Incredible story about the power of God to change lives!

If you want to hear a sermon Jason gave about an awesome experience we had in Bolivia, where we got to see the amazing power of the Holy Spirit to change lives go to the link "sermon on Bolivia" on the side of our blog. When you click on the link look for the sermon on November 27. It is called "The Mission." You have to listen to the whole thing to understand it...don't stop in the middle.

Our plane to Santa Cruz
Jason and Salvador with his broken arm.
Anybody else want a ride?

Adios Bolivia

The final week of school arrived and after exams were finally over, everyone started helping get ready for graduation. We had programs all weekend and many visitors on campus. The final ceremony took place Sunday evening, starting an hour late as usual in Bolivia. It was set-up on the lawn in front of a homemade stage. Everyone sat at tables and half-way through the program we served all the guests a very nice meal. The program went very nicely. It was sad to see some students without any family there to support them. At the beginning of the program it started to rain, but we stopped as a group and asked God to hold off the rain. He did and even sent a beautiful rainbow halo in the sky. God displayed His awesome power right there in front of all our visitors. The students began leaving to go to their homes on Sunday. Some students will be staying around for a month or more to work on campus, even though there is no money to pay them. They would rather be there than anywhere else. Several students are going up the river with another group of missionaries to help put on children's programs and witness to the indigenous tribes. I was working in the garden with one student who is young for a freshman in high school and did not do well with her grades. She was asking me if she was going to pass my classes and I had to be honest with her that she was not going to. She said she was going to pray that God would help her pass. I tried to explain to her that is not how God works. God can and will help her with her studies, but she has to put forth effort and work hard and it is a little late for that now that classes are over. But she quickly got over her sadness of not passing and decided she would come back and work hard next year. How quickly we give up when we don't succeed the very first time or if something is hard, yet she was ready to go at it again and hopefully will be asking for God's help along the way and not waiting until the end.
We were blessed to be able to take the little GMI plane back to Santa Cruz with Jeff and Fauna, the directors of the projects in Bolivia. It was much cheaper and easier to go with them. The fun part was the day before I got a bad stomachache and was sick with diarrhea. I began downing the grapefruit seed extract, which by the way is a great cure-all natural medicine to have on hand. It is good for colds and digestive problems. The day we were leaving we all woke up with stomachaches. Something has contaminated the water and has been causing us all sorts of problems lately. We were all very worried about having to go to the bathroom on the plane and did not eat or drink anything all morning, other than grapefruit seed extract. We were flying in a seven seater plane this time and along with our luggage flew Jeff, David, Steve, Fauna, Jenny, Andian, Sierra, Savanna, Jason and I...counting that makes ten people. Luckily three of them were children and sat on our laps. On the way we had to stop and pick up a little boy who had broken his arm and needed to have surgery done in Santa Cruz. So he sat in the middle and we arrived in Santa Cruz with eleven people and all our luggage crammed in the plane. The little boy was very cute and it was his first time on a plane. As we began to ascend into the sky his face just lit up with excitement to be flying. After about 10 minutes he turned to the person next to him and asked, "what happens if we hit a cloud?" He was quickly assured we would be okay. Praise God we arrived safely in Santa Cruz without any sickness or problems. Arriving at the airport, Jason went to get Jeff and Fauna's car and found that the lights had been left on and it would not start. So another friend who had come to help take us back went to help start the car. The plan was to use the good battery in the dead car to start it and then quickly switch the battery back. Unfortunately it did not work that way and the car would not start with the new battery. So they put the battery back into the other car and then it would not start either. We ended up having to call someone else to come and help us get the cars started, but praise God it was a cooler day and the sun was behind the clouds as we waited. When the cars finally started we drove to a pizza place, which was a very nice treat. We stayed two days there with Jeff and Fauna and then flew home on Wednesday. We are so thankful to God for His protection and leading in our time in Bolivia. God taught us so much and we hope that we were able to make a positive impact on others as well. Thank you to all of you who supported us and prayed for us while we were there. Now we are praying and seeking God's will for our lives back here in the states. We will definately be doing ministry; we are just praying for God's leading in where and how. Our prayer for you is that you also are seeking God's will in your life and that you are following His calling wherever it may lead you, because where God leads you is the best place to be!

