Mission Minded

2011-06-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

Biking around Castle Rock.

2011-06-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

Jason climbed this mesa. It is called Periot.

2011-06-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

Replicas of the Battle of Jericho.

2011-06-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

Bandu!

2011-06-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

There are beautiful sunsets here!

2011-06-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

Delicate Arch

2011-03-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

Hiking in slot canyons on the Navajo Reservations.

2011-03-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Awesome canyon.
Jason in a slot canyon.

Seeing the beauty of God's creation.

2011-03-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

Wild donkeys.
Horses are free roaming as well as cattle.
Going door to door.
Visiting at the outhouse.

2011-03-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

"Hogone" The old style Navajo homes. This one is still being lived in.

Mission work with the Navajo in Coppermine.

2011-03-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

We spent a week in Coppermine, AZ working with the Fowlers who are missionaries among the Navajo Indians. As soon as we left Paige, AZ it felt like we entered a third world country. There are only dirt roads with huge bumps and potholes. The people live without running water and electricity. We were helping finish a community center that is used for church, community meetings, health outreach, etc. We laid tile, poured cement and put the cabinets up. It was so fun being able to work with the students and find spiritual lessons in all that we were doing. We held a health talk and cooking class on Sunday for the community and had a great turnout! The Navajo are really interested in health and it is the perfect entering wedge. We went door to door and handed out flyers and tracts. The Navajo on the reservation are all very nice, but when you start getting into Paige the people are more like Americans when you go to their door, they are not super friendly. It was fascinating to see how they live and talk to them. They need a lot of prayer because it truly is a battlefield between good and evil with all the superstitions and old beliefs they have. Going door to door we saw one man who was demon possessed and will not talk to anyone and usually hides, but with the power of prayer doors are slowly getting opened. As we drove by he happened to be outside and we had the opportunity to talk to him and let him know we are praying for him. Saturday at church one Navajo lady came in to the middle of sabbath school with her baby lamb and baby goat. They are so adorable. We even happened to be talking about how we are sheep and Jesus is our shepherd when they came in. I got to hold the baby sheep all during church and it reminded me of what I think heaven is going to be like, worshiping together with all God's creatures. There is a huge mission field among the Navajo Indians. They need your prayers and financial support. They also have a huge need for dental work if anyone is able to donate time or knows of someone who can. If you are able to help an anyway, let me know. Thanks!

2011-03-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

Baby Goat.
Baby sheep.
Jason laying tile.
Hanging out in the Fowler home.
Fowler daughter in her Indian teepee.
Mixing grout.
Laying Tile.

2011-03-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

Jason putting grout down to start laying tiles.
Navajo Community Center we were working at in Coppermine, AZ.
Fowler house we stayed in at Coppermine, AZ.

2011-02-28T18:43:00.000-08:00

Bathroom before.
Bathroom after with new flooring and painted walls.

2011-02-28T18:36:00.000-08:00

The kitchen before we arrived.
The new kitchen look...add a little color to the room.

2011-02-28T18:30:00.000-08:00

Jason painting the master bedroom, which was lavender...something Jason just could not handle.
Jason painting the living room.

Our next adventure...

2011-02-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

For a month or two we spent a lot of time in prayer and searching to see where God wanted to use us next. We ended up receiving a call to a high school in Castle Valley, Utah. It is called Daystar Adventist Academy. The website is www.daystaradventistacademy.org Check it out the pictures are amazing. It is very pretty out here. The school is focused on true Christian education which focuses on developing the character of Christ in our students and preparing them for their mission serving God here on this earth and prepares them for an eternity with God one day soon. We are excited to be a part of such a wonderful ministry. Carrie will be teaching, working with the students, helping with the horsemanship program and going on outreach with the students. Jason is helping start a missionary training college which will be a short 6 month to a year long program that will equip missionaries to be useful in the mission field. It will focus on evangelism and practical skills in areas such as agriculture, mechanics, construction and teaching. They are providing us with a house on campus that we have been fixing up since we got here. It has needed lots of paint and some new flooring. We are getting ready to go on a 3 week mission trip with the students to Arizona to work with the Navajo Indians. So keep us and the students in your prayers as we seek to take the gospel to those in need.

Incredible story about the power of God to change lives!

2010-12-10T12:28:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-01T18:26:00.000-08:00

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

Adios Bolivia

2010-12-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

Graduation weekend.

2010-11-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

Jason helping build the gazebo.

2010-11-21T09:20:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-11-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

Serving kabobs at the culture fair day.

2010-11-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

Produce from the garden with the garden crew.

2010-11-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

Carrie teaching first year science.

2010-11-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

2010-11-10T10:42:00.000-08:00

Jason taking the horse for a spin.

2010-11-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

Visiting the neighbors for a little ride on a horse.

2010-11-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

Beautiful sunsets!!

2010-11-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

With Georgie, the monkey.

2010-11-10T10:07:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

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

Last week in Bolivia

2010-11-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-11-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

Workin hard...

2010-11-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

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

2010-11-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

rainy season

2010-10-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-10-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Jason smashing yuca.

2010-10-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

Part of the choir.

2010-10-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

Silly game the boys here play.

2010-10-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

A fun game on student day!

Bolivian Culture

2010-10-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-10-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

Watching the baptisms.
Baptisms!!

2010-10-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-10-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

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!!

2010-09-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

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

Games Bolivian Style

2010-09-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

2010-09-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-09-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

Jason in the tomato garden.

Parade Day

Motorcycle taxis in Guayara.

Visitors

2010-09-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

Jason with his refrigerator.
Carrie making banana bread.

2010-09-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Spring is here...

