Bread

Monday Feb. 18 - Friday Feb. 22, 2013

Bread bread is good for your heart, the more you eat it, the more you......get sick of it! There is a good reason I am only making 1 blog this week. It is because bread is the only thing that I am doing. For me, it is simply bread week.

We found out recently that Cuyana is ready for Steve. Cuyana is another mission that is close to La Paz that Steve was initially supposed to go to. However, because their bakery was not ready, Steve got rerouted to us. But they have recently contacted us and have said that they are ready for him to come. So knowing that his time here is running short. He wanted to have a full week of one on one baking time with me. This has made this week brutally long. Nothing but dough everywhere! I have mixed so much dough that I think it has seaped through my pores into my bloodstream. It has been nice having a refresher week with bread, but it has also brought about a lot of stress, especially when every day that we bake bread, it is is 12 hour process. The breads we have made this week are kinoa with flax, plain bread, cornbread, potato and onion, and a loaded focaccia with peppers, tomatoes, and onions.

As I said I have not had too many other experiences this week to note. However, Juan and I were able to fix the lawnmower! I am so excited to work with Juan on a regular basis and learn a lot of practical things. It was very exciting to install the new blades onto the lawnmower, change 2 belts, put the unit back onto the mower, then jump it. However, the day after we fixed it, I took it out to one of the soccer fields and I got 2 length's done before it sputtered out. Everything that we fixed was working perfectly, so it turns out that there is yet another problem that we still need to fix. So stay tuned with that.

Last things to note, the new volunteers are pretty cool, especially the guys. The other volunteers have unfortunately left. It was so great to have them and they were such a blessing. The only one that stayed behind was little Warren. He is the son of the new director and is the one making the other promo video that I will be in. The new volunteers have been working just as hard as the other volunteers. The kitchen in the big house has been totally cleaned and redone and looks amazing, the thick grass is almost all gone, trash is being burned, beds are being put together, and they are working on installing electricity! Familia Feliz is continuing on the path to becoming more organized and Eric and I are really liking the changes. There are a few hiccups that we are not the biggest fans of, but overall, we are super excited.

P.S. My new day off is now on Sundays instead of Mondays. So keep in touch, and be on the lookout for my blogs now on Sundays.

Friday Feb. 22, 2013

Today yet again we made more bread. But we were able to rush through it pretty good and move quickly. It ONLY took us 9.5 hours! Blah. Good news is that atleast i'm getting pretty good at these breads and these days, I'm pretty much doing all of it on my own.

However, something extremely exciting happened today. Little Warren, who is 19, has had braces for over a year and was just ready to get rid of them. As he heard that I am a predent major, he figured that I could do it and save him some time and money. I told him that I was totally game! But as soon as I got my tools, I started to actually get a little nervous. If I messed up his teeth, I would have felt awful. Not to mention, his dad is my boss! But surprisingly, his parents were on board with it too.

When I went back to my room to get my pliars and a couple dentistry tools, I decided that if I was going to walk the walk, I needed to look the part. So I changed into my scrub shirt. I then walked back to the big house and had him lie down on a bench while I pulled up a chair behind him and had him open wide. The first one hurt him a little, but not too bad. But the rest of them I dominated! I started just clicking them off one after another. Then I got mack to his molars where there were some backets and I got a little nervous. But you can never show your patient even if you are unsure about something. That is just unprofessional! haha. So I didn't say anything and I just went in and got them off with no problem.

Tabitha who had just gotten back today with her husband and is just stopping by for the weekend before they go back to Santa Cruz was standing right there watching the whole thing. She asked me if I was supposed to give him anestesia or something before I started. I just kind of smiled and said no, not for something like this. She was a little nervous. But everything went great! He was so happy to have them off and was ready to eat.

The other thing that happened today was that I forgot to mention something that happened on Tuesday. So I shall talk about it now. While making the fire in the oven to bake bread, I had to uncover a bunch of coals and stir them up. But while doing so, I happened to place a couple on my foot. I jumped so high! I didn't know if i was getting bit by a snake or spider or what was happening. But after I looked down, my big toe had already started to blister. I really wish I could see my parents faces as they read this right now. But yes, from that point on, I kept my foot submerged in cool water for the next several hours. Everytime I took it out of the water, I got a shooting pain. So I had to sit there doing nothing for hours! It would have been quicker if we had ice, but all we have is creek water. Good thing is, my foot is fine, I didn't need all 5 toes anyway....

Sunday Feb. 24, 2013

We had a little bit of a change of pace today. Apparently this rice farm is ready and all the rice needs to picked immediately. There is only about a week's time for us to go through and harvest the entire field by hand. This alone is going to take us at least a week's worth of time especially since the government will not allow us to cancle a day of school. So the verdict was, all of the volunteers days off were postponed. It's truly unfortunate, but necessary. But after talking to Warren, I will be able to come in Monday. Unlike me, Eric has to wait until next week until he can have a day off because he is a teacher and needs to be here every day.

