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!

Day 5

Today is day 5 and holding with no running water. The rations I was so eagerly expecting yesterday didn't come. I've been using our water bottles very carefully and trying not to dirty too many dishes, which isn't too hard since Scotty is out of town. We weren't quite prepared for this length of time and don't have a large receptacle to store water in to use for flusing toilets. The neighbors have put out a large tub downstairs to catch the rain water, but we only have one small jug to fill up and lug back upstairs. It's good for one flush. Scotty and I will be taking a short retreat tomorrow and are praying that the hotel we're staying in will have water.

Oh, the rainy season!

Rain is a beautiful gift from God that is absolutely vital to create and sustain life. That said, I'm not a big fan of the rainy season. We are in the middle of summer right now- but I'm wearing long sleeves and sweaters indoors. Why is this? The rainy season. From about December through February, it rains...a lot. And when it rains, the sun goes away and it becomes very cold in La Paz. Because La Paz sits at a staggering 12,000 ft., the sun is the main source of warmth for this city. When it's gone, I become a sad girl. Growing up in Florida has taught me to appreciate and enjoy heat and sometimes even humidity- I pretty much feel like an alligator here.

Well, I'll stop complaining and explain what else happens in the rainy season. Floods. Now, La Paz is one of the largest cities in Bolivia and relatively metropolitan. But, it is build in a gorge and along the sides of crumbly peaks and mountain edges. It's not uncommon for mudslides to wash houses away, but I was unaware that this was common in this city. After a good thrashing of rain last week, I felt like the city was beginning to crumble apart. There is a river that runs through the whole city and all of the water from upstream comes rushing down into the heart of La Paz. As Scotty and I were driving home one night last week, we saw the river leaping and raging out of it's normally calm bed (quite a bit lower than the road) and up over the retaining wall into the highway. Traffic was rerouting itself to avoid the danger. We found out later that the bridge we cross before ascending into Malasilla was covered with the rushing river, which usually lays 20 feet or so below this. Other bridges collapsed, and sadly, about 30 lives were lost in that evening. This was definitely another reminder at how precious life is and how quickly it is taken. We didn't suffer anything so tragic, but the surges broke a water main, affecting 200,000 residents- including us. We haven't had running water in the house for 3 days and our 12 2-liter bottles we bought a few nights ago (thinking it would come back on before too long), are quickly running out. I'm taking showers at friends' houses and begrugingly watching my dirty dishes stack up before my eyes. Then, to top it all off, our electricity went out this afternoon. I'm not sure how long that will last... I've heard that the water company will be rationing water for the next 10 days- 8 determined hours per zone a day of water. I think ours was supposed to come on at 3 this afternoon and last until 11 tonight. I should probably get home and wash some dishes and fill up bottles, but I'm so much happier outside of the house right now.

All's quiet

I don't like to write without posting a picture, so I thought I'd introduce you to Jaw Dog. Now, I don't know what her real name is, or if she even has one, but Scotty and I have taken to naming the majority of the stray dogs in the neighborhood (and if you've ever been to Bolivia, you know there's about as many stray dogs as people, if not more). Jaw dog was hit by a car at some point and has a jaw that healed crooked- she's one of my favorites. Shortly after moving in, we came about the scene of another accident involving her pup, who we've named "Cria" (offspring), who had just gotten his leg broken by a car. Cria still has a twisted front leg, a little grotesque to look at, but gets around quite fine and is growing up into a handsome, strong little dog.

So, things have been pretty quiet around here for the past week or so. So, why haven't I written, you ask? Maybe because there just hasn't been much going on. Scotty was on schedule to preach the Sunday after my parents left, and so he spent the majority of that week preparing, while I caught myself up on some administrative tasks around the office. This week has been more emailing, errand running, and general house wife duties- stuff I actually really enjoy. Up until Carnaval has passed, people lay pretty low around here, and even church responsibilities have lightened significantly. My friend Jana had her little girl, Emma, on Saturday, and I've spent a little bit of time visiting her in the hospital and enjoying their first baby. We picked up my good friend Whitney and her new husband, Tim, from the airport on Tuesday and have seen the rest of our missionary friends and aquaintances trickle in as well. I'm pretty sure we are the only missionaries in our circle who did not travel during the holidays. Our nights have been nice and quiet- playing games, reading, watching movies, taking walks...we like this time.