Graduation weekend.

Jason helping build the gazebo.

This is where we wash our clothes, when the girls finish work or school, there will be around 20 girls in this little area bathing and washing clothes.

Serving kabobs at the culture fair day.

Produce from the garden with the garden crew.

Carrie teaching first year science.

Jason taking the horse for a spin.

Visiting the neighbors for a little ride on a horse.

Beautiful sunsets!!

Look at the pretty rainbow. We see them fairly often here in rainy season.

With Georgie, the monkey.

Raul, Samuel, and Noel with the monkey on Jason´s shoulder.

Cristina and Dorca helping prepare for the health outreach in Yata.

Last week in Bolivia

Rainy season has arrived and with it has brought tons of little gnats that drive you absolutely crazy. They buzz around your ears and cover your arms and legs. It reminds me of the plagues in Egypt. I am sure they were a lot worse, but this is pretty bad. Praise God they have only recently begun appearing and the rest of the time the bugs were not too bad! This past Sunday we celebrated “Dia de la Raza” or celebration of different cultures. We spent all morning preparing food from our country and decorating our booth. We invited the people from town and around 4pm the people started showing up, even though it supposedly started at 3pm…but we are in Bolivia.  It started with a program showing each country represented here by the different missionaries and their flag, national song, and answering any other questions about the country. We have missionaries from the US, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, South Africa, Bolivia, Belize, and Puerto Rico. We shared the motive for why missionaries come to Bolivia or go anywhere, which comes from the final words of Jesus when He was on this earth. “Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19,20 In the US booth we made vegetable kabobs, vegetarian meatballs and a type of pudding or flan. The kabob idea came from 4th of July and the rest is what we had on hand. Everything went really well and all our visitors really enjoyed it. Our personal favorite foods were the crepes from South Africa and the pumpkin pie from Canada. We had another fun experience this past week when we were returning from town. We were waiting at the poor man’s station, as they call it, for the bus with several other students from the school. There were a lot of people waiting and we were getting nervous we would not fit on the bus, when a truck came by and offered us a ride…which is normal. We got in the bed of the truck, which was a little run down with boards on the side that were a little shaky, but nonetheless we had a ride. As we were going we started to realize it was going to take us forever to get to the school, because the truck was going a lot slower than normal. Half way to the school we started swerving all over the road and then we looked off to the side and we saw the back tire rolling off behind us. We slowly came to a stop dragging the one side of the truck in the dirt. Luckily no one got hurt. We got out and waited to see what we were going to do. The driver did not turn off the truck, but sent his 12 year old son to get the tire and he pulled a jack from the back of the truck. He tried to blame the lost tire on his son and yet seemed very prepared for this type of event. He tried to jack it up as high as it would go, but was still a long ways from fitting the tire back on the truck so he told all the boys to lift the truck up the rest of the way. Yeah right…not possible. So he tried and tried again and every time when he couldn’t get it any higher it would fall back off the jack and hit the ground with a thud. Finally one of our students got creative and brought a rock to put under the truck and then from there they were able to lift the truck a bit more. Finally they got it up high enough for the students to put the tire back on and they took half of the nuts from the front tire to put on the back tire. Not very comforting…The students pretty much did all the work to get the tire back on and while we were doing this the motor stopped and we saw the son pouring water into the engine. We were a little worried the engine would not start, but praise God it started and we were back on the road, praying that the tires would stay on. I will admit I was a bit nervous every time we zigzagged in the road. We ended up making it back to the school entrance without any other troubles and paid our 5 Bolivianos for the trip. I am reminded of the promise in the Bible in Psalms 91:11-12. “God will put His angels in charge of you to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands to keep you from hurting your feet on the stones.” My classes have been memorizing this chapter in the Bible and can say all the way through verse 12 by memory. This is a beautiful chapter which speaks of God as our protector. I had another experience of God’s protection in the garden the other day. I was walking the little path from the watermelon patch back to the main garden and another student was following me and all of a sudden she screamed. I looked back to see the problem and she said there was a snake in the path and it scared her. It had slithered away before I saw it, but I realized I could have stepped on it because I was not looking at the path. Praise God again that He was watching over me. This week the kids are taking all their final exams and preparing for graduation. The students are making decisions about when they will leave and where they will go over vacation. Some do not want to go back home and are looking for jobs in the local town. Many students stay after graduation for a week or more to earn money to be able to get home. Another girl, Lizeth, wants to stay to study the Bible more and be more prepared to share with her family when she gets home. Pray for these kids as they make decisions for their future and as they return to their homes. They are going to face lots of persecution in their homes, because their families do not believe the same as them. Pray that they will remain faithful to God and rely on His strength and be able to be witnesses to their families.

