Once

So, I've been meaning to encourage everyone to watch this Irish Indie film called "Once" if you haven't already seen it. Scotty and I have fallen in love with the movie and the characters and apprecaite the music (our friend gave us the soundtrack and we listen to it repeatedly throughout the day). It's a musical, 60% singing, but not your typical break into song and dance- it's natural and totally flows with the mood of what's going on. It's the story of a developing relationship and is so much more real than a lot of Hollywood movies portray a guy and girl getting to know each other. There's decisions made that are hard, but right, and it reflects real life- which is one of the keys we look for in a good movie. And again, the music is outstanding. So, rent it and then buy the soundtrack- you won't regret it.

The low-down

How amazing are ultrasounds?? 12 weeks and counting...

Thanks for all the encouragement and excitement we've received so far- we are truly thrilled to be pre-parents again and thank God for His gift and perfect timing. These last months of waiting have been a challenge but also a time to grow immensely in our understanding of God's goodness, soverignty, and perfect love for us. So, the details you all (women friends) have been waiting for. I found out on my mom's birthday, which is why I have a party hat on in the cinnamon roll picture. An explanation of the cinnamon roll can be found here. The really neat thing is that Scotty and I had decided to not "try" in December because we had both sets of parents here and the holidays and all- we didn't want any extra stress. Again, God always works things out when He choses to, without our "help". :) So, the doctor has been seeing me every 2 weeks, as a precaution after losing the baby last year. The awesome thing here is that they do an ultrasound at every visit (at least, my doctor does with his patients), so we've been able to see the little guy grow by leaps and bounds every 2 weeks. I have another appointment in a week and a half and then we'll go to the normal monthly visits. I'll miss seeing his little transforming body on the screen so often! I've felt decent, but the first month or so was really rough- general yuckiness all the time that made me up for very little and a tad more cranky than normal (these were also the days of no water- what a combo!) Scotty, as always, has been ultra-patient with me and I'm starting to feel back to my old self these days.

So, that's the scoop, I think. Little baby Miser is due Sept. 9.

Cinnamon Roll- Take 2

Who remembers what the cinnamon roll signifies?


P.S. If you need help, check the side bar to the right.

When it rains, it pours

Well, we suffered through 3 weeks without running water in our house, and now it seems we have the opposite problem. Praise God, we’ve had running water now for about a week solid, and I still find it a privilege to wash dishes with ease and flush our toilets. For a few weeks we were enjoying mostly sunny weather, leading me to believe the dreary rainy season was over. It seems as though I’ve been duped and the new rains have caused new leaks in the roof that bring lots of steady drips into our dining room for the extent of time that it’s raining outside. We have a nice bucket on top of sugar container on top of stool on top of phone table contraption to catch the drips, but our wood floors are still all spotted up once again from renegade water drops. Last months dripping left a 10ft. x 10ft. spot of wall covered in nasty, black mold (which instead of killed was conveniently painted over by our landlord). I’m hoping things can get fixed up before we have to walk down that road again. Things like this definitely get us more excited to get our own home underway sooner rather than later.

Sunday

Sunday was another exciting day at the Mallasilla Bible Church. We are seeing new people attend every week and beginning to run out of space at the Alfaros’. Plans are being quickly thought out to accommodate our growing numbers and find a new location where we can grow and have different rooms so that the kids can split up- right now the age range for Sunday school is from 2-13, all in the same class. Edgar preached a wonderful sermon on the cross and its power to change our lives, power that we don’t have on our own but that only comes from the work of Christ sacrificing His life and being raised from the dead. You’ve heard me mention the Cuban doctors several times before, and one of the girls, Karen, who recently became a Christian, has been bringing her boyfriend Ivan to church and to any church-related activities that we have. On Sunday, God touched Ivan’s heart and he, too, accepted the free gift of salvation! What rejoicing there was as the news spread after the service. There were many hugs and much excitement to see the Holy Spirit working so mightily in our little congregation. Next week we will be having a baptism service with a BBQ afterward and all three of our new Cuban brothers and sisters will be baptized as a symbol of their new faith in Christ!

