Jesus can

Does God feel like me? Does He feel this wrenching feeling in His stomach at the thought of His children. I am missing moments with them - my kids in Bolivia. I am missing when they get mad, when any learn something new, when they go through problems. I’m not there to pray with them, to comfort them, to laugh or cry with them.

There is so much that I don’t know and so much yet to learn through life experience but I wish more than anything that I could experience it with my kids. I don’t necessarily want to be back in Bolivia, but I want to be with my kids. My heart is torn. I love hot showers, variety in food, a change in weather, a bug and mosquito free house and all the other millions of blessings that come from living in the states. But I miss the cry of “teeCher!” ringing from different houses, miss the wet kisses, I even miss the ache when one of the kids won’t talk to me because he or she is hurting and I hurt for them because I love them so much! 

God must feel these things that I feel but even deeper. He made me and every one of my kids. He knows every intricate detail of my and my kids lives, every secret sin, bad thought, silent joy, and a deep desire to please Him. He has seen us at our weakest and lowest points. He loves us deeper than we can imagine and I don’t know how to deal with the thought that while my heart aches when I think of my kids and I cry thinking about the guilt I feel in not being able to be there for them and love them for the rest of their lives, He loves them. He loves my kids more than I ever could. So I cling to the thought that when I can’t be there to physically hold my children and mend their brokenness, Jesus can.

Love never fails

It's over. I am back in the states, far from my kids and I'm home... or I'm away from home. I haven't quite figured out where home is now.
My family is where I am at in California but I left my kids and my heart in Bolivia. I don't want to talk about the goodbyes but I will say that leaving was the hardest thing I've had to do. God has used my kids, my experiences good and bad and my time at Familia Feliz to teach me so much. More than anything though, this past year He has taught me so much about loving others unconditionally.

There's a song that I basically played on repeat when things were hard, when I was spending quiet time with God or when I needed a reminder on why I had chosen to serve in Bolivia. Love never fails by Brandon Heath challenged me to love with everything in me and with all the love God could give me. It has helped comfort me now as I'm far from my kids to know that even though I can't be near to listen, encourage or love my kids, God will never fail them and will alway be with them. And so until I am blessed to be with my children again or until Jesus comes back, this song reminds me of the love that I have for my kids but also of how much Jesus loves each of us and each one of my kids.


                                                                 Love is not proud

Love does not boast 

Love after all matters the most

Love does not run

Love does not hide

Love does keep locked inside

Love is the river that flows through

Love never fails you

Love will sustain 

Love will provide 

Love will not cease at the end of time

Love will protect

Love always hopes

Love still believes when you don't

Love is the arms that are holding you

Love never fails you

When my heart won't make a sound

When I can't turn back around

When the sky is falling down

Nothing is great than this

Greater than this

Love is right here

Love is alive

Love is the way

The truth the life

Love is the river that flows through

Love is the arms that are holding you

Love is the place you will fly to

Love never fails you

Happy birthday, with love

Birthdays are something that I always get ridiculously excited about. This year was no exception. My birthday, May 4, finally arrived and landed on my day off so it was a twice as special day.

The week before my birthday though, I moved from la casa de frutas where I've been living for the past 8 months to la casa de cereales because the two sm's who were in that house returned home.
The switch happened rather quickly as I went to a house of 10 to a house of 9, from there being four volunteers being in the house to two and from living above the cafeteria that was extremely hot to the house that backed up to the jungle.
Because we can open our backdoor and take ten steps and be surrounded by jungle, that also means that we share our house with jungle life.

My birthday morning rolled around and as I was sitting in the living room with all my girls having personal worship time, one of my girls called my attention to the víbora that was making its way up the inside of our thatched roof to the main beam. It was above my room and since the divider walls don't go all the way to the ceiling, it was easy to see the white snake making its way to the highest beam. I think I'd disturbed his sleep by turning on the lights so early in the morning.
It was a pretty long white snake and Alejandro remarked that he hated to kill it once he'd been summoned to extract it. Maybe I don't appreciate God's snakes like I should but I didn't care what happened as long as that snake ended up dead. Alejandro shimmied up the wooden post, machete in hand and killed it but not before he successfully lodged it in between the thatched roof so we currently have a dead snake still in our roof. We'll see how long it takes to decompose.

Since it was my day off, I went to town and was able to connect with most of my family and wish my little brother a happy birthday as well since we're birthday twins but he's 4 years younger. The two other volunteers that I was with on my day off surprised me by buying me a brownie, tall glittery gold candles which they stuck in my brownie and lit as they sang cumpleaños feliz. In true Bolivian style, one of the candles broke as they were singing but it wasn't catching anything on fire so we let it be. It was really sweet of them to do those things to celebrate my birthday.

Once I got back to the mission, I dropped my backpack off at the nearest house and braced myself as I saw eight of my boys running towards me yelling, "es el cumpleaños de la teacher Kaylie!". I tried my best to fight as they grabbed my arms and legs and started making their way towards the river but we all knew it was useless to fight. Still, it made it more fun that way and I almost escaped twice from their grasp. Once we got to the ledge that dropped into the creek, I gave up struggling and instead latched onto a victim to bring with me into the creek. That poor victim was Kevin who wasn't fast enough to get out of the way and over the edge and into the murky water we went followed by my daughter Eva who had promised that she would go in the creek with me when my birthday came.
We all emerged from the water dripping and laughing.