Workin hard...

Jason, Rodolfo on the left, and Joel on the right coming back from a day in the chaco.

rainy season

Rainy season has started and with it an adventure. I, Jason, drove one of the motorcycles into town with Kody, another missionary, so he could mail some things for his visa. we got to town just in time for the store to close. all the stores close here from 12 until 2:30 for some reason so we went to the pastors house here in town and they fed us lunch. the pastor has about 10 mango trees and he let us pick some mangos. there is a type of mango called the manga rosa, which i believe means pink mango in english. it is soooooooo good and we were able to take about 15 home with us! we finally got everything done in town and the wind picked up really hard and the sky turned black. we headed out of town really fast narrowly missing the storm there. on the road back we could see lightning and rain to our left and lightning in front of us but it wasnt raining on us. with about 3km left it started raining and it felt like needles were hitting me in the face. i was pretty muddy and wet when we turned into our driveway, only to discover there were huge trees down in front of us so we could not make it to the school. we cleared a path off the road in the jungle to go around the trees only to find more trees down. we pulled what we could off the road and cut the vines with our pocket knives. we made it to school just as the storm there was leaving. we found out it had been really windy at the school and about 7 papaya trees had blown over among other limbs and trees around the campus. carrie had spent the last half hour squeegying water out of our house. everything was soaked inside. but praise God Kody and I had missed the worst of both storms and made it safely back. the boys were able to go cut the trees that fell with chainsaws so the truck could leave and pick up people from the community for church the next day. we have started putting up the internet antenna. it is about 60 meters high and i had the opportunity to climb it as we are working on it and install some cables. the sun was setting and it was a beautiful view from up there. we should finish this week and have internet next week at the school. this weekend, friday, saturday, and sunday, the fourth year students took over all of the jobs of the missionaries so they could get a feel for what it was like to teach and be in charge of different projects. i think they learned a lot and had a good time. on saturday night all the staff threw the boys in the river because they like to throw us in and since the roles were reversed we took advantage of the situation. on monday classes were cancelled so we could all go work in the chaco, which is where we plant rice. there is still more work to be done but we are making progress. God is so good and we are continually learning more and more each day. God loves us so so much and we are looking forward to sharing with everyone when we get back the wonderful things He is doing here in Bolivia.

Jason smashing yuca.

Filemon, dressed as the priest in the model sanctuary the first year students made.

Part of the choir.

Silly game the boys here play.

A fun game on student day!