2010-09-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

September arrives and with it brings the sounds of thunder and the first rain of the season. It is a nice change, although they say half way through rainy season you are wishing for dry season again. It rained pretty hard and we discovered the leaks in our roof and the need to buy plastic for the windows. Jason learned that it is near impossible to teach class in a classroom with a tin roof. Even though the students were crowded around him they still were not able to hear each other shouting. Jason has also been working on our refrigerator which is a hole about 4 feet deep in the ground which is several degrees colder than the outside temperature. We are hoping to keep vegetables fresh for more than one day after we get back from town. Unfortunately his first attempt was with only dirt and with the heavy rain it all caved in. The second attempt was made with wooden sides and this time should work out well. We will see when we get our vegetables from town this time. We have been very short on food here at the school this past week, so we have tried to make a little more in our house. Unfortunately we do not have vegetables because they don’t last, but we were able to make banana bread and cornbread. We have to eat it all in one day or give it away so it does not mold. The cornbread was a little bit of an experiment because we have no baking pan and the ones from the kitchen were in use. So I attempted to make it in a frying pan and it worked out great! The tomato plants in the garden are starting to get little tomatoes! Jason made a neat bench for our porch this past week. Last Thursday we went to an evangelical campground about 45 minutes from the school for a fun day. We got to play fun Bolivian games with the kids and then some soccer and ultimate Frisbee. It was a lot of fun. The exciting part was when they got ready for make lunch and found that the ants had found the bread…but hey you can always bang the bread together and get most of the ants off. We went to town last Wednesday to sell granola and had a learning experience. We went with two boys, Limbert and Javier. We decided to split up to sell the food faster. Javier and Limbert went together and Jason and I, but we were planning on staying on the same street. A little miscommunication found us an hour and a half later with no idea where Limbert and Javier were. Jason was getting frustrated at this point. It was hot; we still had bread and granola to sell and we didn’t know where our “children” were. We decided to head to town and start buying the things we needed and maybe we would find the boys or else they knew what time to meet back to get the truck ride to the school. As we walked we carried the granola and bread in our hands. When we approached the corner of the market, to our relief we ran into Limbert and Javier. They were fine and had sold quite a bit. As we were talking to them a gentleman walked up and asked what we were selling and proceeded to buy some granola. This helped relieve a little bit of the frustration. We set the time to meet with Limbert and Javier and headed to the first store. We still had 1 kilo of granola and 3 loaves of bread to sell. As we checked out in the first store the lady checking us out asked what the granola was. I proceeded to explain it to her and she bought it right there on the spot. Praise God! The next store we went to as we checked out the lady asked what the bread was that was in my hand. I told her it was whole wheat bread and she said she was diabetic and she wanted it and requested we bring more for her next time. I said we have two more in the bag and she proceeded to buy it all. WOW! God knows our needs and helps us even when at times we don’t go straight to Him for the answer or for help. Nothing is impossible with God and even though with our attitudes we might not have deserved the blessing He gave us; we praise Him because He loves us as we are!
Now Jason is writing…Last week I had a conversation with a 4th year student named Max that was very interesting. He taught me how to read music a few weeks ago and I was playing my guitar on our porch and he walked up and asked me what I was playing. I soon found out his family is indigenous and lives quite a ways away on one of the main rivers here in Bolivia. One of the other fourth year students, Franz, had asked Carrie why she believed in Jesus and God and how can we be sure they exist. One of her reasons was the existence of demons and demon possessed people that are very prevalent in other countries. A man from our church in Athens, John Rema, has told us many stories about encounters with evil spirits when he lived in India and Carrie was telling Franz some of these stories. Max heard her talking about them and proceeded to tell me about his experiences with evil spirits. He said that in his tribe, when they heard a whistling noise overhead, that meant that the evil spirits were listening to them and they could ask for things from them, usually to heal someone sick. At one point his grandmother was “healed” by one of these demons. He said they are very large and wear white robes with a brilliant heart shining on the front of their robes. He told me one time there was a party in the tribe and three or four of the evil angels came and one picked up a flute that was laying on a shelf and started playing it and everyone started dancing to the music. So they appear quite often to the people and they are familiar with them. Max has tried to witness to his mom about Jesus but she believes in saints and their images and that they have power. He said a famous soccer player in the town they moved to kicked a soccer ball and their house door was open and it came inside and broke an image of a saint about 2 feet high. The man got sick and died three days later. He said many many things like this happen to make people believe these saints or images have power, so his mom has no interest in hearing about Jesus and that these images are only wood or stone. I asked him about his dad and he said his dad was killed by a witch when he was 8 years old. I asked him what he wanted to do when he finished school, and he said he wants to go as a missionary back to the tribe he is from. Spanish is not his first language. They speak another dialect there and he is fluent in it. He said he wants to go but is trying to decide if he should study medicine first because many people are sick and unhealthy there. He also wants to be a pilot because it takes many days to reach the tribes that he wants to witness to. Pray for him that God will help him make the best decision as to what to do after he graduates in November. It seems like all the kids here have a burden for their families. They all want to share Jesus with them but many are not receptive. During Wednesday night worship they have praise and prayer request time, and there are tons of kids with praises. In the United States, to me it seemed like very few praises and mostly prayer requests. Here it is the opposite. Even if a kid has a prayer request it starts with a praise and then the request is usually for their families. We all want our families to be in heaven with us! Our time here on earth is so short compared to eternity. Let us make sure that nothing keeps us from missing out on meeting Jesus face to face and spending eternity with our loved ones. Nothing in this world is worth missing that for.

2010-08-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

The view from the back of the truck on the road to the school. Check out all the dust! Imagine the coating you get after a 30 minute ride!

2010-08-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

Jason on the back of the truck on the way back from town.

2010-08-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

The boat dock to go to Brazil.

2010-08-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

Jason making a pretty entrance into our house.

2010-08-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

Carrie and the garden which has grown a ton since this picture!

2010-08-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Esperanzo, the cat, found a nice bed in our clothes washing tub.

2010-08-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

Enjoying a Mandarin on the porch!

2010-08-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

The huge, fancy Adventist Church in Santa Cruz.

Another week...

