Volunteers' report. One of about half a dozen

The South American Adventure Continued...
Buenos Noches from Bolivia!

Well it´s been a while since the last post. A multitude of different hiccups in plans led to this. We apologize in not keeping up with the every other day post. Tonight is ending day 9. Only a week left in Bolivia...sad day. We have alot to catch up on so lets get this thing started. It is 10:15 pm here and I am in the office posting this as Dave (who did help with all the information for the post as usual) is sitting watching a movie in the tv room.

Tuesday was the day of the last post and it wrapped up Day 5. For this post updates are coming for Wed, Thurs, Fri, and of course today (Sat). Days 6-9...okay it will be long, but lets get it krunk.

Some opening comments...1) God is ridiculously awesome. Over the past few days, Dave (Not to get confused with David...it is the same person) and I have found ourselves shaking our heads and laughing at the things He continues to do each day. 2) The Moorhouses (directors of mission) have an unbelievable story of faith and trust in the Lord...more to come on this.

Day 6: This day began with more pan (bread) for breakfast. The pan in homemade and is very good in the mornings. Then, the Moorhouses invited Dave and me out for a family outing. I say family outing because it basically was minus two of their children. You see, the Moorhouses legally adopted three girls but two of them attend school and one is homeschooled. Kathrine, the homeschooled beautiful 12 year old, went with the four of us. On the way to run errands, Peter stopped and bought Dave and me ¨Saltenas¨ for a treat. Salentas are a essentially a chicken pot pie in a cresent roll. Well, we both enjoyed it emensely, but let´s just say it got the best of me. Dave is fine. However, ¨Bolivian Belly¨hit me worse than ever before.

The ladies and men split up and ran errands at various shops. Of course, the men went to the hardware store. Peter bought more supplies for our projects at the casa. We met up with the ladies at a kindergarten/daycare called ¨Rise and Shine.¨The director was very nice to Dave and me, and she even spoke perfect English! (which is vary rare for a Bolivian native)

When we returned home, I put another dent in the weed wacking of the tall grass near the animal pens. As I worked, Dave ran another errand to buy a new light bulb for the frustrating light I mentioned in the previous post. I ran out of line weed eating...again. The Bolivian grass is like a monster and ate the line in no time. In the afternoon, I took a two hour nap as the extreme case of ¨Bolivian Belly.¨If you don´t know exactly what ¨Bolivian Belly is well it basically...oh I will spare you. Go ¨google¨ it. ¨When I woke up, we attempted to solve the light fixture problem. Dave did the brunt of the work fixing the light fixture. Turns out, David is very knowledgeable on every day tasks and projects. There should be a light bulb turning on, ladies. Don´t let him go for too long. But seriously, we fixed the light fixture in the garage...finally. It needed to be totally replaced, and it works great now!

To wrap up the day, we ate dinner, played with the kids, and hung out together as if we don´t do enough of that already.

Day 7: The day began with Corn Flakes. Yes indeed, American cereal can be found in the mission. As we walked to the back to begin work for the day, Peter summoned Dave to do more driving. He took two adults and the two new children to the hospital for checkups! I don´t know if I mentioned the new arrivals before now, but over the past few days, a 1 year old baby girl named Hagar and a 2 year old boy named Moises were brought to the mission. The agency called the Moorhouses and asked if they could take them. The Moorhouses didn´t have room, but Peter suddenly remembred a friend had asked Peter to hold two baby beds for her till she had space at her house for them. So, Peter told the agency he could take the two kids! One cannot tell him, me, or anyone else involved that the Lord was not in on those circumstances. The Lord had the cribs here waiting on the young children before anyone realized it. These type of things happen everyday at the mission!

Back to the day. Dave waited at the hospital for a hour and a half as the new babies received their checkups. He noticed that the hospital will also see cats, dogs, and other animals during the day just as they would humans. So basically, the hospital and vet are the same thing in Bolivia...interesting. I weed wacked as David waited. I ran out of line again...and began to feel bad again while playing soccer with the kids. I headed straight to bed to take a nap which turned into a 4 hour nap. I slept from 11-3. Dave drove more and picked the kids up from morning school. It turned out to be an easy afternoon. I read the Batallion (A&M school newspaper), and Peter really enjoyed looking at it and learning about the good ol Aggies. Whoop! Dave and I changed the oil on the big bus without a jack and ended up getting oil all over us. We cleaned up and ate a lite bite because we had to go with Peter to pick up a group of 10 Canadians from the downtown bus stop.

Dave and I didn´t have to search long to find 10 gringos in the Cochabamba bus stop. The group includes members from a social justice society at a university outside of Toronto, and they range in ages from 18-23. They left Canada and arrive in La Paz where they worked with various organizations then worked in the Amazon region for ten days and now they are working during the day with Peter and the mission. It was fun to meet new people and actually speak english with people our own age. 8 girls and 2 guys. Good ratio?? Yes, I do believe so. Peter took the group and us to eat before the group settled for the night at a nearby hostel. Interesting that Peter offered to let them eat at a restaurant because that hasn´t happened for us since Dave and I have been here. Not that we are bitter or anything. We ate pizza. Yes, I said we. I did eat for the first time since breakfast, and I felt great. Bolivian Belly= Gone! We dropped them off at the hostel and headed to bed.