Bolivian Culture

This week I have learned some more about the culture here in Bolivia. One day while I was working in the chaco, I noticed some girls who were slowing down and taking frequent breaks, so I wanted to tell them to keep working. When I took a second look, I realized I did not have a clue who one of them was. She was covered from head to toe literally with clothes. She had a long sleeve shirt, pants, and a shirt over her head with only her eyes showing through the neck of the shirt. She was also wearing a hat which came down over her eyes. Lots of students wear long sleeves when they are working because they do not want to get more sun. This week I learned why. To them to be dark skinned means you are poor, it means you must have to work a lot in the fields and to be light skinned means you are rich, you don’t have to work in the fields. They also get that impression because they think all Americans, white people, are rich. It’s sad they put so much value in what others think of them, but when we reflect on our own lives and how we get dressed, do our hair, etc every morning we realize we are just as guilty of worrying about what other people think as they are. Praise God, He does not judge us on appearances. This past Wednesday I went to Yata to help start the health classes. Nancy, another missionary, and I went with two students to give the classes. The students had prepared the presentation on the 8 natural remedies of health: water, pure air, nutrition, rest, exercise, sunlight, temperance and most importantly trust in God. When we got to town we went door to door inviting people. The people were very nice and seemed happy that we were inviting them, many saying yes we will come, see you there. Wow, what a success we thought as we walked back. Then I remembered how it is in Bolivia…people always say that they are going to do something or come to something, but don’t really mean it. Maybe they are just trying to be nice and not hurt your feelings, but it seems like a lie to me. I explained to the girl that was walking around with me that in the US people would say they are not interested and/or shut the door in your face. We decided if you are the person knocking on the door, it is better they way they do it in Bolivia, at least you leave feeling happy. It made me think of the parable in the Bible in Matthew 21:28-32, where a master sends out two servants and one says he won’t go work and later decides to go, while the other says he is going, but never goes. Unfortunately even in the US the people who say they aren’t going really don’t go. Our faith must be seen in actions not just in words. Anyway the health class ended up going very well! We had 8 ladies who were actively involved. The girls did a great job teaching the material and they all seemed to enjoy it and were excited about next week. Next week they are going to teach them how to cook with eggplant and encourage them to start their own gardens. Most of the people in Yata eat rice, meat, and yucca with very little if any vegetables, so hopefully we can help encourage them to start eating more healthfully as we give them new recipes and ideas of what to cook. They do not sell vegetables in Yata so the people will have to grow their own. Praise God that he has opened the door for health evangelism there. Back on campus, we have a student who is really struggling with belief in God. He asked the question; “How does nature reveal God to us?” We began telling him about how God provides the rain to water the plants, how the plants give us food and provide flowers for our enjoyment, the sunsets with lots of colors and the stars at night all point to the majesty of God and how everything in nature has a purpose. Later that week I went to work in the chaco again and saw this student out there and realized why he was having a hard time seeing God in nature. The chaco is a huge piece of land, several acres, that has all the trees cut down and has been burnt. Everything out there is black and we work moving the wood into piles and burning the extra branches. It looks like death out there, so I told him that is where we see sin in nature not God and that he needed to go work in the garden to see God. This past week I taught the Sabbath school lesson all by myself and am praising God that He is giving me the words to say. It is difficult because it is hard to tell if they understand the material. They will gladly read Bible verses, but to get them to respond to a question is close to impossible, even after you just said the answer. Jason gave his first worship on his own in Spanish in our family worship and did a great job! Time is flying and we can hardly believe there are less than 4 weeks of the school year left. Pray that these students will continue growing in their walk with God so they will be able to remain faithful no matter what trials they may face during their vacation.

Watching the baptisms.
Baptisms!!

Gido and the biggest frog I have ever seen. This is in the unfinished septic tank for the girls dorm. He is rescuing the frog.
Jason making Yucca.

Jason after working in the chaco.

