Highlights...

...from the end of last week: Tuesday afternoon and evening: Scotty plans a surprise date outting for us. This includes a trip to the plant fair nearby to buy flowers and plants for our office. We got a brush plant (fun, bright red bristley blooms), the American dollar plant, a cute Bonsai tree, and some little red and yellow flowers. Dinner at a new cafe I've been wanting to try- veal in wine sauce and an asparagus omelet to share, plus an extra treat- Bailey's milkshake (yum!). Next is a trip to a small auditorium to hear a friend play classical guitar- he was incredible! Fun times with my sweet husband who knows I like him to plan surprises for me once in a while.

Wednesday: a good talk about ministry options over lunch with our co-worker Greg. He was so encouraging as he reminded us of how God has used us to really reach many in our neighborhood and help initiate relationships that are moving our church plant further. After lunch was tea with a Bolivian friend I've been trying to get together with for months.

Thursday evening: we take out our good friends to a great Asian restaurant to celebrate a birthday. Strangely, we spend a good part of the evening discussing intestinal worms and how they manifest/come out/negatively affect the body. You know you're a missionary when you can do this over dinner without flinching.

Friday: "Crazy ministry weekend" (my label) begins. We start with SIM team meeting, interacting with our fellow SIMers in Cochabamba, John and Bronwyn, who are here to film for the 100 year SIM anniversary celebration DVD. We invite them over for dinner, so I spend the rest of the afternoon doing correspondence in the office and preparing dinner. They stay the night.

Saturday: we are up at a decent time the next morning, expecting Lola (our once a week maid) to show up so we can take her to the crafts fair at Highlands. She comes and we head out into the beautiful, sunny day to set her up a table. Sadly, we find out later that she sold nothing. She had brought goods from a group of girls, all ex-street kids, who are trying to stay off the streets and support their babies. After the fair we have lunch at our house and head directly out into the blaring sun to do some filming on potential church property. I usually am good about wearing sunscreen, but we were in a hurry and I knew we wouldn't be out for very long. We saw lots of neighborhood friends during out filming session, which made for good footage, but as soon as we returned home, I noticed a nice, dark red ring around my neckline. This is one of the worst burns I've had in a long time- and we were only out for 30 mins! They say the sun here is 50 times as intense as at sea-level- a safe amount of time to be out is 15 mins. That's annoying. We have tea and a few mins to talk with our Coch friends before we head out again for a church plant meeting until 6ish. We return to enjoy a quiet dinner, just Scotty and me, and an early night to bed.

Sunday: get up early. Church and then pot luck with SIM team- lots of chicken and rice. Debbie makes a tasty chocolate cake for dessert- she's famous for her cakes. More filming after lunch and then we return home with John and Bronwyn and the Hurst family to talk more about filming. We're hoping to put together a good video presenting the next chapter of the story of the church plant ministry. After chatting and drinking coffee we move to the next venue on the other side of town where we're going to have a prayer walk with the Mallasilla Bible study group and our church plant team. We weave our way through the neighborhood, praying for families, for life transformation, for the bridging of social barriers, for land, for God's glory. We return home, our house guests having left during the walk to fly home, and spontaneously ask Greg and the girls to have a pancake dinner with us. Many pancakes, we say good-bye and finally have the house to ourselves. We read from our book of Roald Dahl short stories, I write in my journal, and it's off to bed at 9:30.

It was a good weekend, but I'm glad it's over.