So the day we had in the field harvesting, I think was a success. The day could not have been more perfect. For the majority of the day, we had excellent cloud cover and didn't die of heat. We were also able to use every single person at Familia Feliz to help. This was great as it is an extremely big task. Never having harvested rice before, I wasn't sure exactly how long or hard this was going to be. As it turns out, it is fairly easy, however, I think I could walk to Hawaii and back before we will finish this. And yes, I said WALK to Hawaii...... How you do it, is each person gets a pocket knife and has to walk through the field and go to each individual stem and cut off the tip (where the rice is) and put it in a bag.

Due to the enormity of this job, every day this week for the work program, the kids and adults will be harvesting rice for 2-4 hours each day. I probably won't be doing TOO much bread making this coming week. So hopefully I don't forget everything that I "just" learned! Hope all is well with you all!

PS. Sorry again for the lack of pictures..... the internet here kills me

You Stay Civilized......Planet Earth!!!!

Bye Bye Ali, Hello Newbies

Monday Feb. 11 - Sun. Feb. 17

Ok, so this week has been absolutely hectic and I haven't had any time or enerygy to give you a day by day run through. So I took a few notes about some things I did throughout the week so I could at least give you the highlights.

Ever since these new volunteers arrived, we have been going hard. We have been working super hard trying to prepare for classes which started this Wedneday. Since last week, I have been given a promotion. Apparently, I am now the head of agriculture and the grounds here on campus. Warren is familiar with golf and told me that he wants me to make this place look like pebble beach. But before I start working hard on all the grounds problems, I needed to focus on helping prepare the school buildings for classes.

So on Tuesday, I went over to the bathrooms behind where they are holding classes to clean them and get them ready. It is simply a three stall building, nothing much. But when I looked inside.....wow. Thats all there is to say about it. The floor and walls had mold and algea all over, the little trash bins were full of used toilette paper since we are not allowed to flush it, and when I opened the toilette seats, each toilette had a massive amount of thick exrement that had live maggots crawling all throughout it and had larvae wiggling around. It was quite the disgusting mess.

Eric helped get all the "mud" out of the toilettes, and then I spent the next good little while cleaning the toilettes, the walls, and the floors. It was kind of a yucky job, but now it is so much better! I have noticed that I have come pretty close to overcoming one of my biggest phobia's....the smell of poop. Just in the last month, I have cleaned these bathrooms and have changed a few babies diapers. I had never changed a diaper in my life before because I simply cannot handle the smell. So in that department I have come along way.

Other jobs that Eric and I did today was clean the 3 school buildings and classrooms, set up desks, and spray for bugs and spiders. The other volunteers here have been so helpful in cleaning and preparing the campus for the upcoming year. One of the biggest helps has been in mowing a good portion of the campus. and then having the kids pick up the mowed grass.

On Wednesday, we had a faculty worship in the morning and have been for the past couple mornings. This was also the first day of school. But beings how we have not recieved all of the books and supplies, we were not quite ready for classes. So what happened is that the teachers took the kids out on walks and gave outdoor education classes.

Eric is going to be a full time teacher and will teach all kinds of classes. But school only goes until about 12. Then there is lunch, and a brief rest until 2. Then from 2-4, all of the kids participate in the work program. This is where the kids are divided up with different volunteers and are required to work. For me, I am working in the fields all day every day. Which I think is a lot better fit for me. Especially because I want to learn more about fixing things and being more self sufficient.

Today, while everyone was at school, I decided that I wanted to work on the wood pile behind the big house. It is absolutely terrible. There are wood chunks and trash all over with weeds growing up through all of it. Amos, one of the new volunteers helped me out a little bit over this 2 day process. We worked for a few hours today and then for a few more the next day. This is also the job that we put a couple of the kids on. After 2 days of some pretty solid work, we finally finished picking up and cleaning the entire area. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take an after picture quite yet, but I will post a before picture.

Thursday was kind of a bitter day, especially for me and Eric. Today was Ali's final day here at Familia Feliz. It's hard to believe that an entire month has already gone by. She has been such an amazing help and could not have come at a better time. When she came, there was no one to take care of Jenette, and then 2 days after she was here, a bunch more little ones showed up. So without here, we would have had no idea what to do with them. She did an absolutely fantastic job taking care of, playing with, and cooking for the children. She also provided a lot of mental relief for Eric and I.