The first week of October is here, and with it a taste of fall weather. It rained really hard for a couple days and then got really cold. But when the sky cleared it was absolutely beautiful weather. It was a nice change from the scorching heat. They said it is normally rainy season by now but it has only rained a handful of days so far. On Sabbath, we had two churches from Guayaramerin come to our school. About ten people were baptized in the river, and it was very neat to see them baptized out in nature. I couldn’t help but wonder what it must have been like to listen to Jesus and John the Baptist preaching and seeing thousands of people listening to their message. And the power with which they spoke leading the multitudes to repentance and baptism.
This week I, Jason, have been speaking on post-modernism and the emergent church and the different forms of worship/prayer that are coming into our churches. It is something that I am still learning myself and a bit complicated, and it has been somewhat of a challenge simplifying the messages so that the kids can understand. I am able to speak pretty well in the present tense in Spanish but giving devotionals I have a translator because it would be really hard for me to communicate about spiritual things in another language. I definitely wouldn’t want to portray the wrong ideas by misusing words. But I have enjoyed it very much and I have two more messages to go this week. Carrie has been doing a great job leading a Sabbath school class and preparing worships in Spanish for our family group. We have about 9 kids who come to our house twice a week for worship in the evenings and last night Carrie wrote a really nice worship on Daniel 1. We asked the kids what they would like to study and one of the first year girls said Daniel so we started that study last night.
Yesterday we cancelled 3rd and 4th year classes, which are juniors and seniors, so that we could all go out and work in the chaco. The chaco is our field where we plant rice. We have cut down all the trees and vines in the jungle and have burned everything. Now we are cutting all the trees into firewood with chainsaws and stacking them in huge piles to take to town and sell. We had an assembly line of about 15 kids passing logs of firewood to stack. There was smoke and dust everywhere and everyone was pretty black from the soot on the wood but it was a lot of fun working together.
We sold granola again today and I, Carrie, realized something that is very different here from in the states. When we go to people´s doors to sell the granola, which first off would not even happen in the states, because people would think we were trying to poison them, people often will say we have no money right now. These people live day to day. Remember we are selling the granola for $1.25 and they don’t have even that much in their house. Imagine not having even a dollar to your name. Maybe we would learn to depend on God more to supply for our needs…but for know we can praise Him for all the many blessings He gives us each day!

October is almost here and it is hot!!

Hola familia y amigos! Another week has gone by with a few highlights to share. This past Saturday evening the whole school loaded up in the back of the extra long truck to go to town for a music festival that was being held at the church in town. The kids were performing in the program. The voice choir, hand bell choir, and recorder choir all performed, as well as some special music’s by different students. The students did very well. We learned more about Bolivian culture while being there. First off we got there at 4:30 to prepare and the program was supposed to start at 5:30. At 5:30 they started singing as a group, while they waited to start the program at 6:00. Everybody is late in Bolivia. Finally at 6:00 the program began and they said it would last for two hours, but they had scheduled 30 different songs. We were just getting to the middle of the group at 7:30. At about 7:00, the bugs started coming out so thick you could hardly breathe, or maybe that was because there were so many people stuffed into the church with no ventilation. It was like an oven and literally bugs were falling out of the sky onto your head, face, body, everywhere. It made me think of the plagues that were sent on Egypt. It didn’t help that we had not eaten anything since lunch. The program did not end until 9:00pm. To top it off the performances were not very good. We did not end up getting home until 11:00pm, sweaty, dusty, and tired. The next day everything was delayed an hour, because when you are used to going to bed at 9:00pm and getting up at 4:30, going to bed at 11pm is really late! Another interesting experience we had this week was in Yata, the nearby town. The church is having an evangelistic series there and the students are helping put it together and the pastor from Guayara is preaching. The first night, the students got there and prepared everything and went out to invite people and had 19 people come. They were singing and waiting for the pastor to arrive and when it began to get late, they realized the pastor was not going to show up but the show must go on. So Keila, one of the other missionaries here, got up and let the Holy Spirit use her. She spoke about Elijah and at the end the people told her they wished she was going to share each night! We must always be open to be used by God and He will give us the words or strength or courage or whatever it is we need when we need it. The next night we went with the kids to town to help set-up the meeting. It is being held in the school there in town as we do not yet have a church building there. As we were preparing, the lights were not turning on. The energy for lights for the whole town comes from a generator and it was not on. We kept waiting and waiting and the lights never came on. We prayed that God would either turn the lights on or bring the people anyway. God decided to bring the people and even though we had not light 29 people came out. The students love to go out when we get there and invite people. They eagerly go door to door inviting the people to the meetings. Imagine that!! It is so neat to see them helping in God’s work like that. The pastor made it this night and gave a very nice, simple, but applicable sermon. It was very neat because as you looked up into the sky you could see thousands, millions of stars, even the Milky Way Galaxy and for me I would rather not have lights when I can look up and ponder God’s greatness right there. The meetings go for another 3 nights so we will see what other challenges Satan tries to throw at us that God will overcome! We have had at least one request to start Bible studies. Pray that God will work in the hearts of the people in Yata.