Day 8: The Canadians arrive around 9 am and we began working together on a few different big projects for Peter. It was great to have a big group and really knock out some big tasks! One group began diggin a trench for a ¨septic field.¨ Before I came to Bolivia, I wasn´t too sure what a septic field accomplished. Basically, it is drainage piping into the yard from the gray water in the septic tank. This helps with the maintaining the levels in the tank, as well as fertilizing the yard. So one group dug while another group formed a stone path from the futbol/basketball court to the garden and animal pens. Dave and I dug ditches for the piping. It was rough work, but we worked together and knocked out a chunk of it as a group before lunch. In a span of three hours, I developed 8 blisters on my hands from using a pick-ax and shovel for the piping. They feel grrrrreat! No really, Dave did´t get one and I got 8. I´m still trying to figure out why.

We enjoyed lunch and then headed out to try moving MASSIVE stumps that we left in the backyard after the MASSIVE trees were cut down. Peter wanted the stumps moved, so that he would be able to extend his garden another 20 yards. We put our other projects on hold and began trying to move the stumps. These aren´t any ol stumps. We are talking stumps as big a small cars, people! Coupled with all the Canadians and Dave´s super strength, we moved all but one of the stumps throughout the rest of the afternoon. I will have pictures of these stumps if you are interested.

In the middle of moving stumps, the mission´s pet turtle ¨Rocky¨ decided to grace us with his presence. This turtle was the biggest turtle I have ever seen outside of the zoo, of course. The zoo always had those ridicously huge turtles that were 367 years old or something. But, this turtel was BIG! And he decided to poop all over the basketball court. What a great appearance he made.

All of us went inside and played with the kids during afternoon tea. Around 5, we left to take all the Canadians back to the hostel. On this trip, we fit 26 people into the van. The van is supposed to hold 12... Anyways, we stopped at the supermarket on the way to the hostel. The supermarket carries all of the American products. Dave and I grabbed a snacks. Peter left to go run ¨errands¨ while all of us shopped and returned with 28 live chickens sitting in the floor of the van. Very interesting. Dave and I rode back to the mission with 28 live chickens flapping around us in the back of the van. As they flapped, you can guess what else they were doing... The chickens were a donation to the mission for food. The Moorhouses were running low on chicken. Don´t think God was involved on that one???

The kids watched an animated show on tele in Spanish, so Dave and I passed and hung out and went to bed early.

Day 9: Well, Dave and I went to bed early last night becauase we woke up at 4:30 am this morning. Right now, you are asking yourself why did they wake up at 4:30??? We woke up to prepare for a long day and begin the travel to Mt. Tunari! Mt. Tunari is an imposing 16,500 ft mountain! David, three of the Canadians (Gaygan, Dawn, and Lisa), Moses (14 year old boy in the mission), and I lef the house at 5 am. Peter drove us and we picked up our guide, Stanny, who is the husband of the mission cook. We drove 20 minutes to a taxi. So now, Dave and I are in a taxi at 6 am in the middle of Bolivia with Canadians we met just two days ago, a young boy, a guide who we just met, and a taxi driver who doesn´t know us from Adam. Let the games begin.

The taxi drives 30 minutes and drops all of us off at the base of this HUGE mountain on the side of the road. At this point, I was still wondering why are we doing this??? Two women and six guys are standing with our backpacks on at 6:30 am on the side of the road. The guide doesn´t speak english. It is freezing. I am praying.

We begin the climb. This is a trip that Peter has offered to groups who he thinks are fit enough to survive the thin air and physically demanding climb. After hearing this, I am wondering..okay so why is Moses, a 14 year old boy, coming with us?? This will soon be discover. We begin...the climbing is rough and very fast paced. The guide is not messing around. Quickly, all of us are out of breath except for two people...the guide and Moses the 14 year old boy. This remained the same throughout the entire climb. We would climb for a while then take a break for water and food. The air became very thin because of the altitude. Everyone´s legs are burning.

Through the climb, the sun begins to rise over the moutains, the breaks become longer, the heart beats harder, and the head aches more. It was absolutely, as Jim Carey would say, B-E-A-UTIFUL! God´s perfect creation was singing of His glory! Breath-taking views are seen one after another as each steep and slippery slope is conquered. We saw llamas, wild horses, sheep, and huge hawks on the way up the moutain. We finally arrived at the peak at 11:30 am. Yes, that´s right...5 hours of climbing. It was brutal. We suffered from the lack of oxygen and were relieved to say the least to reach the top. We spent a hour and a half on top of the moutain. Dave and I took multiple pictures, video taped (thanks to Lance Casey) the incredible views, and ate lunch at 16,500 feet! Amazing experience! God is so majestic and worthy of praise.

At 1 pm, we began the desecent down the mountain. It was much easier to go down than up. Much easier, but it was still a steep slope on the way down. Coupled with loose stones and thousands of cacti, the moutain made it diffcult to navigate the descent. We arrived at the road at 4:30 pm. We were exhausted, hungry, and thirsty but pleased with our accomplishment of conquering Mt. Tunari! We have lots of photos and good video footage of the climb too.

Obviously, we relaxed this evening and took it easy. It is time for bed.

To close I wanted to leave you with some scripture that was very evident in today´s climb:
¨For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bown down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.¨Psalm 95:3-6

David and I want to thank all of you who are thinking and praying for us through this time. We feel your prayers everyday as we experience new things and learn more about the Lord of our life.

Love you all and goodnight,
Carson and David