2010-08-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

Everything has gone about like normal this past week. Jason got two more English classes added to his schedule because the former English teacher went on vacation and has not come back…The garden is beginning to sprout up new plants and we have finally finished transplanting over 400 tomato plants that we have. We finished the week of prayer on Friday and had communion on Saturday. We learned that the goal of true education should be 1)redemptive, 2)teach the student to think and do, and 3)eternal. This has made me reevaluate every class that I teach to make sure I am pointing the students closer to God and not just teaching math and science. One thing that I noticed that was neat about communion here is that for a week before we participated in communion the religious leader here was telling the students you need to make things right with anyone you might have a problem with. They were encouraging the students that communion is like a mini-baptism, a recommitment to God and we need to make sure everything is in order in our life first. Previously communion has been an arrive at church and oh wow today is communion experience. I like how they take it very seriously here and want people to be ready. More than half of the students participated. For church we heard all about heaven and it was so exciting. You just wanted to leave this crummy earth and be there with Jesus so bad! Another thing I noticed in church was what the students pray about. When they ask for blessings for others or their families it is often related to food, like provide for the food that they need this week. Such simple needs compared to our often complex requests. The fourth year students are really a great group of kids. There are some great leaders in that class, especially spiritually. One student, Frans, gave a worship on Friday night that was very well thought out about the rich young ruler who followed the commandments but did not want to sell his things, give to the poor and follow Christ. The story is found in Mark 10:17-31. Frans asked the students to raise their hands if they knew or had ever known a rich person, very few raised their hands. Most of the villages are very poor without any “rich” people in them. They would probably think every American was rich. One interesting point Frans made about the story that I had never realized was that when Jesus answered his question, “what do I need to do to be saved” He told him to follow the commandments. The rich young ruler said he had and he named 6 of them, but if you notice they are the last 6 commandments of the 10 commandments in Exodus 20 all of which involve loving and respecting others, but the ones he was lacking were the first 4 about loving God. He was lacking the personal saving relationship with God. Another example of a really special 4th year student is Max who has been helping Jason learn to read music. The other day I was coming up from washing our clothes and I was carrying the little tub of clothes across the field to our house. Max saw me from a distance and dropped his things and ran over to me to help me carry the clothes the rest of the way to the house. Javier is another really neat kid who comes from a boy’s home. He is a 2nd year student who is very smart and very helpful. One night they were using the marker board from my classroom to do an illustration during worship and he realized that I had already prepared the board with homework and some warm-up problems for the next day. He was quick to go and make sure that the person presenting was not going to erase that and see if he should go get another board so as not to mess up my work. Not all the kids are like these that I have talked about; we learned this week that there is an issue with prejudice amongst the lowlanders and the highlanders. Hopefully with their time here they will learn to look past the exterior to the heart like God looks at us. We started family worships this week. We meet twice a week with our “family.” We have two “older children” who are single staff members and then the rest of our 9 kids are students. We meet at our house and sing songs, pray and study together. It will be a neat outreach for us to be able to lead. We have cooked some pasta and vegetable meals this week. It was so nice to have fresh vegetables for the two days that the vegetables lasted.  The pancakes we tried to make did not turn out so good. There are birds here but you do not really see them very much. We know there are birds though because you here them at night and in the morning. They are very loud and make very unusual sounds. One bird makes a high-pitched squeal that lasts for at least 30 seconds each time. It almost makes you want to cover your ears. Another bird sounds just like an alarm clock beeping….so much so that one morning I got up to turn my alarm clock off and get ready for the day when finally Jason asked me what I was doing and I realized my alarm clock was not supposed to go off for another 10 minutes. It was the silly bird that I thought was my alarm clock. On our way into and out of town we have to pass through immigration. It is a place where the vehicles have to stop and talk to the immigration and sometimes, depending on the person and there mood they will come on board and check whose on, which means they will quiz us for paperwork. We only have a copy of our short term visa and passport, which technically has expired now, but it is so hard to get a year visa here that it takes months. So the officials give us a hard time and we have to plead that we are working on our visas in Santa Cruz. There is one particular woman who works there who likes to give any American an especially hard time and has been known to pull people off the bus and not let them continue to the school until they can show more paperwork. We have interacted with this lady once, but luckily another staff member was with us and helped us get out of it. Well one day we were headed back just the two of us on the bus and as we stopped at immigration we realized that last time Jason was the only one who went to town and that my visa was not with us. We started praying immediately as I began to search in our bag for the paperwork. As we were searching we saw the immigration police getting on the bus. I found the paperwork that we thought was only Jason’s visa and it turned out to be mine as well! Praise God, because he asked to see our paperwork and after giving us a little bit of a hard time he just walked away. As we were driving away a few kilometers later we saw more police on the side of the road pulling people over. They will sometimes do this to do a drug check, but will always ask for our paperwork while they are on board. But as we passed by we realized they were occupied with another car and we were going to be able to pass by without any problems. It may have been an inconvenience for the driver of the other car but it saved us from having to try and prove once again that we were legal and hopefully not get pulled off the bus. What we learned from this experience is that our “problems” may be the answer to somebody else’s prayer like that car was for us. So don’t get upset when it seems God is not listening; He might just be answering somebody else’s prayer.

2010-08-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

Just a little snake they found trapped in the water wheel. It is dead!

2010-08-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

Jason in the hammock.

2010-08-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

Our lovely bedroom

Outreach opportunities!

