Hail mania

Summer hail storm.

As we were enjoying a friendly, but competitive game of Settlers of Catan with my parents today, the greyish skies opened up into a torent of hailstones. They started lightly at the beginning but quickly grew in size and intensity until the surrounding roofs, yards, and crags in the mountains were absolutely covered. It was beautiful and a little frightening with the lightening and loud thunder. We watched from the windows, mesmorized by the sight, and wondered how long we'd be without power as a result. Then, just as we were ready to sit back to finish the game, Scotty noticed that water was quickly running out of both electrical outlets in the kitchen.

I'm not much for electrical problems, but I figured that was not a good sign. Scotty began to mop the water toward the drain in the floor when my dad shouted from the other room that a light switch was also running water and pooling rapidly on the ground. A brief minute later and water began dripping out of the ceiling and obviously gathering behind the walls, marked by growing wet patches in the paint. It seemed the storm was determined to come into our house and water down everything. Out came the buckets, the towels and more mopping...at the time we left, an hour or so after it had all started, we still had a significant run of water from the ceiling. But, at least I won Settlers.
Here's our Christmas lunch, a simple one I prepared for our parents of crock pot turkey breast, orange sweet potatoes, savory veggies, cheese biscuits, and strawberry spinach salad:

Christmas cheer

The Christmas season was a busy one for us! We've said good-bye to Scotty's parents, but before they went we had the opportunity to introduce them to pretty much everyone we know in the neighborhood and everyone on our church plant team. One day that was particularly special for us was the Sunday before Christmas. We invited Edgar, our pastor, and his family over for lunch and to hang out in the house before we did the evangelistic, Christmas drama that was planned for the community center. We enjoyed spending a full day with them, eating lunch, playing Phase 10 and talking about life. They are a neat family that we are enjoying more and more as we get to know them better- their passion for the Lord, their great sense of humor, their fantastic kids. Then came the big night that we had put a lot of concentrated effort into. We went to the community building and opened the doors to find the pungent, over-powering smell of alcohol greeting us. There was a baptismal celebration the night before and probably a lot of pouring out of beer onto the ground in honor of the Pacha Mama (god mother)- I'm not sure how those two things mix, but they often do around here. We opened the few tiny windows and prayed no one would mind the stench. The next couple of hours was spent setting up and praying that God would bring many from town and speak to them during the comic sketch that our good friend Marcelo had written several years ago. Close to 300 people showed up! It was a fun and encouraging night for us as a church- having been an activity that really bonded many different members and also led us to believe that there is much openness in the community to outreach efforts.

Scotty sporting his Burger King crown and chatting with neighbors- he played one of the Magi

Holiday Update

Well, I don't have any exciting pics to share, but I still wanted to give a brief update for those of you who like to know what's going on in our lives. It's been a busy couple of weeks, much busier than I ever expected it would be with my in-laws here. I had this idea that life outside of our family would come to a stop and I'd be able to sit for hours and chat with Mims, cook lots of meals, wander around town, sleep, etc... Boy, was I wrong! There seems to always be something that needs to be done or meetings to attend or things to prepare for church. We've also seen such a great opportunity in this time to see people in the neighborhood and try to connect in these holidays. I still feel like I'm not doing enough. It's good to remind myself constantly that I was saved by grace, and continue to be saved by grace, not by anything I can do...because lately, I feel like I should be DOing more. We had an Australian family who are missionaries in Venezuela staying with us for the weekend- friends we had met in Cochabamba- and enjoyed their company. But, 4 extra people definitely filled up our little apartment and it's nice to be back to just the 4 of us and makes it seem so much quieter now. Yesterday, we hoped to get away to our favorite hot springs, but found out that calling on the road, on the way to the springs, was not enough warning for the hotel. Apparently, if they don't know you're coming, everyone that usually works at the hotel leaves the area and goes back to the little pueblos where they live. I guess the last minute nature of things in Bolivia has worn off on us- but this particular hotel doesn't work that way. So, we enjoyed driving up to El Alto, sitting in traffic jams, getting stuck in the Ceja (the eyebrow) where almost every person of the 1,000,000 population of El Alto passes through daily to get on public transport, and returning back to La Paz to finish off with a yummy lunch of traditional salta~neas. We got spanked in our own house playing Eucre last night by Scotty's parents, but returned the favor to them after lunch today. Tonight is play practice for the evangelistic Christmas play we are preparing with the church for the 23rd....and the days continue to fly by. I found a small pack of turkey breast at the grocery today for $20- so Christmas dinner is in the works. I'm hoping things will be calm from that day on.

