August 25 & 26

We have spent the last two days here in Cochabamba at the Luz De Cristo the church we were in on Sunday morning. On Monday we ran two session of puppets, songs, games and crafts back to back- The children were so responsive and interacted with every one on the team. Bethany taught ´Dum, Dum Dotta´ to the kids and Emily led ´Simone Dice´ or ´Simon Says´. Great to see both kids and adults laugh at themselves, us and others as we rocketed through these interactive games. The team went on with assisting in making wordless braclets which communicate the gospel message in colors, after that we had the kids color and were amazed at their artistry.

In the late afternoon Adam, Greg and Joe led, with the rest of us, a training for pùppetry. Dan commented on how good we were considering what he saw and where everyone has to start to make these characters believable in their movements and lip-sinc. It is not as easy as it looks for sure. We also showed them how the stage was contructed so that each ministry could copy or modify the design for their own use. Our plan is to leave both puppets and stage for them when we leave next week.

Our team has been well cared for at the Ubb Center. Our cook keeps us full to over flowing and the facility is great. Our Bolivian host, Pastor Jhonny has been a terrific part of our team in every way, it has been a priveledge to get to know him and the other pastors of the area. They are held in very high regard here along with great responsibility!

Monday night Adam and Emily went and played Wallyball (no spelling error here) with the local Compassion rep, Daniel Guiterez. They had such a good time that they plan to play again this week. We teased Daniel as Emily came back with blood all over her shirt from a bloody nose sustained as they learned the new game (basically volleyball played in a racketball court with the walls considered part of play). Most of the rest of the team went for ice cream off the main square.

Tuesday we returned to the same church to help paìnt classrooms. The paint was being mixed and hand colored in the courtyard at the front of the church as we arrived. Each class had been able to choose their own color. Each church is alotted so much paint and their seems to be a contest to see how far they can stretch it! Watered down to get the most square meters as possible, seems strange to most of us who started painting as if one to two coats would do it and found ourselves at 4 coats most of the time. Splatter was the decoration we all wore for the most part. We finished 3 rooms total and a good part of the 4th as well. Luis, Josefina, Pastors Eddy and Freddy assisted us and added to the fun. Even the new believer Miguel that we saw baptized on Sunday morning was their painting. Each Bolivian leader seemed to have a plan, however communicating it was interesting to say the least.

Each day the church provides the same lunch that Compassion provides for each child and we bring our own table service and drinks. We have been told that the easiest way to avoid getting sick is avoiding things that cannot be pealed or sticking to things that have been cooked. Also, with our own clean table service we avoid another point of possible contamination. They treated us with cold Coca Cola for which Colin was extremely thankful! He has not had any of the nectar since leaving the states but has remained calm and level headed. He can quit any time (Or so he says).

The end of Tuesday afternoon a few of us once again taught a puppetry session again to local church and compassion leaders. Average height here is significantly smaller than in the states so stage heights can sometimes be a challenge. Each participant has a great attitude and we are told that this kind of ministry is really affective here and easily duplicated in the area. One lady brought a puppet she had made that looked professionally crafted and definitely more culturally relivant.

Towards evening the pastors presented us with gifts and their thanks for what we have accomplished over the last 3 days here. They were looking ahead to what the ministry we have provided might be multiplied in the future. They also had a cake in honor of Trimmie´s birthday as well as one of the pastor´s daughter. This evening some went to a Christian folk concert while others joined Emily and Adam with Daniel Guiterez again at Wallyball.

Our times of team worship, devotion and prayer are the part of the day that keeps us grounded as we face full days and new experiences. We also share our ´strikes and gutters´or highs and lows for each day. God has obviously blessed us all with each team member as we relate to one another. We been especially graced with many Spanish speakers and people who love children.

Colin, for the Team

day 4?

I cant keep track of what day it is since we got off of the plane, but yesterday was an amazing adventure. In the morning we went to Jhonny's church and we sang in front of the church and performed one of the puppet programs. Getting to hear all of the children laugh and repeat the verses is a wonderful experience. God is working with these muppets! And he is working in us.

later in the day we went to a bolivian restaraunt and had some amazing food then went to a futball game at the local stadium. We were all routing for Jhonny's favorite team, San Jose, yet sadly they lost. A fight broke out and luckily noone on either team was hurt.

My favorite part of the day had to be when we went to the Quechua church in the outskirts of town to do the puppet skits. We were invited to lead some worship and do the muppet show as well, then we lugged the stage downstairs with an army of children flowing around us smiling and laughing. We got into this tiny room where the stage barely fit and proceded to do every single program that we have for them, and the kids loved it. The whole night was just a great adventure and taste of God's love for the whole world.