2010-08-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about all different types of outreach this past week. Wednesday is community service day at the school. We came to town with Salim, another missionary, and Limbert, a 3rd year student to sell granola to the community in Guayara. We go knocking door to door and tell people we have a new product that we make at the school that is healthy and ready to eat as is. The people do not know what granola is so we have to bring a sample for them to try. We tell them all the health benefits and most people wanted some. We sold 10 kilos of granola and had people asking for more. Salim has colporteured before and taught us a lot about the skill of selling your product. We asked the people if they would be interested in other vegetarian/healthy food in the future and many were interested. We asked if they would be interested in a cooking class and many of the them were. We are hoping to spread a message of healthy living to the community and build relationships that will hopefully lead to Bible studies. Saturday we did outreach in the community of Yata. Jason and I have a group of 8 students who every other week go to town and visit 8 different families. The way the villages are set up here you can just walk up to people’s house and everything is so open you just yell good afternoon and people will show up. You are practically in their house but they don’t care and they just invite you in or bring seats for you to sit on. We pray with them, sing hymns and share something from the Bible. This week we talked about the story of creation and brought felts along to show what was created each day. We showed them how creation happened in a literal 7 days with the last day, Saturday, being set aside as a day to rest with our Creator. One house we went to was out along a long dirt path and when we got there we yelled good afternoon but no one responded. We had seen the daughter on the way out and she had said her parents were waiting on us so we knew they had to be there. We looked around and accidently found them bathing in the river. The man was just in his underwear. He said hold on a minute. So we waited and a few minutes later they passed by in only their towels to go change in the house. A few minutes later they came out and we shared with them our message and had a nice conversation with them. Another house that Jason went to the mom was sitting in the hammock with her child when the child began to cry. The lady leaned over and started to let the baby breast feed. Jason and Javier, another student, were getting ready to leave and shake her hand so she sat-up shook hands and then leaned back over to continue feeding her child. Each house is an experience! We have also been participating in outreach right here on campus as we help teach the Sabbath school class for the kids that know the least about the Bible and for the community members that come each week. The past weeks we have been studying Romans which is a little difficult to teach to people who don’t have a clue what justification, righteousness or sanctification are. We are still learning what they mean ourselves. This past week we were trying to teach them the difference between being slaves to sin under the law and freely serving God which results in keeping the law. We used a rope to tie up one student and blindfolded him and put sticky notes all over him with all our sinful actions that keep us under the law and slaves to our sinful nature, such as lying, saying unkind things, thinking things we shouldn’t, etc. We said this is what it is like to be under the law and living according to your sinful nature, you become a prisoner. But when we give our lives to God He frees us and helps us live according to His nature and then we will produce fruit for His kingdom. We proceeded to free the student and put sticky notes with good actions that come from a life filled with the Holy Spirit. We can only pray that examples such as these will leave a lasting impression on the students. Jason preached this past week as well sharing about how we have a special message to share with the world. We are to be like Daniel in Babylon and Joseph in Egypt prepared for the difficult times because we have been faithful in the little things. We should be able to interpret the signs of the times and give a solution like Joseph to survive the crisis. We have been working a lot in the garden lately, because Jason and I along with Tara are now in charge of the garden. We have been trying to plant lots of new things so that we can get more food from our garden, food that will be ready before November when everyone leaves. We have been working alongside the students to prepare the ground, the plants to transplant and to sow new seeds. Jason has dug 300 post holes for the tomato plants. We have planted carrots, radishes, cucumbers, beans, zucchini and are transplanting eggplant and tomatoes that have already been growing in smaller bags. During this time we have the opportunity to talk with the students. One day this past week I was working with a student, Lizeth, and we were pruning the young tomato plants and all of a sudden in the midst of 100 tomato plants we saw one that did not seem to fit in. As we looked closer at it we realized it was not a tomato plant. Somehow it got mixed in with the tomato plants and no one realized. I don’t know what plant it was, but it made me think of a parable that I had just read. It is found in Matthew 22:1-14. It is a parable of a wedding feast that many are invited to, but when the servants of the king throwing the feast go out to get the people invited they do not want to come. So he finally sends out his servants to get anyone who is in the street who wants to come and they fill the banquet hall, but as the king walks among his guests he notices one guest who is not dressed appropriately. The rest of the guests were given a new robe, but this guest was not wearing the robe that was given and had no excuse for being different. He was thrown out. The parable is talking about the wedding feast in heaven and we must be clothed in His righteousness to be able to go. All we have to do is accept his free gift of righteousness. I was able to share this parable with Lizeth and this led to many other questions about Heaven, about what happens when you die and many others. I was able to explain to her what I have learned and others began to listen and ask questions as well. Praise God for opportunities to share our faith! Our whole lives should be an outreach to others; we should constantly be using opportunities to share our faith with others. School has been going pretty well. I enjoy teaching the math and science classes; although at times I wish I had a bigger vocabulary. The students have such a hard time thinking on their own. We are talking about the scientific method and I think they enjoy the students have several “study halls” when they really should be receiving history and health classes. Jason’s first English class went well. The students were able to answer questions in English and they are going to be learning how to pray in English. We received a stove this past week from some missionaries who are going to be gone until November, so we will be able to cook some food and supplement our diet with a few more vegetables and little less rice. God has provided money for the food for this week! But since we have been a little short on money, rice has been the main component of almost every meal. Rice three times a day is just a little too much. Jason has learned how to read music this week and is practicing with all the Spanish hymns. Max, a 4th year student, taught him. Another cold front came in this week and has brought cold weather at night, but luckily it still warms up during the day. We have lots of colds going around campus right now. The past week and a half we have had a week of prayer teaching us about the signs of the times and how we can prepare our faith to withstand trials that may come in the future. We have been so busy lately we have not had a lot of time to wash clothes. The girls love to ask you if they can wash your clothes. You give them 12 pairs of clothes and pay them 8 Bolivianos which is like $1.12. They get some money and you get clean clothes…it’s a nice trade when you are running low on clothes and running low on time. Well the solar panels are working good and we have had electricity all the time, although we do have to run the generator every now and then. Money has been given to develop the spring on campus so all the water that comes into the homes is from the spring. Right now you have to walk a quarter of a mile into the jungle to fill your 5 gallon container and haul it back to your house to have drinking water. Count your blessings for they are many!

2010-08-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

jason sick..the mosquito net fits perfectly over our bed though. thanks mom!

this is the road we walk back and forth on to Yata where we do community outreach. its 8 miles round trip.

this is the whole school right after the parade

Paulina, a student from Las Amalias, Janet and Keila, two teachers before the parade
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carrie working in the garden planting watermelons

jason hanging clothes to dry that carrie washed in the river

this is right before we went to church. it was so cold when we first got to the school!

this is the plane steven wilson flew us 3 hours into the jungle in to get to the school.

carrie and i with ximena and eliazar, the couple we stayed with in santa cruz.