Forgotten funny and town meeting

So, remember how we had that fancy dinner in Cochabamba to celebrate 100 years in Bolivia? Well, I had a pretty funny experience there that will definitely stick in my mind, possibly more than the ceremonies that were happening in the moment. I took off right after they dismissed us for the buffet line for the bathroom. As I approached, I heard someone trying to get out of the ladies room, but struggling to get the door open. I thought to myself, "poor girl is having some trouble- how hard could it be?" Is anyone guessing at this point what happened to me? I entered and locked the door behind me, but found as I tried to get out that the lock wouldn't budge. I twisted and pulled and twisted the other way and pushed and slammed by body into the door. I seriously broke a sweat trying to get this lock unlocked. I began to laugh to myself, to stave the panic- how could I be locked in a bathroom when there is an amazing buffet awaiting me outside? Will there be any food left when I finally get out?? I looked around and saw a window high above the toilet. With its height and the way it opened, I knew it would never work as an emergency escape. I began pulling and pushing again, starting to fear that no one would notice I was missing. Will Scotty be too busy loading his plate to come look for me? Will any other girl need to go to the bathroom in the next hour? The bathroom was far from the meeting place and I didn't think anyone would hear if I knocked or yelled. But I knew this was my only option. So I began to knock loudly and yell (what do you yell when you're stuck? "I'm stuck!" "Help me!" "Someone open the door!" There seems nothing quite appropriate at that point). "Hello??!!" Knock, knock. "HELLO!!??" Then I heard a voice on the other side, "do you need some help?" "Yes! I'm stuck in the bathroom- I can't get the door open". I laughed to myself at how ridiculous that sounded. I won't repeat the conversation, but between the two of us pushing and pulling and twisting, we got the lock un-locked but then we couldn't figure out the handle! The guy on the other side said he'd go find someone that worked there to help. As soon as he walked away, I managed to get it open myself. Then appeared a guy I hadn't met before who is also an SIM missionary. "Hi, thanks for saving my life- I'm Lisa." "I'm Dale, nice to meet you." I'm sure Dale will never forget his fellow SIMer who was stuck in the bathroom.

Apparently, the American embassy has "town meetings" once every quarter at the American school in town. Scotty and I decided it would be a good idea to go, with all the political stuff going on at the moment. For those of you who aren't up on the latest Bolivian news, the president and his peeps decided to re-write the constitution last weekend, in a secret meeting, without 2/3 majority approval (what is always needed to approve decisions), and without the opposition parties. Needless to say, the country was in a frenzy about this. About half the country is deciding to go autonomous this weekend, which will probably cause a few issues in those areas. I'm glad we're not in one of them- I think my mother-in-law would not be too happy to experience that. Anyway, yesterday we congregated with a small group of other Americans who seemed to be focused only on the idea that we might have to be evacuated and all the possible worse-case-scenarios. "If they shut down the airport, what will we do?" "I have kids in Bolivia and in other countries. Should I leave them?" "What if someone is standing outside my house threatening me and chanting anti-American sentiments?" Uhhh...where are these questions coming from?? At this point, La Paz is very calm and the embassy folk were promising us that we are no where close to an evacuation and that all of them had plans to stick around, even if things get a bit messy. It was really interesting to be in a room with these people, several of whom seemed to expect the embassy to be able to predict the future for them and make personal decisions for them. Bolivia's history shows us that they often come to the brink of disaster, but it all seems to fade away right before they fall off the edge. Keep the country in your prayers this weekend as the possibility for much un-rest exists.

