Weekend activities

Friday was a holiday, our president being inaugurated into office, again. We called up our friends, the Ramirez family, to see if they wanted to hang out in the afternoon and take a hike. They did a bit of shifting of their schedule and we took off mid-afternoon and headed down toward their house. They live about 20 mins from here and the scenery changes pretty dramatically as you get closer to their home. There are tall trees and green grass and open spaces and a big river and impressive cliffs. We love to go out there cause it makes us feel like we're in another part of the country that is more wild and lush.

Our view as we set out...we ended up on the far left, by the river.

It was nice to enjoy a rain-free day (we aren't getting many of those as rainy season really shows its stuff) with our friends and celebrate their sons' birthday. Saturday we had a wedding, which I spent most of exploring the church with Natalie, who wasn't feeling like sitting quietly. Then some more prep for a double baby shower I was hosting at our house on Sunday. Church was awesome and because Natty slept through most of the service, she was awake enough for me to spend a good amount of time at the end catching up with friends I haven't had a chance to talk to since we returned. I love my church! Some more cleaning and prep in the afternoon and then the baby shower in the evening- starting about an hour and a half later than the stated starting time... Lots of ladies showed up to party and celebrate the lives of these 2 little boys that will be coming into the world in a matter of days. One woman, Claudia, is a friend that lives one street over and I will enjoy visiting her and the newborn and helping in whatever ways I can. It's good that God has created us to live together and serve each other.

Now, I am finding today a restful day- cleaning up around the house, catching up on emails, reading a handful of challenging and encouraging stuff from desiringgod.org. Natty seems to have some sort of stomach bug and is sleeping most of the day, which makes it even more restful for me

Natty discovers the art of dipping french fries in ketchup.

First days

Well, we feel more settled in now, although it still looks like our suitcases exploded all over the house. We've picked up our cats, who seem to have settled in like we never left and don't seem surprised that there's a toddler around squealing and flailing a large spoon at them. We've made a few trips into town and are busily working on figuring out what visa to apply for next, since the one we came in with only gives us only 30 days. Apparently, a lot of things will be changing on the 22nd, since our president was re-elected into office and managed to win a majority in the senate which means his party has almost complete control with no opposition. We aren't quite sure what this means. We're praying for a miracle in the visa department. Natty is loving her new surroundings and is enamored with the abundance of stray dogs and sheep that trot about our street. She's taken to calling almost everyone "dada". She also has started trying to repeat the words we say and has labeled avocado (which are the most delicious, buttery, amazing fruits here in Bolivia) "caca". That one's pretty funny. Our landlords downstairs seem genuinely happy to have us back and are thrilled to see how Natty has grown. I was informed the other day by a Bolivian friend that I'm too skinny. "Skinny is ugly." I'm not sure how to respond to that. However, as I was driving home last night, I heard angels singing and saw to my left a little place called "The Donut Factory". I might not stay ugly for long. So, we are getting back into the swing of things little by little and have enjoyed the short interactions we've had with our friends, awaiting more lengthy times together in the near future and getting back into ministry as well.

Home.

It's a quiet moment here in our apartment in Mallasilla. Scotty and Natalie are taking nap #2 and I am unpacking and cleaning up around the kitchen. The kitchen is that space in my house that makes me feel like things are somewhat in order and clean if it is clean. The last 2 days have been absolute insanity, but also so clearly under the guiding hand of the Lord. You might not want this much detail, but here we go: Thursday morning we find out that we possibly need a special visa to get back into the country because our visa is no longer valid (because we were out of Bolivia for more than 90 days) and because the country is no longer giving out missionary visas. We're a bit alarmed at this news, but convinced that there must be some way to take care of it from within Bolivia's borders, without needing to postpone our trip. We were scheduled to leave Orlando Friday afternoon. As we are reading over this information, a guy who works in the SIM office here skypes us to talk about it. We are able to find out in a matter of minutes that we do, in fact, need to reschedule our flights and get this documentation taken care of. Strangely, and amazingly, we are not too shaken by this, even though our minds were well into Bolivia-mode and we had already said our good-byes and were looking forward to being back in La Paz. We do some searching on the Bolivian embassy website both in Miami and D.C. and find that only D.C. does this kind of visa and they state to allow 6 weeks prior to departure for the transaction. Mom and I had a date planned, so I leave Scotty to cancel our flight and try to talk to someone in the embassy to see how quickly we can get this done. As mom and I sit in the nail salon, we talk about potentially going to the zoo this weekend and maybe even being around for her birthday a week or so later. Getting back into the car to head over to lunch, Scotty calls to say that in that hour that transpired, he was able to get through to the consulate in Miami (thanks to my brother who knows a guy) who informs him that the paperwork can be done there and if we could show up the next morning at 9am, he can make it happen in time for our flight that evening. Whoa! This is where the flight of the bumblebee music starts and we kick it into high gear. Mom and I head home and all of these things happen between 1pm and 5pm: finish a significant amount of packing, rent a car, book a hotel room, cancel Orlando-Miami leg of the flight, run to Walgreens to take photos for visa documents, connect with the dr.'s office where I had just been the day before to find out results of blood test (which usually doesn't come back for a couple days), pick up prescription drug at Walgreens (which usually can't be processed so quickly) as well as passport photos, call a good friend to say a final "good-bye", pick up rental SUV, pack it up nice and a final farewell to my parents. Then we have 6 hours on the road to think about all that just happened. But it happened so fast that we didn't even know how to process it and spent most of the time in silence. Are you amazed at what God has done so far? Then Scotty happens to throw a "hey, man" to the guy standing next to us at Subway with his lovely wife and 3 children and within a matter of 5 minutes they find out we're missionaries, we find out they run marathons for charities and we get another family praying for us. Love it! After a very rough night with Natty who didn't want to sleep in her hotel crib or in bed with us, we book it out early to get to the embassy downtown. Bad traffic and expensive parking later, we find that the embassy is no longer downtown (that would be helpful information to convey on the website) and we proceed to go to the new address which is mere blocks from our hotel. Oh, well. The consul is awesome, he gives us his personal cell number in case we need some strings pulled on the Bolivian end and we have our visa in 15 minutes. I wish I could say we spent the rest of the day wandering around balmy Miami and strolling the beach, but we had to get our rental car back in by 3, so instead, we spent from 3pm-11pm sitting in the Miami airport. Never want to do that again.

The only way we could get Natty to fall asleep in the airport was to backpack her around for half an hour.

And we're here! Tired, dirty, and with lots of stuff to unpack and organize in the house. But, so thankful. We are floored by how it all turned out and even Natalie didn't suffer any ill-effects from altitude like last time. Our friendly neighbor, Sergio, came to get us, stocked our fridge and left us to rest. It's good to be home.