Please continue to be praying for our success down here in Bolivia. As we still have much work to do and a few of us are under the weather. Dios te Bendiga.
-greg

Some Pictures from Sunday

Adam with a true La Paz indigino


The team at a soccer game. San Jose is playing (Jhonny's team)


The team out to dinner with the Collins and Jhonny's family, just before the futbol game.

Dios Te Bendiga

Hey Everyone,

So day 4 already! The lst couple of days have been so awesome and I can't wait to see what else God has in store for us here.

Last night we went to a city wide young adult service on one of the poorest sides of Cochabamba. We worshiped in spanish but we knew almost all the songs. And let me tell you, You Are Good in spanish is SO COOL! They even had Emily and Bethany come up on stage and sing Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord with them in English while they sang in spanish. It was great because it was worship our language did not matter, we were just prasing God together. One of the best parts was that along with the worship band they had a group of girls that danced with tambourines. It was so amazing because there dance wasn't distracting like so many American dances are but it was just worship and it was a part of thier worship, and it was beautiful.

As a welcome to our team they had us all come to the front and we all recived alpca earflap hats that have llamas on them. It was so humbling because they were really honored to have us there and they wanted to show us that. Then most of them proceeded to come up and greet with benvonitos and kisses(well one kiss on the right cheek)

The rest of the service was great a little hard to understand...it was all in spanish. Pastor Eddie spoke on Gods purpose in our lives, and gave a killer altar call at the end. It was funny because I wondered how I would feel about the entire service in spanish, what can i say my spanish from high school is a bit rusty. But it was really powerful, the presence of God was there and in what Pastor Eddie was saying. Yeah i didn't understand every word but God still spoke to me even through that language barrier. God is so amazing in that way!!!

On Monday we are going back to do a puppet training session for some of the students. They have a big evagilisim event in October and they are using the puppet that we brought. So we did a demonstration in the service. It was pretty funny because this puppet show is ment for little kids and we were performing for high school and college age people. But they laughed, repeated the verses the puppets quoted and really enjoyed it. I was so relived.

So got to head out we are on our way to Church in a few minutes and I'm still in my pjs. But today will be fun we have two church services, one in spanish and one in cechoen( totally misspelled that) And this afternoon we are going to a futbol game...go San Jose!!!!!!!

Thanks for all the prayers... keep them coming!!!

Grace and Peace,

Kaliyah

Day 2...man the food is good!

Hola de Bethany en Cochabamba, Bolivia!

Well, it is now our second day on the soil of South America. It has been so incredible! We are staying at this amazing place called Union Bautista Boliviana. We all have our own beds, nice warm showers, and the food is amazing. I have never eaten so well, or eaten so much.

Last night Dan, Darryl, and their three kids all came to the Baptist Center and had dinner with us. We also gave them a little preview of our puppet show. The kids really liked it. We also gave the kids each a lunch box filled with candy from the United States. They were really excited! Most of us went to bed around 8:30 last night. That is 5:30pm back home. It was so nice. We got up and had a morning devotional with some worship and had a great breakfast.

This morning Dan and Darryl gave our team some expectations and guidelines for our trip. We also met the director for the Compassion projects in the Cochabamba area, and he gave us a quick run down of what will happen at the different sights. Everyone here is so friendly. It has been really fun to practice some of the Spanish that we know.

Dan and Darryl then walked with us around downtown Cochabamba and showed us where a bank was located, and a really good coffee shop. We then stopped at an ice cream shop called, Globos and had the most incredible sundaes.

We have a little down time and then we are heading to the South side of Cochabamba, which is the poorest part of town. There we are going to meet college students and show them our puppet show and hopefully help them learn how to do it. It is going to be a great experience to see how and where people our age live in different parts of the world.

This morning, during our devotional, we read out of Romans 12:1-8. Those verses were great for us to hear at this point of our trip. The scriptures reference to the different spiritual gifts that people have. It was great to be reminded that each person on our team has a specific gift that God has given them, and that we can be excited to get to use each one of those in a special and unique way.

So far no one has gotten sick, and we would love to keep it that way. Please keep praying for the safety of our team. We will be doing some shopping, going to a futbol game, and hiking a 1,000ft butte. So we will definitely be needing your prayer. Thank you so much to all of you who have supported us in so many ways. You are truly a blessing to us, and by extension we can hopefully be a blessing to the people here. Thank you for helping to make a difference for the people living in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Blessings,

Bethany Jennings

We've Arrived!!!