For work today, we finished the wood pile, I helped cook lunch, and we made sweet rolls. But the most exciting part of my day was burning trash. That has become a big responsibility of mine. Familia Feliz has built up a major amount of garbage over the years and one of my responsibilities is to burn it. So today was a trial run where I took 2 big barrels, filled them with trash, doused them with diesle, and set them on fire. It went fairly well except while I was trying to start the fire with my $0.14 lighter that I bought in town. As I was trying to light it up, the lighter melted while my thumb was on the metal. Yeah, it didn't feel too good. But I held my hand under running water for about 20 minutes and it helped a lot.

The best part of the day though was coming into town with Ali. She needed to check into the airport the day before her flight so that they wouldn't give her ticket away. So Warren, let Eric and I bring her into town and spend a few hours with her to eat dinner and say goodbye. Also, It was Valentines day allowing me to say hello to my wonderful girlfriend Kristen Long. It was a very nice evening that allowed us to have some good food which by the way, Eric's parents offered to pay for. That fact alone increased my enjoyment of the evening by about 10 fold! But It was sad when we finally had to say goodbye.

Oh! and one other thing that happened today that pretty much stopped my heart, was that Warren asked me to teach Sabbath School. Now, in the States, this isn't wuite a big deal because there is a quarterly and a lot of intereaction. Here, we don't have either. And second, it is only to the older kids, volunteers, and staff. So it is pretty much a sermon. I didn't know what to say, because he has made it clear, that when he "asks" someone to do something, he isn't just asking haha. But I like that. For me though, I hate public speaking, and I have never given a sermon.

Friday, I ended up spending a decent amount of time in town. My goal was to take a truck load of all the unburnable metal to a spot where they used to take garbage. But when I got to the place, the guy came up to me and said that it is private land now and that we cannot dump trash there anymore. So that was fail number 1, I also needed to order a new part for the truck, but the store was closed. Fail number 2. I also wanted to pick up the blades for the lawnmower that were being welded, but they wern't ready yet. Fail number 3. Then finally, I wanted to repair yet another flat tire that we had and that was a success! But while we waited for places to open up and for the tire to get fixed, I pretty much got another day off. So that was really nice.

Saturday morning finally came and it was my morning for the adult "sermon". I was nervous enough as it was, but about an hour before I spoke, 7 new volunteers arrived. Great! This just added to my stree. But oh well, I can handle it. I spoke about children, how we are supposed to raise them in the way that they should go according to Proverbs 22:6 and how we are supposed to do that. I ended up sweating an incredible amount and had to change clothes after I spoke because they were soaking wet. But fortunately, a couple people told me that I did a good job, and while I was speaking, I heard a few "mmmm's", and we all know THATS a good sign!

P.S. Happy valentines day to my mom, my grandma McLennan, Grandma Miller, and Kristen Long! Love you all!



You Stay Civilized......Planet Earth!!!!

new volunteers!!!! Sweet!

Tuesday Feb. 5, 2013

As I have procrastinated on writing the blog for today, I will have to give bullet points.

Made uminta which is ground up fresh corn with some other ingredients, including cheese, then wrapped up in the corn husk and steamed.
I cut my finger with a knife while trying to get the corn off of the cobs. Don't worry pops, it wasn't a big cut and hardly bled. No biggie.
Did all my laundry today since it was a super hot day.
Decided to help Emmy out and clean the entire house for her. I washed pots and pans and dishes and silverwear, and I cleaned the table and floor.
Angelica couldn't take it and left
Found out that the new volunteers will be here Thursday.
Sorry that I had to do bullet points for today folks!

Wednesday Feb. 6, 2013

You will notice that I am not writing very much for this section as I have procrastinated and it is already Sunday. The only thing the I can remember about today was the fact that at 10 pm, Joy came up to us and said that tons of new volunteers were going to show up at 2 am. So she asked Eric and I to clean Missy's old house, move and assemble bedframes, find mattresses, and hang moskito nets. This was a crazy long and tiring process. One of the bedframes that they wanted us to get was actually out behind missy's house in the jungle. It was so far back there that it took us awhile to even find it. And when we did, things were so overgrown that there were vines holding it in place. So here Eric and I are, just yanking and pulling and grunting and inhaling all of the moskito's in the jungle trying to get this bedframe out. Missy was standing in the clearing watching us and thought it was absolutely hilarious. Which, It probably was considering she was watching what seemed to be a human tree and a homeless man struggling in the jungle to get this bed out.

Thursday Feb. 7, 2013

The new volunteers arrived today! Crazy! I had heard that they were upstairs in the big house with Eric and Ali, so I went over to do the traditional meet and greet. But when I got up there, there were 3 guys my age, and I recognized one of them. Greg was the one I recognized. He and I were at southern together and he just got accepted to Loma Linda. He is a really cool and really smart guy that is fun to talk to. Another one of the guys was Amos. He is an asian guy who also went to southern at the same time as me. But even though we are the same major and had many similar classes, we never met. It's crazy that even at a small school, we can go years without meeting people that are around us. The last guy up there was Warren. He is the son of Warren who is also the son of Warren. We thought about calling him Junior, but since he is the 3rd, we decided to call him mini junior (MJ for short). He is a crazy guy that is full of life and always eager to do stuff. He is actually doing some filming and going to put a promo video together for FF because he is majoring in videography.