Classes have started and campus is buzzing with students. Carrie has class on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. So far my classes have gone really well! Science has been fun because we have been learning about the scientific method and doing some experiments. One really neat experience I had happened on Sunday. I was talking about using the scientific method to show that the Bible is the inspired word of God and I was running out of time. We were looking up different prophecies and seeing how they were fulfilled even though they were written 250 years before they happened. I said well I had other examples but we are running out of time so I will skip to the end. But the students objected. They said we can go a little longer we want to hear the other prophecies! What kids do you know of that would ask to stay over in class to keep learning!! It was so cool. Some of the students are really low in math, while others are pretty bright, which will prove to be a challenge. The students are all really nice! One girl in my class’s name is Paulina. She is from the indigenous tribe in Las Amalias. She came here last year for the first time to study and had to learn Spanish because in her tribe they only speak Seha. She had to learn how to use a bathroom, use toilet paper, wash her clothes in a river, and overall good hygiene. She is super sweet. The other day I was washing clothes with her and she was talking to me and she asked me if I had ever met an indigenous person before her? So I asked her if she had ever met a “gringo” (white person) before us here. She said she had seen a little girl once but was scared of white people at first. In her village there is no high school and normally the kids get married after 8th grade and continue living in their village. Las Amalias, where she is from, is where they have started an outpost mission project. They just finished building a church and a house up there and one mission family from here has moved up there to live with them and teach about good health practices and most importantly about God. They say they have to repeat things a lot and it is like teaching little children. We had another cold front come in this week and Carrie got sick as a result of it. She has had a fever and has been a bit weak. Jason has been working with the accounting and found out that we need $400 a week to feed everyone on campus, which is only a dollar a day per person. This month we received $500 to live on for the whole month. So pray with us that God will provide for our needs throughout this month and that the kids will see how God provides. The garden here has been producing tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce. We have another missionary couple that are going home and another that are stuck in Santa Cruz with visa problems so we are very low on teachers right now. Several classes just are not being taught and we don’t know who is going to oversee the garden. Jason has not yet had class, because on Friday we went to town to celebrate their independence day. We walked the 4 miles into town because the truck was not fixed yet. We hurried into town to wait. Someone had died in Yata so we had to wait till they were buried before we could begin the ceremony. We then marched into position before the heads of the town along with another local school. We listened to several national anthems and little speeches and then marched around in front of them. Luckily by the time we were done the truck was back and working so we could ride back in it. The truck part that was broken was fixed in town, but what Enrique, the driver, did not know was that the truck did not have any oil. Once while he was driving it, it just stopped working. He prayed and it started back up and made it all the way to Yata. Praise God that the motor did not burn up and they were able to add oil in Yata. Over break some of the students went to Las Amalias on a mission trip and we have been hearing all about their stories and some of them are really awesome. It was obviously a really neat experience for the students and made several want to go back and be missionaries. I have been getting to know the students better and talked to one boy this week who is a senior, his name is Jhunior. He was telling me that his parents did not want him to come to school here. He has been living with his grandfather. He does not know how many siblings he has because his dad has slept with so many different people. He decided to come anyway and says his first mission field was when he returned home to his grandfather’s house during summer vacation. His grandfather gave him a really hard time about his new faith. He stayed strong and returned the next year. Since then he has started a Bible study with his great grandmother in town and wants to be a missionary. He says if someone asks me why I am a Seventh-Day Adventist. He says it’s not because everyone at the school is but because he is a child of God and the Holy Spirit is working in his heart. What a testimony to the mission of this school! This past week my work day is Tuesday afternoon and I was working in the banana fields with the girls digging trenches which by the way is a ton of work! While we were working we reviewed the scientific method, solved math problems and memorized a Bible verse. There was probably seven girls total that were in hearing distance and participating. Jason worked in the soon to be rice fields. Right now it is just jungle and the kids go out there and just start whacking everything down with a machete, trees, plants, and weeds, whatever is in their path. Then later we will burn it all and plant rice there. We are trying to become self-sustaining agriculturally. This week we are starting two weeks of consecration for the teachers. We will have worship each night and the students will be there to hear and keep us accountable to what we hear. Pray with us that lives will be touched as a result of this time of worship and study.

School Starts Tomorrow!!

2010-08-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

We are back in town...as Monday seems to be the day we will come. Coming to town is not terribly fun though, because you first have to walk a mile to the road from the school. Then you catch a bus that takes about half an hour to get to town. From there you take a motorcycle taxi to the market. You walk everywhere from there. The town is covered with street shops selling all sorts of clothes, shoes, produce, and household necessities. The streets are covered with motorcycles and it is hot and dusty. The people are all nice. We use the internet and get some fresh fruit and today I, Carrie, will be getting some school supplies and making photocopies of the textbooks since we only have one. When we finish with our errands we go and hang out at an airplane hangar until Ruan and Tara and the food for the school are ready to return. Then we ride on the back of a pick-up truck the 30 minutes back to town and when we get there our bottoms are sore and we are covered in dust!! Your ears, your hair, your nose, everything is full of dust. Then your cold shower feels wonderful! Tomorrow classes start. Students have been coming back for the last couple of days. I have two math and two science classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Jason has english class on Friday. Now will come the crash course on speaking the spanish language. Jason got sick again on Friday from who knows what, but is recovering and was up and about on Sunday. He is having a hard time getting used to the food here. Breakfast is the meal that is most different than we are used to, because it would be like a lunch for Americans. Today we had spaghetti and tomato and onion salad. Lunch always consists of rice and a bean mixture of some sort and a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. Last night dinner was potato burritos. Each morning we have worship together as a school and each evening. They love to sing here before every worship and church we sing atleast 5 to 10 songs. We sing hymns and we sing every verse! The garden has been producing lots of cucumbers and we had a special treat of lettuce from the garden last week and were able to eat sandwiches. While working in the garden I try to ask the students math questions that relate to our gardening. That is the idea of the school that the teachers work with the students and continue their education while working...a great idea!! It is fun, but I began to realize more important than their math knowledge is their knowledge of God, so I have changed my priorities, first I think about a spiritual lesson we can learn from the garden, which there are many and then the math lessons. This last week we transplanted watermelons. We started off with a large area of hard ground covered in weeds, stumps, roots, etc. We first had to dig up the ground, by hand, no helpful machines. Then we prepared a circle plot for each plant. Then we planted them and watered them. In the future we will fertilize, prune as needed, pull weeds and hopefully recieve fruit. We do alot to help the plants, but I realized that the watermelon still begins as a seed and no matter how much tender loving care we give them they only grow because God makes them grow. I began to think about our commission to spread the gospel to the world. We can share our faith, we can invite people to church, we can pray with them and study the Bible, but it is only through the Holy Spirit working in their lives that they will come to have a personal relationship with Jesus. So we should not get discouraged when we do not see the fruit of our labor, because we might just be the ones preparing the ground or giving the fertilizer. One day hopefully they will produce fruit and follow Jesus. At noon everything around here shuts down for about two hours. This week they celebrate their independence day and on Friday we will be going to Yata to march in a parade. Thursday we might be going to a park to spend a fun day, but it will depend on if we get our truck fixed before then. An update from Daniella, the girl who I shared her story a couple weeks ago. She went home for a week and when I asked her how it went, she sad bad. I asked why she said her mom had just left and was not there the whole time, so she was left with her father. But Praise God when I asked her how that went, she said good. He did not abuse her and even though she was nervous she asked to go to church on Saturday and he said that was fine. She went with her grandmother. I have had the opportunity to talk with several of the girls which I enjoy, but I have been forewarned that they often do not tell the truth. Maybe once I build more of a relationship with them they will tell true stories. These kids are learning great things at this school, but they have a hard life to return to with many temptations, so keep them in your prayers.