Tree break

After a long afternoon of working on sermon preparation, Scotty called to tell me he was coming home for a break so that we could put up the Christmas tree. I got very excited and informed Mims and Papi of the plan. I put on a Christmas CD and the big, green box was brought up and we began to unpack the tree that we bought last year in the market. The cats were just tiny kittens last Christmas and found the tree to be an oh-so-perfect, larger than life cat toy and my prayer last year was that they'd be too fat and lazy this year to want to play and hide in the branches like they did before. Well, the fat and lazy part had become a reality, but as soon as the magical box was opened, they seemed to instantly become active little kitties again. The branches are so thick that Malphurs can actually climb up and walk around on each layer and he thinks that's a pretty great thing and spent all last night doing just that.

Malphurs climbing his way to the top while Cheddar cheers from below.

We sipped port and listened to Christmas carols and put just enough ornaments on the tree for it not to look bare, knowing full well that the more we had on there, the more we'd have to pick up off the floor the next morning. In fact, when I woke up today, there were at least 3 ornaments rolling around and 7 (heavy) branches that had been removed and scooted to various places around the house. Hopefully the novelty of the thing will wear off while we still have a pretty nice tree.

Holidays are here!

I promise I have a good reason for not blogging lately- my in-laws are here! Ok, so they didn't arrive until Friday night, but it's been a busy few weeks! I'm trying hard to think of what to report of the time before they came, but it's all escaped me by this point. I'm sure it had something to do with church plant stuff, people over at the house, date night, busyness... Well, I'll just start with what's happened in the past few days. My in-laws came to visit! We picked them up Friday night at the airport and immediately brought them down to our house which had conveniently developed water problems (a.k.a. no running water) for the first time ever. So, being the international travelers that they are, they took it in stride and said it's all part of the adventure. The adventure continued the next morning when I drove them to missionary friend's homes to shower (2nd morning in a row for me showering at someone else's house). Later in the day, Papi and Scotty went to Carmen and Marcelo's, where we have church, to fill up every empty plastic container we could find, and some of theirs too, so that we'd have water to flush toilets and wash dishes. Sunday morning Mims (Scotty's mom) came to church while Papi tried to catch some z's since the altitude was causing a severe lack of sleep. It was fun to introduce Mims to our church friends and she was happily surprised to find that the Spanish she had learned 20 years ago in Ecuador was still with her enough to catch most of the sermon without me translating. After church we picked Papi up and headed over to a big pre-wedding Mexican bash for my awesome friend Whitney and her fiance Tim. This was a great party, complete with to-die-for enchiladas and queso dip, a Bolivian Mariachi band (they rocked!), and a pinata. I'm bummed to be missing the wedding but that was a great time to celebrate and pray for this special couple. Monday morning we headed up to the airport again in the wee morning hours to catch a plane to Cochabamba for the SIM 100 year celebration festivities. Monday night was a program and tasty dinner to remember the faithfulness of God to our mission family over the last 100 years. Scotty and I, along with another family, were chosen out of the many missionaries to be a small part of the video that was made to commemorate this day- we were honored. It was fun to see a bunch of the kids that I used to work with when I was a single missy in Coch, although many of them didn't look so much like kids anymore. MIB (Misers in Black)- Dressed up for the big celebrations

The following day was a much larger, Spanish afternoon program, inviting all the Bolivian pastors with whom we work around the country. There was singing, testimonies, the video in Spanish, eating, mingling, praying, praising, and generally being quite encouraged as a mission in what God is doing through us in these times and in the times gone by. The three amigos- Greg, Scotty and Edgar

We were so grateful to be a part of it and to be able to share with Scotty's parents as well this important time in SIM history. So, we returned early this morning, after mistaking our flight time and getting up an hour too early. We're happy to be home and have left our parents doing little projects in the apartment and watching the chocolate chip cookies bake (72 ounce bag of chips from Mims!). They are showering us with gifts, mostly stuff we requested, the most exciting of which were 2 new laptops we ordered. I'm not usually too excited by tech gadgets- but these are so pretty and shiny and all my keyboard letters work without having to bang them! Another exciting surprise that I didn't think would fit in the luggage was my crock pot! I've become so accustomed to cooking taking twice as long that this crock pot is sure to revolutionize my life. I'm thinking about cooking the Christmas turkey in there. And so we look forward to the next few weeks of celebrating life and the holidays with Mims and Papi.

Like father, like son.