After meeting them and hanging out a little bit in the morning, Warren called a team meeting for all of the volunteers to get acquainted. I am already impressed. So we sat down together, introduced ourselves, and got on the same page. This communication thing is cool. I think i'm going to like it.

But unfrotunately, this is where my day got a little stressful. After meeting everyone, I had to go back to my house to watch the boys. Today was Juan and Emmy's day off and Eric was helping Ali. So that left me to deal with all these rebels. I have found that when Juan is on campus, they are little angels, but the moment he leaves, they become little devils. So I knew that I was in for an interesting day. And right before they left, Emmy's came up to me and said, Hey, by the way, you are in charge of cooking supper.....great! Oh well, somehow I will make it.

I was doing fairly well for awhile. But after a few hours, Davicito was killing me. He was terrorizing all the other kids, stealing stuff and lying all over the place. He simply would not listen to anything. So I went to Eric and said, hey, I need you to take Davicito, or just switch jobs with me for a few hours because I'm gunna flip. At first he said he would take Davicito, but then decided to just switch with me. So I took the babies, and then later started to cook with Ali.

While cooking, Warren called my name from downstairs and said that he needed a translator. This made me a little nervous because I didn't know if some parent was here and was upset or something. But I said ok and I went downstairs. He said that he just needed me to talk to one of my boys because he had asked them to do something, and they ran the other way. As soon as he said that he wanted me to talk to one of the boys, I wasn't worried anymore. I was betting money that it was Davicito, but it turned out to be Edwin (which is equally unsurprising). So I went over to him and talked to him. I asked him why he ran away and then explained that Warren is the new boss and he now has all the power on campus. I told him that he needs to listen to Warren and do what he had asked. Edwin immediately said yes teacher and went and did it. It was WAY to easy, and I felt so cool like a parent or something!

The last thing that happened today was that the guy who will be the long time director once Warren leaves and his family arrived and wanted to move into my old house. This wasn't a problem, however, I was keeping a lot of my stuff over in that house as Eric and I are pretty cramped in our dorm sized room. But It wasn't a problem. I simply went over there and packed all of my stuff up and moved it into Eric and I's room.

Friday Feb. 8, 2013

Today was a busy busy day! We woke up for our first 7:00 am devotional with Warren and the new volunteers. I am so excited about how organized he is and the communication that is happening. After singing a couple of songs, we had prayer, then Warren gave us a devotional, then came the assignments. He had written up a list yesterday of all the things that needed to get done. The job that I took/was given, was working on getting the lawnmower to finally work, then mowing anywhere and everywhere that is possible for the lawnmower to go.

After separating, we went to our respective houses, had breakfast, and went to it. Juan and I went over to the tool shed to begin working on the lawnmower that I was doubtful would even start. Juan and I worked for awhile on fixing the belts for the blades underneath, then once we were done doing that, we took the battery out of the truck and were able to finally start the mower after months of it not working. We knew that as soon as we got it running, we just couldn't turn it off because the battery in the mower is completely shot.

As soon as we got it running, I was so excited! I was ready to go dominate some grass! So I drove all the way over to the soccerfield and as soon as I put the blades down to mow, boom. Done. The belt poopep (haha i meant to say popped but I saw that I typed pooped and I thought it was funny so I left it) again. So we took it back over to the tool shed and used 2 stumps, and 2 old batteries, and lifted the mower on top of them so we could get underneath of it. Juan decided that it would be best if we totally detached the machinery under the mower. So we took everything apart which is a good thing we did because we found 2 really really bad belts, and all 3 of the blades that cut the grass were completely trashed. they were rusted, completely dull, and falling apart. Fortunately, we found all of this before Warren went into town to get supplies for FF. So Warren decided to just go ahead and take Juan into town and get everything he needed for the mower as Warren doesn't speak any Spanish and would have a hard time describing what we needed.

This left me searching for other projects to work on. One thing that I found to do was rake up mowed grass with Amos and little Warren. I spent much of the afternoon doing this and getting a lot closer with them and talking a lot. I am absolutely loving having all these guys here. They are so helpful, so needed, and so cool. It's like a breath of fresh air for Eric and I. Even just being able to work in the field and do manual labor is fun! It's hard work, but we feel accomplished afterwards.

Another thing I was able to do today was get some boys to work! This alone is a mjor accomplishment. Just getting the boys to do anything other than torment each other and make mischief, is extremely difficult. But I was able to get Moises, Miguel, David, and the new boy Daniel to help me pick up trash all around the big house. The goal was to get a lot of trash together in a certain spot in order to burn it. So I was able to get a lot done with the boys.