Last week of vacations

2010-07-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

Jason is better and learning to eat the food here. I have been working in the garden and loving it. I am learning so much about how to make a garden prosper. I am also able to see daily miracles of new plants sprouting up which is only possible with Gods help. Jason has been helping put up solar panels and wiring an electrical output for our room so we can sit on our bed and watch sermons on the computer. He also dug a 2 foot deep post hole, thanks for the training, Dad. Carrie has gotten hang of the Bolivian laundry service...put your swimsuit on go stand in the river, let your legs adjust to the cold water until you don{t feel them and then wash everything by hand. The nice part is you can finish with a nice bath in the river. Saturday Jason spoke for church! He spoke on Daniel 3 and encouraged the kids to spend time with GOd now so that when troubles and hard times come we will already have made the decision to follow God. The whole story of Daniel 3 has many parallels to the end of time. Go check them out! Saturday afternoon we walked to Yata which is a little pueblo (town) 4 miles from our school. The weather has heated up and there is very rarely clouds in the sky. The walk is mostly along a big, dusty dirt road in the middle of the day. Lets just say we were slightly sweaty with a nice dirt tan when we got back. In Yata the students went from house to house telling the people we were there to have a church service. The people started trickling in and the students proceded to put on a church service. They are hoping to build a church there within the next year. Last week Jerry, another missionary here, found a 8 foot long snake caught in the water wheel. They pulled it out and luckily it was already dead. Jason almost stepped on a little one yesterday as we made the treck into the jungle to get water. The cold showers are starting to feel good after long hot days and by 8pm we are ready to climb into bed. Then we have been enjoying watching sermons. In the sermons we have been deeply impressed that Jesus is coming very soon. The pastor giving the sermons is constantly saying we have just a few short months to a few short years. He has been studying prophecy and breaks down how the prophecies are being fulfilled rapidly. we know from revelation 13 that there will be a great change in the financial system because it says that no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast. the american economy reached a peak in 2000 and has been steadily declining until 2008 when it finally burst. we know the economy must fail in order to change it. why would you change something that is working so well? you wouldnt, so we know the economy has to collapse. baby boomers represent the largest group of people in america right now and the majority of them will be retiring from 2008-2011. there is no longer such a thing as a 401k. what is going to happen when so many americans come to collect their retirement and it doesnt exist? they are going to seek a solution to the problem and great changes are going to be made. we must be reading our Bibles so that we understand what is happening around us. we dont need to fear the things we read in the news because Jesus told us beforehand what would come to pass. What a loving God! but 1 Corinthians 13 1-3 tells us it is not enough to be able to understand all mysteries, fathom all knowledge, give all we have to the poor, or even die a martyrs death if we dont have love. Our characters must reflect the character of Christ. I have been impressed that everyday we need to learn to love like Jesus. We need to be living now like we will be living in heaven. I find myself often asking Jesus to come because im tired of living here in sin and i want my family and friends to be ready and to be saved from this suffering. but how often have i forgotten to think about the suffering that God is feeling because our sins have separated us from Him? It is all about a personal walk with Jesus. Here in Bolivia I am finding it is easier to study our Bible and spend time in prayer and meditation with God. It makes me realize the dangers that technology has brought into our society. Our time is eaten up by tv, internet, video games, and cellphones. It really is nice not to have them here. I encourage you to evaluate where you are spending your time and determine if this is where you want your treasure to be stored. We are spending time in prayer and study of Gods word and hope that you are as well.

South winds

2010-07-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! We went to Brazil today, all you have to do is take a 5 minute boat ride across the river. We just were seeing the area with Ruan and Tara. The south winds have been bringing cold weather!! We have been practically freezing. It is cloudy, windy and cold!! Praise God today the sun came back out and we are warming up. It might be time for a shower...4 days since the last one. :) The bad part is that you can't get away from the weather. Jason has been sick in bed for three days and then finally began taking cypro and is up and out today. (Thanks dad for sending the bag of medicine, we have been using it!) He has the stomach sickness. I had it but got over it and was not as bad as Jason. I, Carrie, have been helping some of the girls in the garden and looking over the math textbook. David Gates was here on Saturday and spoke for church. He encouraged/reminded us that Jesus is coming very soon! Make sure you are not getting caught up in daily life that you miss the special times with God which is the most important part of our life. We hope that each of you are being missionaries within your own walks of life. Internet should be coming soon to the school! Kids do not come back for another two weeks. We will see what we can find to do to keep us busy. Hope all is well!