Funny phone call

Scotty and I have a Vonage phone here in Bolivia that has a Gainesville, FL number- we keep it in our office. We are here a bit late this afternoon and received a call that we thought was one of those recorded calls you get at dinner time from companies trying to sell you junk (believe it or not, we can't remember what these calls are called- having not experienced them for so long)- it was from Secure Comfort. We let it go to answering machine and a nice woman with a southern accent came on letting Crystal know her pillows had come in and so Scotty picked up the phone to tell her she had the wrong number. She asked again about Crystal and Scotty told her this is a vonage phone that reaches us in Bolivia- no Crystal. She started laughing and told the person next to her that this customer was trying to tell her she's reaching people in Bolivia. I'm not sure the internet phone thing totally connected with her. Scotty convinced her that it was true and explained that we have a Gainesville number since that's where I'm from, but that we're missionaries in Bolivia. Then she got real interested and asked what it's like here. Scotty wasn't quite sure how to answer that question in one sentence but politely had a little chat with her before she was ready to let him off the phone. Strange.

So last night we had our friends over for dinner- the Ramirez family. We really like the Ramirez' and I realized last night that although we have a lot of Bolivian families over to our house, there are few that we really feel as comfortable with and seem to enjoy as much as this family. I think it's mostly a matter of time before we connect on a deeper level with some others, but it's always been so easy to enjoy Ericka and Hugo and their 2 boys. They are a down-to-earth couple that love taking hikes and eating picnics and Ericka even lived in my hometown for a year when she was in high school as part of a student exchange program. It's so important to us to have this type of friendship where you can call whenever and know that if you burn the food a little or have a flake-out, can't-speak-Spanish moment, they won't care and neither will you. I pray we will grow to have more friends like this.

Love

We failed to capture our Valentines Day celebration in photo but I'll still share about my wonderful husband and how thankful I am that God brought such a caring, patient, loving, fun man into my life to be with until death parts us. I am a blessed woman. Vday morning, we both woke up early since Scotty had his theology class at 8 and I wanted to make pancakes for him before he took off. Scotty's not a huge gift person, but he always appreciates a good breakfast. I tried dying the batter pink, which looked lovely in the bowl, but turned to a nice gold color upon cooking. They had pinkish insides, which usually you would avoid in food, but seemed to be OK in pancakes. I attempted to make the first one in the shape of a heart and then wrote "I (heartshaped pancake) Scotty" with syrup- he said it looked like a cat head. "A" for effort, I say. The day progressed as normal and was a fairly busy one. After a few errands, Scotty came back to the office with 2 purple lilys- the Scotty lily and the Lisa lily, he explained. He also had some fun size Milky Way...chocolate is one way to my heart. I wrote him a nice card and we both were looking forward to dinner at our favorite little Italian restaurant in the neighborhood we used to live in. There's a surprising number of foreigners that have opened restaurants around the city, and this one is run by an Italian and has a simple menu of the most common pastas and the most common sauces, to be mixed as you choose. I had canneloni (with cheese, spinach and chicken) with a pesto sauce. The portions weren't huge but I believe there was some expanding element cooked in with the pasta that caused Scotty and I both to feel like we had shared an elephant for dinner. We went home and layed down on the bed to try to expand our stomachs and fell asleep at 8:30. :)

Ana sharing her testimony.

Another love story that I've mentioned lately is the new-found love our Cuban friend Ana has found with the Lord. She gave her testimony at church on Sunday and it was so encouraging for us as a church to rejoice with her and see the way God has been working in her life over the last few years. Although she's been here for 2 years, she is married, and is excited to go home to share her faith with her husband and 19 year-old son. We had the largest attendence on Sunday as well, with 50 adults and probably about 20 kids. We just fit into the Alfaro's house and again see God's hand at work by bringing so many people to learn about Him. Pastor Edgar presented our plan for service and ministry for the year and many were excited to be more involved and make the Mallasilla Bible Church their home.

Running water

We had running water today! I think it's been at least a week since anything has come out of our tap and this was an exciting afternoon for me. Scotty and I had stuff to do in town this afternoon, so I wasn't able to sit at home and just watch the water run, as I would have liked. But, I did have time to wash the dishes, wipe down counters, wash bathrooms, and fill up 20 2-liter bottles of water. It's amazing how excited a person can get at seeing water come out of their sink. The past few weeks have been a haze of trips to friends houses to shower and do laundry and squeezing every last drop possible out of the buckets and bottles of water in our home for flushing toilets, washing hands, faces, and dishes. I've actually become accustomed to the complete lack but I still don't like it. Our neighbors downstairs said they think our suffering is over and now the water problem should be regulating itself. I've lived here too long to bank completely on that, but one can hope, and pray.