Eric worked pretty hard today too. He spent a large portion of the day working at the church cleaning it and preparing it for Sabbath. The best part about this is, he took the kids that I just can't stand with him. I think he has some kind of magical wand that he uses in order to get Davicito and Edwin to work, because I can never get the to do anything without a lot of effort.

This evening, we had our first rounda with the new volunteers and our first real one in awhile. We actually had a decent group of people there and enough spanish speakers to lead out. We sang some songs, prayed, Warren read a passage from the Bible, we sang again, then shook hands. Following this was dinner which is always a happy time. Especially to welcome in the Sabbath.

Saturday Feb. 9, 2013

I was very excited for this Sabbath. Not only was I very tired and ready for a break from working, but I was really anxious to hear Warren give his sermon and to attend the church service. Today was the first Sabbath that we were going back to a normal service. However, Ali was not feeling good at all this morning, so Eric and I needed to help out with the babies. Eric took Jenette while I took Bismark. Once church started, Bismark did not want to stop crying at all! He just cried and cried. Mostly whenever I sat down. I tried numerous times to go and sit back down after I calmed him down, but every time, he started screaming. So I ended up standing outside of the church the entire service holding this baby and keeping him from crying. Fortunately, Amos was taking pictures and then decided to come out and keep me company which was really nice.

After church, Tabitha, one of the new volunteers that is only here for about 2 weeks had cooked lentil burgers with french fries and avacado sauce! Wowie was it good! We all ate our fill and then came rest time. It seemed as though pretty much everyone wanted to rest which was totally ok with me because my back was killing me from carrying Bismark all day long.

Later this evening, we loaded up the truck with several of the volunteers and went into town to play some REAL volleyball instead of "chaos ball". And when I say we loaded up, I mean we crammed! Not only did we have 13 full grown people in this tiny truck, but we also had TONS of luggage that Tracy's mom was taking since they were moving to Santa Cruz. Somehow, with people sitting on one another and shoving the doors closed, we all made it in and I drove the truck into town.

Once in town, most of us played volleyball the entire time while some of the volunteers went online and took care of things there. This was incredibly fun! It actually resembled volleyball! There was actually a volley and the ball was going over the net. Eric and I were on the same team for awhile which brought back memories of our intramural team that we were on together back at southern.

After a few hours, we were all pretty exhausted and hot and sweaty and were ready to head back. When we looked at our watched, it was already midnight. How did that happen?!?!? But I guess time always flies when you're having fun right?

By the time we had loaded up and got back to FF, it was about 1 am. Once we got back, Warren asked me if I wouldn't mind driving the truck at 6:30 am and taking Gerry and his wife to the bus station along with a few other volunteers. So I knew that I wasn't going to be getting much sleep tonight.

Sunday Feb. 10, 2013

Today was a fun and interesting day. As I said, I woke up super early after getting about 4 hours of sleep, then drove some volunteers into town. After dropping Gerry and his wife off, I took Tabitha and her husband Jaque into the Sunday market in search of Fruit and other things that they could cook with.

The market was actully hopping today. There were tons of stands set up and plenty of people selling things. I simply walked around with them for about an hour or so just translating for them, and helping them find some things in town. But today my highlight was that I found a peach that was ripe and amazingly delicious. It was so juicy and good I could have eaten so many more.

But after buying yucca, chives, cucumbers, olives, and other random things, we were back off the Familia Feliz. It's kind of weird coming to town and not even touching a computer. Before we hit the main road back to FF, I stopped at the post office to see if there were any packages by any chance for me. And what do you know? There was!! Sweet! It was from Ryan and Liz. I was so excited and anxious to open it. So as soon as I got back, I did. There were Oreo's, a candle, chapstick, twister, a solar paneled shower, and pictures and even a recorded DVD. This was a super cool and very sentimentle care package. I was sitting there laughing at some of the things they said that reminded me of home.

But then it was time to work. The focus was the upstairs of the big house. So Warren gave me the assignment of cleaning the storage room which was a complete disaster! There was so much random stuff in there that you wouldn't believe. Eric and I started by going through the stack of disgusting old mattresses and throwing them off the balcony before moving them to the trash pile that we had been building up. Then I moved on the making a pathway so that we could at least walk into the room. My main goal was to clear the entire center of the room and organize another time.

This room, was like a goldmine of interesting things. There were fishing poles, tools, suitcases, clothes, printers, and laptops. But by far the most interesting thing in the room was the section of medical equipment! I found so many crazy things! IV's, seringes, saline, and tons of drugs. Not only was there a medical section, but there was a dental section as well! Perfect for me. They even had books about dentistry and drug references for dentistry. Tons of tools and even and impression. So many cool things. I spent a good while simply going through all the medications and making a pile of all the ones that expired a long time ago. I also stumbled upon surgical equipment, sterile clothes, and a ton of Gauze.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with more basic cleaning of the upstairs. That was of course until our trash pile was ready to burn. When that happened, I got the go ahead, and I dumped diesel all over the pile, then set it ablaze. It was quite the large inferno. Being a guy and loving destruction, this was extremely fun and entertaining.