Safe and sound at the school

2010-07-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

We finished our paperwork on Monday and were headed to Guayara on Tuesday. Monday the south winds came in bringing cold weather! I, Carrie, was wearing long johns, 5 shirts and wrapped in a blanket. It was really windy. Tuesday we flew with Steve Wilson to Riberalta. He did a great job flying...unfortunately I did not do a great job riding. On the way down I threw up in my shirt. But we made it safely and were taken by motorcycle taxis to the bus station. Mind you we had lots of luggage and it was all taken on the moto taxi. One bag in front on the handle bars another between us and the driver and then one on our back. No helmets, dirt roads, squeezing past cars...quite an experience. We then took a normal taxi an hour up the dirt road to the school. We are literally in the middle of the jungle! The mile walk or ride if you are lucky into the school off the main road is surrounded by pure, thick jungle. Wednesday we got our house or more like room set up. Jason made some shelves and we put up our mosquito net which fit perfectly over our bed...thanks Ronda. The food was rice and potatoes for breakfast, rice, cole slaw, oatmeal patty and potatoes for lunch, and biscuits and gravy for dinner with a potato. But don´t get excited about biscuits and gravy...the gravy is flour, water, oil, and onions...and cold. Our stomachs are still trying to adjust. It is vacation time at the school so probably half of the students have gone home, the other half have stayed at the school to work. We came to town today to buy some necessities. Kayla and Lylie are showing us around.
Last night at worship, one of the students told her story and I want to share it with you all. A year and a half ago, Daniella heard about the school from her sister and wanted to come. She was afraid to ask her dad though. There were many problems in her house. She asked her mom and her mom asked her dad. Her mom took her to the school and she filled out the paperwork and had her interview and was accepted into the school. She was very excited. Her dad even took her the day she started which was the first time he had ever been on a christian campus. Later I found out that he often is drunk and beats her mom and her and her siblings. One time she was taken to child protective services because her back was beaten so bad. She is not for sure if that is even her dad, there are two possible men who could be her dad. She wanted to come to the school to get away from her family. She was nervous the first couple of days because they were talking about chapters and verses in the Bible and she did not know what a verse was. Since being at the school she has learned that she has a God that loves her and has a plan for her even amidst her troubles at home. She went home over break after her first year at the school and she had become accustomed to praying before each meal but she was afraid to do this in front of her father. So she prayed in her head with her eyes open. Her father realized what she was doing and laughed at her. When she came back this school year she decided to be baptized and start keeping the sabbath. She is very worried about the salvation of her family. She says her mom has been baptized but only because everyone was doing it, not because she had a relationship with God. Today on the bus she was headed home for a week. She was very worried about telling her family she has been baptized and that she is now keeping the sabbath. She does not know how she will do it, but she knows that God will sustain her. I prayed with her on the bus and she left to enter a world most of us have never and will never know. When I think about my problems they suddenly do not seem so bad. We have been blessed so much and yet we take so much of it for granted. Daniella wants to be a missionary when she finishes school. Please pray for Daniella and all the students who have gone home for the next couple of weeks to be missionaries in their own homes.
We hope you all are doing well and love getting emails from you...so please do email. When the school year starts Monday will be our day off. For now we do not really know a schedule, we just hope to stay busy. God bless!

Life in Santa Cruz

2010-07-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

We arrived early Thursday morning at the airport without getting much sleep on the plane. Praise God! Customs let us go right through without even checking our bags after Carrie told them we were volunteer teachers! The car ride to the radio station was insane. Driving here is a completely different experience. Cars are flying everywhere and lines on the road are optional. Up to three people ride motorcycles at a time with one helmet usually strapped on the handlebars. Cars and people are everywhere and everyone is honking at everyone else. The city looks very poor and there is trash everywhere. Street vending is the only option for work for most people here. The couple we are staying with, Ximena and Eleazar, said somewhere between 50 and 70% of Bolivians are street vendors. We have done a couple things for our visa, but still have to get blood drawn and police records on Monday and then we will be able to go to the school while Ximena, our legal rep, continues to work on our visas. We are eating very well...lots of fruit, toast, oatmeal, rice, beans, pizza, lasagna, we even got Italian ice last night with some people from the local church(which is extremely nice). The church looks like a cathedral and has 500 members! Today we both woke up with hurting stomachs but other than that we have been fine. There is no internet at the radio station because they did not have the money to pay the bill so we are using it at Ximena´s parents house. We are going to watch the World Cup here today so that is very exciting. The shower is cold for Jason everyday but Carrie says for her it is warm. We just figured out how to turn the water on in the bathroom when it doesn´t come out of the faucet or the toilet doesn´t flush. We still don´t know if we are supposed to be putting toilet paper down the toilet, haha. We have worship every morning that includes songs, prayer, and reading a chapter in the Bible. We pray every morning when we get in the car, whenever we go anywhere and of course before meals. The tv station has worship twice a day. God is definately the center of their lives. Even if we are late for something worship is not cut short and no one looks at the time. We sing every line of the hymns here. The youth at the church here have their own church and they have a program starting at 4pm Sabbath afternoon for the youth. Last night they had Bible trivia that Carrie participated in and they had three people dressed as angels with smoke bombs walk through the church giving the 3 angel´s messages. Very dramatic! They had some type of object lesson with this liquid that you could punch and it would turn hard that I was invited up front to try. The lesson was that if we try and attack people with our message they will resist but if we become their friend and associate with them they will be more likely to listen to us. There are dogs everywhere here that are very skinny and not treated very well, rocks thrown at them, etc. We have seen a nice horse park, with jumps and everything, near where we are staying and some horses live next door that Carrie tried to get near but they ran away. The horses just wander wherever they want even if it is through the middle of a busy street. Our house is in the rich part of town and pretty fancy for Bolivia. We are learning lots about the culture and are excited about getting to the school hopefully next Tuesday. God has been blessing us and we praise him for his protection!!

Here we go!!