Lining up to play the squeeze the hand down the line game...a hard concept to teach the kids.

Games Bolivian Style

Some of the primary students and Abby, Cornelio´s daughter who is the missionary in Las Amalias.

Water balloon toss.

Jason celebrating ¨Student Day¨with the kids.

Bolivian version of a water balloon toss.

Jason relaxing with his friend, Priscilla.

Holidays

Bolivia has many holidays and will use any excuse to cancel classes and celebrate something. This week we had “student day.” In this day the students are celebrated…not quite sure why. Here at the school it was made a special day without classes. It began with two hours of work and then activities. Jason and I went with about 25 other kids to the field to work. In the field with machetes in hand we mowed down a ton of jungle. You just pick a spot start whacking away and walking forward. Later they will come and burn it and continue working to completely clear it and later plant rice or something else. After work we had a Bible scavenger hunt all over campus and then some other little group games before they were given free time. In the afternoon each class prepared a special meal to eat with their class. The fourth year students made food for the teachers. It was good; they made a version of nachos and it ended with a celebration of their accomplishments and growth throughout their time here. Worships have been interesting this week, the third and fourth year students have been learning to defend their faith. Each student has a topic and role plays with a staff member defending/explaining from the Bible why they believe what they believe. It has been good and makes you really think, are you prepared to give a defense from the Bible for the faith that you have? As 1st Peter 3:15 says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”
This past two weeks I have been in a constant state of pain…not super bad, but not fun! First it began with pruning tomatoes, I pruned tomatoes for two hours straight and the plants are little so it involved bending over. Then I went to wash clothes which is also bending over and pulled a muscle in my back that put me completely out of commission. When I finally started getting over that, I started getting this excruciating pain in one of my toes. It was very strange…at first I wondered if it was an in grown toe nail. It would just throb. It was hard to sleep and finally one night, Jason got up and did “surgery” on my toe and got something out that was causing the problem. From that point forward it began to get better just as my next ailment came. I ate a mango in town and did not remember or realize that I have an allergy to the juices in the skin. It causes my lips to bubble and ooze and swell. It is very painful. The first day they swelled a little, but the second day they were huge. It hurt to talk, to eat, to smile, laugh, etc. Even today, a week later they are still not completely better. I am hoping after this ailment I will be all better. Jason has remained in good health and is now one year old!! Praise God!

And the rains came...

This past Saturday we went to Yata, the nearby town to do our biweekly visitations. As we were preparing to leave we heard thunder in the distance. The truck has been broken so we were going to be walking the 4 miles one-way to Yata. Thunder could have been a good excuse not to go…what if it rains on us and we have to walk all that way in the mud? That thought never even crossed the minds of the students here. We headed out and as we got close to the town, the winds started blowing dust storms all around us. We were coated in dust and you could not look back or you would be blinded by dust. It made me think of the Great Dust Storm in the Midwest. When we got to the first house it began to rain. We huddled in the small room with no light as it thundered and lightning all around us and rain poured down. We gave the worship and hurried to the next house. When we left this house we were swimming to get to the next house. There is no grass in their “yards” or around there houses so it is a muddy mess and very quickly becomes pools and rivers of water. It rained the whole time we visited houses and a little on the walk back. Everyone was home and was very appreciative of our visits. Working for God does not always mean the sky is sunny and the way is easy, but God still calls us to go!
I had another neat experience this week when I went to wash our clothes. I went while the students were working or else there is no room to wash. Another student, Ruth, was down there because she was sick and did not go to work that day. As we were washing she began to tell me her story. Each student here has a story and not one is alike but all are more difficult than anything I have had to experience. She said she wanted to go to the elementary school that is related to this school when she was in 8th grade, but her parents and her father in particular did not want her to go. Long story short she ended up sneaking out of her house to apply and her parents were very unhappy with her. Since going to the school she has learned about God and given her life to Him. She is no longer welcome in her house and when she visits they say mean things to her and blame the family problems on her. She goes to visit because she wants to share the hope she has found with them. At one point she wanted to kill herself and has gone through depression many times. This day that she was talking to me she said was one of those days she was feeling especially down. She said she felt like I was sent to wash clothes at that time. All I did was listen to her, offer encouragement and pray with her and she felt like I was sent by God to help her. WOW! How God uses us poor, pathetic human beings to be a light to others is amazing! Keep a smile on your face because you never know when God might be using you to be a light to others. Bugs are coming out more lately…from giant scorpions to very different looking moths, cockroaches, gnats, mosquitoes, bees, bats, spiders you name it and it is probably here, bigger and grosser than you have seen before and quite possibly in your bed. Classes have been going well and we have been working in the fields and garden with the kids. Jason was able to talk about spiritual lessons from working in the field with the students. Tomorrow they are burning the fields and then it will be time to saw down the rest of the trees and get ready to plant rice. Life continues in the routine and God continues teaching us lots of lessons!