Also this afternoon, little Warren and Amos wanted to interview me for their promo video that they are making. This was kind of exciting and I was eager to do it. Hopefully it turns out nice and will be a cool thing to show when I get back.

You Stay civilized......planet earth!!!!

Sorry there are not more pictures, i thought i put them on a USB, but it didn't work.

working hard in the heat.

Sunday Jan. 27, 2013

                At 6:00 am, we arrived back at the bus station in Rurre. I could not have been happier to get off that bus. My entire body was so tired and my eyes were ready to pop out of my eyes and get a hotel. We had thought about staying in town for while, but nothing was open for a few hours, and we were dead tired. So we decided to get a taxi back. Fortunately, we only had to wait about 30 minutes for a taxi to take us back to Familia Feliz. We finally got back to FF at 7 am this morning. It was so good to be "home" all we could think about was crawling into our respective beds. All of us immediately crashed. Eric and I slept until about noon, while Ali only slept till 10. Basically, I woke up to eat, then I went back to bed until about 5.

                Later today we got a welcomed surprise though. Apparently there is a new volunteer that is here named Angelica. She is a Bolivian but has lived in the States for 16 years so she speaks perfect english. Only problem is, she doesn't know how to cook or take care of kids. She is mostly here for the upcoming school year where she will function as a teacher. But she is more than willing to learn new skills. And as long as someone has the willingness to learn, they will work here at Familia Feliz.

                This evening, while Eric and I were hanging out at the big house with Ali, Missy came over and talked with us for awhile. She came and discussed a few problems that she had run into and asked what we thought. She also told us about a family that was in need of help. But I will tell you their situation in my blog for tomorrow.

Monday Jan. 28, 2013

                Today, Ali, Steve, and I woke up early and went into town with Juan in the truck. After we arrived into town, we spent 1 hour on the computer and then were off to our mission for the day. As I promised, I will tell you about the family that needs help as our mission is helping them.

                Yesterday, Missy was informed of a family that needed help and was given a description of their situation. Apparently there is a 39 year old mother with 7 children ages 1-18. Her and her husband were married for about 20 years before he decided that he wanted to split and hookup with another young lady. As he was the sould provider for the house, this left the mother and the children with nothing. They have now moved from their small apartment with running water and electricity, to living under a tarp high up in the jungle. The mother works all day, every day as an ice cream vendor in the streets. She makes 20-30 B's per day, which is equivalent to $3-4, making it nearly impossible to provide for a family of 8. Since she works so much, she has to leave her 1 and  3 year old with the 6 year old daughter who cares for them. Her oldest son would help but is currently in the military on a 1 year manditory service.

                When Missy saw them yesterday, she could not help but to offer to take the 3 youngest children back to Familia Feliz in order to gove them food, a house, and provide for them. She also talked with Eric, Ali, and I about maybe building her a small house. If the plans work out, we could build her a 3 or 4 room house for about $2300. This would include sturdy wall, a good floor, and a solid roof.

                However, when we arrived there today to pick up the children, the mother told us that the husband had showed up yesterday after Missy. When he found out that the mother was going to give the 3 youngest children to us to take care of, he was furious. He proceeded to tell her that if she gave the children up to us, that he would no longer suppoert them financially and buy them food. Problem is, he doesn't do that anyway. But he said that he would if she didn't give the kids up. This obviously puts the mother in a tough position. But after awhile, we convinced her to come into town with us, eat lunch, and talk with social services to see what they had to say. But on our way down the mountain, we bumped into the father. Missy proceeded to tell him that she was from social services and that we were taking these children, and that he needed to come to the office to sign some papers. He was not too excited to say the least, but Missy has some magical powers and was able to get him to go around 4.

                So while we waited, we took the family to Narguila's for lunch which was a major treat, and then they were off to Social Services. But because it is such a small office, Missy asked us to wait at Narguila's. So Ali, Steve, and I waited, but then decided to go to another internet cafe to communicate with friends and family.



Goofing around



                After they worked everything out, Missy came with the family and picked us up from the cafe. We then proceeded back to Familia Feliz where we let the mother see the place for herself. We wanted her to feel absolutely comfortable because she kept having second thoughts. But finally, after awhile, she completely consented and left with Juan back to town in the truck.

Tuesday Jan. 29, 2013

                Wowie, today was a hot one. Today was definitely one of the hottest days that we have had since we have been here for sure! I have literally been sweating since I woke up until now when I'm going to sleep. Not once have I stopped sweating. Since it was so hot, we decided that today would be an excellent day to do our laundry. Besides, it has been awhile since we have done it, and I am out of clean boxers. So yeah, time to do it.