Four plain flights and seven cities later and we are finally here in Cochabamba Bolivia. It is a great feeling to be in a state of recooperation from the many hours of travel, but to also be extactic of all the exciting adventures to come. I can barely contain my joy when as I share with you how evident God has been in the logistics of this trip already and we have only just arrived. His provision was evident in that the day before we left Eugene, due to the falling American dollar and some unexpected expenses we found ourselves $400 short of what we would need. With a lot of prayer and only one phone call I was blown away to hear that before that day was even done we were once again fully finacially covered.
As we headed out of Portland our flight that was supposed to be leaving at seven am was delayed by two hours. This was great news in the fact that it provided more sleep time, but an issue in the fact that Bethany, who had no knowledge of the change was meeting us at the airport. She didn't have her cell phone with her, so we had know way of finding her or telling her that we would be arriving two hours later. What could have been a problematic situation was easilly solved by paging Bethany and in a matter of minutes finding her walking towards our group. Though she was extremely exhausted and I think a littl emotionally frazzled, God definitely kept our team together from then on out.
After finding Bethany we feared the potential of losing another team member. Out of the eight group members all but Trimmie had acquired the necessary visa, required to enter Bolivia. As the airline attendant took the passports from Adam she checked all of them with a fine toothed comb verifying that all of us had our required visas. All of them that is except for the final passport, Trimmie's passport. If the fact that the one passport that didn't have a visa was the only one that didn't get checked is not enough of a blessing from God, we also were able to check 11 bags for 7 people without paying a single dime. The new rule is that the first bag is free and the second one costs $25. That is $100 that we didn't have to spend.
The best part of all this was we hadn't even left Oregon and already God's merciful hand was already being blatently revealed to us all!
On our flight to Chicago we all adjusted without any problems, all of us that is except for Darcy. Darcy, probably one of the sweetest girls I know was quickly repremanded by the flight attendent. The attendent in the rudest way possibly told Darcy to get off her cell phone and that the whole plane was waiting on her. All of us shocked to hear such a harsh repremand found it even more comical when Darcy was again repremanded by the same flight attendent for having her bag not fully under the seat in front of her, both before the plane had even left the terminal. Our team of course proceeded to give Darcy a hard time informing her that she had "two strikes", three strikes and she was out! The joking lasted the entire flight and Greg actually recieved a strike from the attendant for using the first class bathroom and then getting stuck behind the food cart.
The next transition, which due to the two hour delay was going to involve a very quick sprint across the Chicago airport, was once again saved by a delay in flights. The plane that we were supposed to take to Miami was broken and we were told that they might have to bring in a whole new plane. This would most likely make us miss our connection in Miami, so it was once again time to bring it to the Lord. After some prayer the plane was up and running again and we were off to Miami with little delay.
Due to the "issues" we had with Darcy on the previous flight I thought it only fair to warn the flight attendents on the plane to Miami. After a quick chat with who we would later find to be one of the funniest guys we would meet on our travels, the flight attendent named Franklin, aka Bob, had his sights set on giving Darcy a hard time.
Before taking off "Bob" came up to Darcy and said " I just heard from the flight attendents on your previous flight that you are a trouble maker...just remember my Kung-Fu is better than yours." Our whole team burst into laughter, and from that point on anytime "Bob" would walk by he would say something hilarious to keep Darcy "out of trouble." By the end of the flight when we thought he could get any funnier, he surpassed all of our expectations.
Just after landing as we were approaching the terminal "Bob" came over the loud speaker telling the entire plane that they needed to know of the celebrity we had on our flight. He told the plane the Darcy Gadach had just broken a world record for annoying flight attendent from Oregon to Florida. We could hardly breathe we were laughing so hard. He also wished our team well on our trip and had the plane applaud us for our efforts to come in Bolivia.
God not only blessed us with safe travels, but he also blessed us with great memories and lots of laughter. We met up with Dan and Johnny (one of the pastors at the church compound we are staying in) upon arrival to Santa Cruz and they traveled with from there to Cochabamba. Another praise was that we had absolutely no trouble getting Trimmie his visa upon arrival and the even crazier thing was that we discovered that all our visas are good for five years. We payed $100 for ours and Trimmie had to pay $135, while Dan informed us that his cost about $1000. Who knows if any of us will get a chance to use them again after this trip, but the cool thing is that God continues to provide.
Our Journal verses for this travel day were John 15:1-16. We know we can't do anything without Him and as was clearly revealed to us on this trip as we abide in Him our Joy will become full.

Day 1 - In transit