot. He showed up in the back yard. He’s pretty young…I’m not even sure wether he can fly or not. He just strutted back and forth on a wooden saw horse we have. I took him some bread (okay…a lot of bread. They guys laughed at me…) and he ate it out of my hand. He is also pretty cool. We think he must belong to someone in the neighbourhood because he seems fairly tame. Jesus tried to get him to stand on his fingers, but a quick hiss and an attempt to bite Jesus’ finger off said that he wasn’t really looking for new friends.

 
Last night I went to get a drink of water and saw that our plastic clothes hamper was upside down with the garbage can on top of it. That seemed unusual (more than normal anyhow). I looked closer and saw that the guys had caught our little friend and made him a comfortable little house for the night. They said it was so he didn’t get eaten by any cats. He seemed happy enough. This morning we returned him to his owner. Interesting…in Canada we find stray dogs or cats. Here…it’s stray parrots…

Finally last night, as I was talking to one of the guys in the kitchen, I turned and watched a huge frog hop behind the fridge. Seriously. A big frog.

This doesn’t happen in Saskatchewan.