 

                Today, I actually had a really fun day with Jenette. Jenette is the 6 year old girl that doesn't look like she could be older than 3. She is the girl that was found in the dump a few months back and is mentally ill and cannot walk. Today I was able to hold her and make her smile! Just making her smile isn't always easy because of her condition, but it was very exciting to see that and play with her. I also picked her up, and tried to make her walk. And to my surprise, she actually took steps! Granted, she can't support hardly any weight on her feet, but she was actually doing the motions. She does have brain function and is absolutely adorable. I would love to be able to work with her and to get her taking a few steps by the time I leave. But we will see.

                The most significant thing I did was talk to one of the new volunteers that hasn't been here very long. She was feeling pretty discouraged about her situation at Familia Feliz and had a couple of other very valid concers. She was frustrated enough almost to the point of leaving. But non of us knew this until today when I saw her just standing out on the porch for awhile by herself. So I went out there just to talk to her and see what she thought of FF. Thats when she told me. That's when about a 30 minute 1 on 1 talk started between her and I. I felt like I was really able to encourage her and get rid of some of her concerns. But by far the coolest part of this, was that I honestly felt like God was talking through me. I haven't felt that too many times before in my life, but I felt it today. I felt as though God was putting the words in my mouth and I didn't have to worry about anything. That pretty much concluded our day today, of course, other than more sweat.

Wednesday Jan. 30, 2013



Preparing for battle!

                Today, Eric and I were planning on taking the kids into town and going to the pool. But it was looking like the weather wasn't going to be so good to do that. From the early morning, it was pretty cloudy and even sprinkled a few times. But we were both hoping that it would clear up and get hotter so we could go to the pool. But before the weather had a chance to clear up, Joy came over and asked me if I could drive the truck into town and take a few people in so that they could catch a bus to another city. She also needed the truck to be in town so that she could buy more food for FF because we are like completely out of food.

 

                The other reason that Joy needed me to go to town was because Lizelle, one of the long time volunteers at FF, got into an accident yesterday. Apparently she was on a motobike and a car swerved over and hit her. She got her legs scrapped up pretty good and the left side of her face is completely swollen and needed some stitches. So today, Joy needed me to take her in to go to the clinic.

                The 3 new kids that we took in this week seem to be doing quite well. Selena, the 6 year old, is super outgoing and is having a great time playing with all the other children. Alex, the 3 year old, is doing fairly well, but when his older sister is not around, he starts some serious crying because he wants her to be with and play with him. Bismark, the 13 month old baby, is quite the cryer. As long as he is sleeping, or in someone's arms for a long amount of time, he is ok. But the moment you give him to someone else to hold, even if he is familiar with them, he bawls crying. He doesn't like it one bit. Poor Ali and Angelica, they are having to deal with these 3 new ones and Jenette. This is not an easy job. But I think they are getting quite the education on how to be moms.

Thursday Jan. 31, 2013

 

Your children are now ours!



                For the past 2 or 3 days, we have been planning on taking all the kids into town where there is a hotel that allows you to use their pool all day long for 20 B's per person. However, plans kept falling through. Finally today, we were able to work it out! We were all ready to go. Granted, that even after we were ready, it was  still about an hour before anything actually happened. Bolivia right? But yes, we loaded up about 15-20 people in the small truck and were off to town. We were jammed in there like cattle. But it was a hot afternoon and we knew that it would be well worth it!



                However, once we got to the pool in town, the lady at the front counter saw how many kids that we had and then decided to tell us that they were closed today. The kids were going to be so upset because we have been telling them that we are taking them into the pool for the past 3 days. And here we go shutting them down again! But Missy thought that we could just drive everyone back up to Asunta. This was a really good plan, but was really far away (especially with the way that we were crammed into the truck). But before we left town, we picked up some snacks for the kids and Eric and I enjoyed a couple of ice cream cones.



                Once we arrived at Asunta, it was getting later in the afternoon, so we didn't have a ton of time. But we were able to get atleast 2 hours in. It was still fairly warm, but not like this morning. The water was actually surprisingly warm too! It was almost too warm, to the point where it ALMOST wasn't refreshing. But it was still a ton of fun. We had everyone there, including the babies. There were some fallen trees that the boys used as a diving board and Eric, Juan, and I took this weird pasty mud stuff and rubbed it all over our bodies so that we looked like jungle warriors!



                Just a side note, this morning I worked for quite awhile weed wacking a path all the way up to the choco. It took me a long time, especially in the heat of the day! This is probably a very poorly placed and poorly written paragraph, but such is life. My civility is getting lower and lower the longer I live here in the jungle. I have realized that I have become one with cockroaches.