Otherwise, life continues to march on and we are gearing up for a full year with the church plant. We had a team meeting on Saturday to discuss this years events and activities and realized we have stuff planned pretty much every month of the year. I'm excited to be more and more involved and have the opportunity to serve with the church. Scotty and I are also thinking more seriously about starting to look for architects to draw up plans for our future home. That is exciting and a little scary! But, we have seen God's constant faithfulness thoroughout our lives and know He will continue to provide for us here.

Api and Pasteles

Tea time with the Astorga family

Our friends, the Astorgas, came over yesterday afternoon to hang out and have tea. Since it was a holiday yesterday, Jimena closed her pharmacy for the day and offered to teach me how to make a very traditional Bolivian snack, api and pasteles. Api is a sweet mashed corn drink served hot (sounds gross right? it's good) and pasteles are fried, hollow doughy pastries with cheese inside and powdered sugar on top...yummm. Javier and Jimena, along with their 2 kids, are building a house on the same street that our property is on and will one day be our very close neighbors. They are fairly recent Christians and really excited to be more involved in the Mallasilla Bible Church as well as our home group. After doing a tour of their partially finished home, we came back to our apartment and got ready for business. Jimena had brought all the ingredients and began mixing and flattening and filling with cheese. We did a little bit of food prep and a lot of talking. Since my in-laws brought my crock pot (thank you, thank you!), I had put on some chicken meatballs to cook, which made less work for tea time. I tried to fold over the little doughy pockets of cheesy goodness and make pretty little designs to join the two sides together, but they came out looking a bit lame. Practice makes perfect, I suppose. When we were almost done, Jimena brought out this fantastic plastic contraption where you lay the dough on it, fill it with cheese, and then close it like a little pocket book. It seals everything nicely with a perfect design. She was clueless how to use it, but I quickly explained and we realized that would have saved us a lot of work. The frying didn't take long and then we were ready to share the meal with our friends- api, pasteles, meatballs, and lemon bars...strange combo, right? My stomach churned over that one all night!

The finished product (there's the yellow and purple api in the mug)

Carnaval

Today is the big day for those who celebrate Carnaval. We've been seeing the kids out in the streets for weeks now- boys and girls aggravating and flirting with each other as they launch water balloons back and forth. Yesterday, as Scotty and I were driving home from the grocery store (and I was SO happy to be in the safety and dryness of my own car) we saw the main streets of the south zone covered on both sides with youth- drinking, spraying each other with foam, and hurling water balloons. A lot of people use these 2 holidays to hang out with family, have BBQs, and go the country. But Tuesday is the day where almost everyone- rich, poor; young, old- "challa" the things that are precious to them. Usually it's land or a car or your house or something else that you want the blessing of the Pachamama on. We have neighbors across the street who have just finished a house for their mother and invited us to the challa celebration today with their family. Scotty and I are praying for the right words to explain (as we've done with them once before) why we won't be a part of the celebration but would be happy to come over later to meet their family. It's an amazing opportunity, but a challenging one, as this family in particular is just participating in "our country's national traditions". To them, this is a custom. They don't see that they are worshipping an idol- no matter how little they really think of her. And of course they believe in God, they've explained. It's tough when you live in a culture that is familiar with God and comfortable with Him, but have also mixed in so many other animistic beliefs.

Later today we have some friends coming over for tea. Jimena, the wife, will be teaching me to make empanadas. Normally, I love the chance for a cooking lesson, but we still don't have any water! So, the thought of frying dough in my kitchen brings to mind big grease stains all over the floor and the oven and who knows what else- with no water to clean it up! But, I am happy for this opportunity to get to know this family better. They will be part of our small group that will start up next month and are so hungry to grow deeper in their faith.

Sunday was a really neat day in the Mallasilla Bible Church. After worship, Scotty got up to lead us into the next part of the service, but had the urge to give people a chance to speak of God's faithfulness in their lives. We had just sung the song- "Tu fidelidad is grande"- Great is your faithfulness (not the hymn)- and Scotty was hoping that there would be many testimonies to attest to that. A surprising and moving one came from Ana, a Cuban doctor. Many Cubans are sent here to work and they are often not looked highly upon by the Bolivian community. But, the Alfaros, whose house we meet in, have been reaching out to Ana and her friends since they arrived. Ana has been a faithful attender of the Friday night Bible studies and church, and on Saturday, she accepted the Lord as her Savior! She shared this joyful news with her church family on Sunday and we had a time of rejoicing and praying over Ana, who will be returning back to Cuba in March. What a gift to see God so at work in our community!