Dinner

Tonight we went to Pastor Denny's church (the church I visited Sunday morning). They had songs, welcome, and a psalm and then we went out next to the sanctuary where it was basically a covered patio and we ate a rice dish called "mahow". There was also salad y fried plantana. (Plantane; a banana). Then Cory asked about the church and its needs...it needs a new building and wants to have many more people. One can definitely feel the love of God at La Luz Divina; here there doesn't feel like there is as much love. They are across the street from a market and on Sundays they take the market sellers' children into Sunday School. There is a new law in Bolivia that churches must do a "social work" or forfeit their land and so this church is thinking of setting up a day care for the children whose parents work in the markets. It sounds like many pastors live behind their churches and that they all have a different vocation besides pastoring. Pastor Denny is the one with four daughters-Carla, Erica, Niecey, y Sarah. Philip y Lynn translated for us.

Thursday

Buenas tardes, mi amigos! I am posting this in the afternoon so that hopefully I will go to bed earlier tonight.

Today Dad woke me up at 7:30 (our alarm went off at 7:40) and we had breakfast by eight. Daniel felt better and went and worked with us today but Jason stayed behind with his sickness. Had about 50 kids at the morning VBS, they did the cross craft. Had lunch-chicken, rice with ham and vegetables, tomatoes, mango, cookies. Finished the concrete floor today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sooooo excited. Tomorrow we start brick-laying. At the afternoon VBS we had 106 kids. We made a heart craft to remind us of Jesus' death. Cory popped his shoulder out and had to rest. He tried to work with one hand but it wasn't working out so well. Providentially, he did it right before lunch so he had to rest for awhile. Today was the most humid it had been-we all feel hot and sticky. We left around four-thirty and right now, we are taking our showers. At 6:30 Pastor Denny (sp?) will pick us up to go have dinner at his house. We wrote our church name y Leo (a Bolivian man) y Marvin (19-year-old) y a verse in Mateo (Matthew) but we didn't all sign it because they are going to put tile over it. The building is going to be two-story with the bottom story being Sunday School rooms y the top floor being the pastor's house. Right now they are living in Sunday School rooms behind the church. Last night some Bolivians stayed up until two o'clock putting tiles on the floor in the sanctuary. The first night we were there the floor was a little more than halfway tiled and the rest was concrete (which, when we ran on it, kicked up A LOT of dust). The next day they had put six more tiles and Tuesday had completed that row (maybe 13 tiles). Last night they put in another row. The tiles are about twice the size of a pillow...roughly the size of a pillow. They cost 17 US dollars each. The church sells produce and whatever profit they get goes to buy the tiles. The VBS kids weren't as well behaved this morning. They weren't as good in the afternoon either, but I expected 50 kids to be better than 106. Danielle y Roxy are amazing.

Pardon. (sorry) I know I am hopping around from one thing to another, but I just need to get all my thoughts and memory out before I forget. I don't ever want to forget a single detail of this.

Funny story: Tuesday Abby drank gasoline. She didn't want me to tell but now I can. It's funny because there's no danger. She didn't swallow it. Extra gasoline was being stored in water bottles. We needed the gasoline to run the cement mixer. (We are borrowing an electric one right now because the gasoline one is giving us too much trouble.) So she poured some gasoline into her water bottle and tried to drink it. It fell out of her mouth. She poured another sip. It fell out as well (and people don't believe in God or angels). Then she tasted it. And started throwing up. Lynn came outside (we were all starting work) and told us that Abby just drank gasoline. Of course, we all thought that she was kidding. Needless to say, we no longer are storing gasoline in water bottles and Abby now smells every water bottle she drinks.

Today

So this morning we got up at eight and had breakfast and by eight-thirty were getting picked up by the pastor and some of the church congregation. We started working - which meant breaking up the dirt and making it level so that we could pour concrete over it. Daniel had experience in this and was quite helpful in directing all of us to do what was best-we were using shovels, pick-axes, and rakes. Mom, Abby, and I went with Daniella to a corner store and her "casa", her house. She prayed with us about the children's program that we're going to have and showed us some things that they have done with the children in the past. Then we went back and helped prepare some food. (Mom helped, Abby helped with the digging, I took pictures. :P) Then Pastor Walter's wife brought food and we set up lunch and then called the men in and ate lettuce, tomatoes, chicken, beef, potato balls, banana, mandarin oranges, "y" (and) "arroz" (rice). And had agua y Coca-Cola. (water and coke). Then I went out and started helping with the digging. Earlier, some people had gone with one of the pastors to buy some bricks (we lay the bricks on top of the concrete). So we removed bricks that were there previously, dug the dirt, removed the dirt via wheelbarrow, leveled it and then tamped it with blocks of concrete. Meanwhile there are boundaries marked by string and the ground has to be ten centimeters (approx. 4 inches) below the string. Then, when we were about halfway done with the second section (there's about four or five sections), we started mixing the concrete, rolling it via wheelbarrow to the corner of the first section, and smoothing it down. So first I helped make the concrete, then I migrated to smoothing the concrete (it was soooo much fun-it was Herb, Willie, Abby, Philip, and I). Then they ran out of gasoline (which runs the cement mixer) so the work on the concrete stopped. Then somebody brought more and we started again. After awhile, they ran out of cement (one makes cement by mixing two buckets of cement, two buckets of water, I think, six buckets of rock, and four buckets of sand) so the work stopped for good. We were done (it was around four or five now) and I went inside to rest. We waited for the pastor, Ed, and the taxi for about an hour in which we socialized, talked, and gave English lessons. All day long, Ed and his wife Lynn (I'm not sure on the spelling) and Philip had been translating for us. Ed left and went with the pastor to change money in the afternoon though, so Philip was getting called from all over to translate for us. (thank you, Philip!) He is fifteen years old, and going into his sophomore year of high school. Then after we got picked up, we got dropped off at our hotel, and had fifteen minutes to take a shower and then we went to Roky's for dinner. We ordered big meat dishes to share (it feeds four to five people) and a few people ordered individual dinners. We also got to try Inca Kola (a yellow sugar drink) that is popular in Peru. I was so tired and was just spacing out at dinner after I ate. (I think that in these three days, I have drunk more soda than I normally drink in a month.) Anyways, after dinner we came back and had our meeting in which Daddy gave a "two-minute" devotional on keeping a bigger picture of God's work in our minds and shared God moments that we've had. Mine (which I didn't share) was that Louis (nineteen I think) was so excited and showed his English work to Herb. He and Herb talked in "Spainglish" lol. Philip was sitting there with us though and followed the conversation so he helped pick up loose ends of the conversation. That's all I can think of right now...I'm trying to write everything down before I forget. Cory advises journaling so that when we get back and have so much to talk about, we can still remember the details. This blog has become my journal (hence the monster post :D). I actually brought two real journals but haven't written anything since the plane ride between Miami and La Paz (which, btw, was the worst plane ride I have ever had. I don't know why though. I think it's because I was so tired and couldn't sleep and my body was tired of having to stay in the same position.).

And thank you guys so much for commenting and following-I feel really loved and cared for and that people are genuinely interested in what I have to tell.