Friday Feb. 1, 2013

 

                I just want to start out by saying that it has been great having Eric here. We have become so much closer and I consider him one of my best friends now. We are getting a long great and we help.....rather, he helps me through some frustrating times. Ok, no more man gushy stuff...



                This morning, I was planning on doing a lot of weed wacking out front of Familia Feliz. Because right now, you can't even see the sign from the road. The grass has litterally grown to where it is taller than me! But  before I went out there, Juan asked me if I could help him out there. I wasn't exactly sure what all he wanted to do, but I said sure. Turns out, that what he wanted to do was collect all the scrapped asphault that the construction workers discarded from them paving the main road, and use it to pave the road in FF. This was a good idea, but NOT a fun job. Especially when it has been over 100 degrees the past 3 days!

 

                So Juan, another guy, and myself were off, shovels in hand. We took the truck and the trailer down the road, and started shoveling the dried piles of asphault into the trailer. This was super hard! Hard because the asphault was pretty much already dried, and hard because of how hot it was. Once we loaded up the trailer, we went back to FF, and shoveled it onto our road from the trailer. After the first load, the other guy left, so it was just Juan and I. We were only able to do 1 more load before we decided that it was a death sentence to be working in this heat. But 2 trailer loads of this stuff was a pretty significant chuck of what we needed to do. This project will easily take us another week or so.



                The cool thing that happened today though was that Miguel and his sister came back today. They were 2 kids that were here earlier and were picked up by their father because he wanted them for awhile. Eric actually took care of Miguel for awhile too after Erin left as Miguel was one of Erin's boys.



                Later this afternoon, I helped Steve make more bread, and I played upstairs with the little kids a bit before I took a brief nap. I have been having the best time playing with Jenette! She LOVES to touch my beard and for me to help her try to walk. So working with her has been pretty rewarding.

Saturday Feb. 2, 2013



                This Sabbath, after church, we all loaded up into the truck and went back up to Asunta. We spent most of the afternoon swimming and playing in the water. This time the water felt a little more refreshing because it was yet another hot day.



                This evening, Eric, Ali, and I made some Betty Crocker cookies that we had recieved in a care package. We also made some mexican flavored ramen noodles and watched a movie. All this specialness reminded me of a Saturday night back in the States.

Sunday Feb. 3, 2013

 

                This morning, Eric woke up at 6:15 so he could go into town with Angelica. Fortunately, I was able to fall back asleep pretty quick after he left. But I didn't wake back up until 10 am! I accidentally slept in crazy late. I felt really bad when I woke up because I had wanted to be over in the big house with Ali because she was all by herself there with all the babies. But as it turns out, the rest of my house had slept in too. So when I walked out of my room, they were just sitting down to breakfast. However, Emmy was sick, so breakfast was 2 pieces of bread, and some chocolate milk.

  

Trying tohelp Jenette learn to walk



                I think the reason that everyone slept in, was because since the middle of last night it has been raining. So because the clouds were blocking the sun, our bodies were tricked into thinking it was still dark. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! But after breakfast, I went over to the Big House to see how Ali was doing. But, of course, she was just fine. So after I hung out for a bit, I went back to my house and found Juan already starting to cook lunch. So I jumped in and started helping him cut up some veggies.

 

                Due to the rain, after cooking, it was a pretty dead day. So I decided to bring out some of my balloons and stickers and give them to the kids to have fun with. That entertained them for awhile and they seemed to really enjoy it. I told them that they could put stickers on the balloons and decorate them. After that, we had lunch, then relaxed for a little bit. But after awhile, I wanted to get out and do something, so I asked Juan if he wanted to go work on the road some more. This alone is crazy, because normally Juan is the work horse and gets everyone to work, but this time, it was me. I figured that it was a good day because there was cloud cover, and the rain had almost completely stopped for awhile. But when I asked him, he was a little uncertain. He was completely willing to do it, but he thought that the asphault would be harder because it was colder and it was wet. But we went out anyway. 



                Once we got out there, it was actually a lot easier than we expected. The asphault was coming up in sheets. We didn't have to try and break it all up with our shovels first. It was still very hard work, but not quite as hard as Juan had originally thought. It also helped that Steven, and the boys were helping us. We worked on the road for a good while, got my hands nice and raw, and then called it quits after about 4 loads of asphault. I think that it was a pretty successful day. I was quite happy with the amount that we got done. Especially when we wern't planning on doing any to begin with.

                Again, I felt a little bad that I wasn't helping Ali at all, but she seems to be doing really well with the children. She has fit in perfetly here so far. In fact, Missy and Joy asked her tonight about maybe even staying for a lot longer. But she needs to go bak to school, so that isn't going to happen. But it was a good thought.

You Stay Civilized.....Planet Earth!!!!

After a long day