2010-07-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

We are leaving for Bolivia today!! Our bags are stuffed full, but not over 50 lbs :) We are very excited! We will arrive in Santa Cruz tomorrow and work on our visas for a couple of days and then take a small mission plane flight 3 hours to the school. For those of you who do not know our story or much about where we are going I have posted a small sermon I gave on our mission journey. God bless and thanks for the prayers!

Our mission story begins a little over a year ago. Before we were even married; we knew that we wanted to be missionaries. We applied through Adventist Frontier Missions, Gospel Ministries International, and Adventist Volunteer Services and searched hundreds of calls. We never seemed to find one that fit our needs and that would allow us to go even though we had not been married a year yet. It was nearing the end of my school year and after praying and searching for mission opportunities. We did not seem to get an answer or a call so it came time to re-sign my contract at the school. We made the decision to stay in Athens and I signed the contract for another year. The very next day we got a long distance call from Gospel Ministries International in Bolivia wanting to know when we could come be missionaries there. The call was from a mission school that was in the Amazon near the border of Brazil. The school is a Seventh - day Adventist boarding academy that is free for the students. It provides education opportunities for children that might otherwise be on the streets. The students come having never held a Bible and most knowing nothing about God. It is a great opportunity to teach these children about God’s love for them. The school is focused on community service with one day a week devoted to outreach in the community. The goal is to graduate students who will go out and be missionaries in their own communities. The mission sounded awesome but we were committed to stay in Athens for another school year. We didn’t really understand the timing of the call, but trusted that God is never late rather always on time. So we stayed in Athens, while keeping in contact with Bolivia.

During this past school year it has been amazing to see how God has used me in my classroom. I had so many opportunities to share my faith with my students that I knew exactly why the call from Bolivia had come the day after I signed my contract. We also had the privilege of helping put on a revival and evangelistic series at our church in Athens. We have learned so much this year and grown in our walks with God that we knew He had wanted us to stay in Athens another year.

Throughout our year in Athens, we stayed in contact with our new friends from Bolivia. We even got to meet them at the Generation of Youth for Christ meetings in Kentucky. At the time of GYC we were praying about three different locations for missions, one being Bolivia. We ended up being able to talk to a person from each location and realized that Bolivia was the only call that fit our skill sets perfectly. I am a 6^th grade math and science teacher and I am going to be able to teach math and science to high school students that are on the level of my 6^th grade students. I am fluent in Spanish, so I will be able to jump right in and teach. Jason graduated with a degree in finance, which is hard to find a mission call that involves finance. In Bolivia, Jason will be teaching English, which he is fluent in as you can tell and help with the accounting. The need in Bolivia is so great, practically every week we get an email from Ruan and Tara telling us they are counting down the days until we get there. The timing worked out perfectly for when my school ended, our apartment lease ran out and the students in Bolivia had a break from school for us to arrive right as second semester began. There is even an empty house for us to stay in in Santa Cruz while we get our visas. God has worked so many things out for us to go to Bolivia.

Let me tell you a little bit about Guayaramerin, Bolivia where we will be going. We will fly into Santa Cruz and then take a small mission plane 3 hours into the jungle to reach the school. At the school we will live on campus in a brick house with a thatched roof. The windows are open and we will sleep under mosquito nets. We will eat meals with the school, unless we want to cook our own. They make their food in a huge brick oven. We will have running water in our house, but we have to wash our clothes in the river. We must take clothes for all temperatures, because it can vary from day to day. One day it is in the 90’s with high humidity and then the next a cold front will come through and everyone is in sweaters and jeans. We will be there for part of the rainy season so we will need rain jackets. We also need lots of bug spray. The closest town is 18 miles and we get there by hitching a ride with an open truck bed passing by. The town is where we will buy groceries and use the internet. We have one day off a week to take care of any business.

The school in Bolivia is a mission project began by David Gates. It is through Gospel Ministries International. Gospel Ministries International, or GMI, is a Seventh-Day Adventist, faith-based, volunteer-driven organization which seizes opportunities to carry God's love, through sacrifice, to the world. Education, prison ministry, health care and care for the abandoned and needy are some of its priorities, while utilizing technology such as aviation and mass media to leverage the impact and influence of its mission. GMI has been a completely faith-based organization from the start. David Gates and the GMI board and administrators manage GMI with a financial philosophy built on prayer and faith. No fund raising projects are undertaken, and no funds are explicitly solicited. Through this philosophy of simply making people aware of needs, and reaching out to God in prayer, GMI has grown in leaps and bounds. We are going to Bolivia completely as volunteers and are completely responsible for all our financial needs while we are there.

Through our searching and praying about missions we have discovered that God has a need in Bolivia that we can fill, God has a message for Bolivia that we can preach; so where God has prepared the way, we will follow.

Bolivia here we come!

2010-05-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:“Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then we said, “Here we are! Send us.” Isaiah 6:8

We have heard God calling us to serve Him and are answering the call to go abroad as missionaries! We will be leaving at the beginning of July to go to Bolivia to work at a Seventh-day Adventist mission school. We will be living on campus and being a part of all activities that go on at the school. Jason’s specific job assignments will be teaching English and helping with the accounting and Carrie will be teaching math and science. The students who come to the school may have never held a Bible or know who Jesus is and we have a huge opportunity to share with them the love of Jesus. The students live on campus and are involved in a work program that we will help out with as well. One day a week we all go into town and participate in community service projects. Please pray for us as we make the preparations to go to Bolivia.

The school is completely run off of donations and is supported through Gospel Ministries International. We have heard many stories of how God has provided in miraculous ways for His children in Bolivia. We will be going completely as volunteers and receiving no salary. If you are able and interested in helping support us financially you may send money directly to us at 25 Kenwood Lane, Cartersville, GA 30121 or make tax deductible donations by sending a check to: Gospel Ministries International P.O. Box 506, Collegedale, TN 37315. Please make sure to specify that the money is for Jason and Carrie Churchwell at the Secondary Industrial School in Bolivia. To donate online visit http://gospelministry.org/blog/how-to-help/online-donation/

Thanks and may God bless you in return for your prayers and financial support.