Photo montage

Nighttime in Mallasilla
We had so much fun with our parents over the holidays...instead of going into every little detail, I thought a nice collection of photos would be fun to scroll through. We are thankful for our parents!

Mims and Papi arrive and get straight to work on various projects in the house- Papi glazing all the windows.

We invite the pastor and his family over to meet our parents

We take lots of walks with the Misers and play.

We're happy Mims and Papi get to see our first evangelistic event as a new church...Jose and Alberto dressed as shepherds (nice pink bathrobe!)

After the Christmas drama, Scotty, Alberto, Jose, and Hugo enjoy fried doughy snacks together.

Santa's asking directions from Scotty??

We celebrate Christmas with Mims and Papi before my parents arrive. My parents arrive on Christmas morning!
I certainly enjoy my 2 moms for the 1 day of overlap they had on Christmas.

More presents! Scotty and I celebrate Christmas again with my parents after his leave.We played LOTS of Settlers of Catan.

We enjoyed relaxing and watching movies with my parents.

We took a beautiful, scenic walk with our friends the Ramirez'- Eucalyptus trees are quite common around here.

I couldn't resist putting in the cute burro- look at his huge, fuzzy eyebrows!

We're glad our parents got to meet some of our special Bolivian friends- the Ramierz family.

Scotty helps my dad buy a guitar and they practice together.

And so we spent a month and a half with our parents in town- no better way to pass the holidays!

A love story

Scotty helping me with a youth barn dance while we were "getting to know each other" (he actually was not "legally" allowed to date yet according to the SIM dating policy- so we were just good friends :))

I'm not sure where our engagement pics are, so here's one of Micah and Scotty the morning of our wedding. Micah was present at the engagement, so I guess that counts.

Oh, so happy to be married!!

Lovin' life in La Paz.


Sara has tagged me to share the story of how Scotty and I met and fell in love- including obligatory (and fun!) pictures of our engagement, wedding, and a recent one. I'll be tagging Kelly, Nicole, and Julie.

So, it all begins in 2003, my first term as a single missionary in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I was working with youth through an international church there and was invited by my ministry partner, Micah, to a Thanksgiving dinner. He dropped me off and then went out to pick up Greg and the new guy (Scotty) to bring them along as well. I think Scotty's gray hair (I thought he was too old for me) and my strict dating policy worked against me initally thinking twice about this new missionary I ended up sitting next to during dinner. Scotty likes to explain that he thought a cute, blond girl must have relied on her looks all her life and must not have developed other essential character qualities, thus working against him... until dessert. He "held out until dessert" and then decided he wanted to get to know me better- and fast, since he only had 5 months in Cochabamba before moving to La Paz, 8 hours away. Scotty is a fantastic conversationalist- interesting, good listener, funny. I found myself being interested, despite my vow of not dating my first term. Over the next few weeks and months, he found ways to interact with me, beginning with the famous missionary pick-up line, "Do you want to be on my email newsletter list??" and I enlisted him to be a chaperone for various youth events I was planning at the time. Before long, we just knew this was nothing ordinary. We continued to date long distance after he moved to La Paz in April of 2004 until the time we both returned to the states to be married in the summer of 2005. Christmas of 2004 brought a surprise proposal, geniously arranged by both Scotty and Micah. We were married August 27, 2005 in my hometown of Gainesville, Florida. We lived in Charlotte for a year and are now permanently back on the mission field in La Paz, Bolivia- starting a new church in the community we live in and also hoping to start a family soon! God has been amazingly good and gracious to us- from the way he perfectly orchestrated our meeting to calling us together to make our home in Bolivia and providing all we need here and more.

New Years celebration

Well, I've got a few seconds at the office this afternoon before Scotty comes back to take us home. It's been a whirlwind of a trip with my parents here- most spare minutes filled with activities, although the last 2 days we had the chance to take them to our favorite hot springs where we layed around in the sun, soaked in the hot waters, and ate yummy food...and, of course, there was lots of game playing. We taught my parents how to play Cities and Knights version of Settlers and stayed up till midnight doing that on New Years Eve, followed by great fireworks shot off by all the neighbors. It was a great way to ring in the new year. The weekend is already packed and then we say good-bye on Monday. We will miss having visitors but are so thankful for the time we've had for a month and a half with our family.

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.