Jason in the tomato garden.


Parade Day

Motorcycle taxis in Guayara.

Visitors

This week brought many visitors to the school. Jeff and Fawna Sutton, who helped start the school, and their three children along with Marty and Kendra, a young couple who work in Santa Cruz on a construction site where they are building a new radio station, and Dr. Kim, his wife and their three boys, who are building a school/orphanage/sanitarium in Semipata, which is a beautiful town in Bolivia. Also, Cornelio and his daughter Abigail along with their parrot Priscilla, returned from the indigenous tribe in Las Amalias and will be staying with us for the next couple months waiting for Susie, Cornelio’s wife, to return from the United States.
The reason for the large meeting was that these leaders of the different projects in Bolivia are starting a college and they came to promote it to the students at our high school. The school is based on a school that Ellen White helped start in Tennessee called the Madison School. I have been doing a lot of research on the Madison School and education in general, this is Jason writing by the way, and am very excited about what they are starting. The school will be stationed in Semipata, where students will all go for one year to study evangelism and basic health/natural remedies. At the school they have a very large agricultural program where students will learn how to grow their own food and take care of a garden. They will go to school for half a day and work for the second half to pay for their education since it will be free to attend. Then after the first year, the students choose what they want to specialize in. They have a choice of mechanics, construction, teaching, nursing, or pilot. Then if a student chooses for example construction, they will be taught how to build churches, houses, etc. and will be placed with a mission team that builds these things in Bolivia, therefore receiving practical training and doing mission work the whole time they are studying. The idea is that when the students graduate, they will go out in teams with teachers, a health worker, construction worker, mechanic…all who are trained evangelists, who can go out and build schools and churches and start education programs and do medical mission work. It is very exciting and makes me want to start a program like this somewhere. We need more missionaries here and they need to be trained at a very low cost so they aren’t burdened with debt and thus can never leave home because they need to work to pay off their school bills, etc.
Carrie and I are doing very well. We have not gotten sick in a long time, Praise God! The boys decided it would be fun to throw all the male staff members in the river Saturday night. Jason put up a good fight, but still got thrown in with three other boys coming along. There was just too many of them. We have not had sufficient money for a while coming in from donations from the school and so some of the teachers have been spending personal donation money to buy food. We have been praying about it and this week we stretched the food until Wednesday and just yesterday enough money came in to buy food for this week and we have enough to have some left over for next week! God always provides for our needs when we ask Him. He knows our needs before we ask, we just need to learn to rely on Him.

Jason with his refrigerator.
Carrie making banana bread.

Visiting houses in Yata to do outreach. We sing songs, pray and have a short devotional thought with them.

Jason playing soccer.

Students getting the ants off of the bread for lunch.

Teeter Totters at the campground.


carrie and some of the kids at a fun day playing a game

Carrie cooking in the kitchen.