That whole evening I was surprised with cards, hugs, kisses and "te quiero"s or "I love you!"s from the kids.
I felt so loved and it reminded me of the verse I had just committed to that morning in my personal worship - Hebrews 6:10 "Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true."
I read that verse and it reminded me again why I am here at Familia Feliz and what my purpose is here in this world; to love others unconditionally. Though sometimes my attempt to love others has been rejected, thrown back in my face and taken advantage of, I always know that those who live in love live in God and God lives in them for God is love. (1 John 4:16)
So as I turned 24 (I know, I still can't believe it.), I purposed that I want to love with everything that I have and with all the love God can give me. I want to experience God's love on a deeper level and show others how much God loves them and how much He wants a personal relationship with each person.
It's so simple.
God is love.

Who's the Fool?

April fools day is always something looked forward to at my house. My brother and I make secret plans to fool each other and our parents and we have come up with some great pranks in years past.
As April approached this year, I determined that this year should be no different than years past. I would find a victim - someone who was just asking to be pranked. That someone happened to be Kevin.
Kevin is my 9th grade student. He's pretty smart and always joking around and laughing at me. The only problem is that April fools isn't celebrated here and no one knows what it is. With careful planning, I casually told him about April fools a month in advanced then warned him that any prank was possible on that day to anyone. He squinted his eyes at me and told me he would be ready. I reminded him about it the day before April just in case he had forgotten but to my satisfaction, he had not and was looking forward to it. Good.
April 1st was on Sabbath and as it happened, it was my houses sabbath to be in the kitchen. Each house has a rotation where we have to make the food for that Sabbath. Everything is already precooked  the day before like the rice, beans and tortillas but the breakfast food, Mosley (which is like oatmeal mixed with soy milk and bits of fruit - it's what we have every sabbath) just needs to be mixed together and cooked. I guess we follow more closely the Israelite tradition of not cooking on the Sabbath but that's because it's a lot of work starting the fire and cooking everything.
Anyways,the volunteers in my house and I decided to pull a prank and dye the Mosley pink. However, it didn't really work out because everyone just thought we used leche de frutilla (strawberry milk) to flavor the Mosley so almost no one got the joke.
Although that joke was a bust, I had been scheming for a month on what joke I should pull on Kevin and had finally arrived at a simple solution: toothpaste in Oreos. The only mistake that I made was that I should not have removed all the cream inside but added the toothpaste on top of the cream. I didn't however and so the cookie was a little more squishy than normal. Kevin picked up on it right away when I offered him and Oreo and said he was going to split his Oreo with Jesús.
That's when I knew my joke was foiled and when he broke the cookie, he could clearly tell that there was toothpaste instead of cream inside. Bummer.
With that he rubbed the Oreo and toothpaste in my face then ran off laughing. By the time I came back after washing my face off, Jesús had given his broken part of the cookie to one of the girls and had convinced her to eat it which she did then quickly spit it out. So one person got pranked at least.
At that moment,one of the other boys came over, Jahel, and asked what the noise was so I offered him a cookie. He was suspicious too, looked inside, saw that it had toothpaste and began to happily eat it. Turns out, he's one of those kids who likes to eat toothpaste. Two of my girls will eat toothpaste so we have to keep it for them and only let them use a little each time they want to brush their teeth. So April fools had an interesting turn of events and while no prank was actually successful, it was still a fun day.

. . . . .

I haven't hit the "oh my word! I'm going to leave soon! I don't want to! Going away will be the worst!" Stage yet but I am starting to stay awake longer thinking about what I can do for these kids in the last 39 days that I have here.

Spring break, Semana Santa, was last week and I had half the week off with a group of people then the last part of the week, the other half of the volunteers had off. Almost everyone who had their time off the first part of the week went to La Paz but I stayed here and was content with going to town every so often to talk to my family. I arrived back on campus after being gone the whole day and was met by all my girls who didn't go home for spring break, running out to meet me and giving me hugs. It was like I had returned from a long vacation instead of just seven hours in town. I am starting to realize that I just might miss a little bit of everything when I leave.

It's been a while since I posted, I know. So many things have happened and taken place but through the ups and downs, the trails and the victories I can still say that God is faithful and constant. He loves us with a love beyond what we are able to imagine! And this adventure that God has brought me on in Bolivia has revealed to me more of His unfathomable love.

Figuring it Out

"Turn off the light when you leave a room."
"Did you wash your hands with soap?"
"Speak slower so that I can understand you, please."

I have said these phrases and other similar ones more times than I can count within the last month since school started back. I'm starting to sound like a parent and since there are nine girls ages 7-15 in my house, I think I've started acting like a parent too even though at times I slip back to my "resisting adulthood" self by playing in the rain and having water fights.
It's been a long lesson to learn but I am figuring out that being in charge of a family means finding the balance between just loving and loving but still disciplining.
I don't like disciplining. I don't like giving punishments when my girls don't listen or look at me in defiance and challenge my instructions. But when they tell me no when I ask them to do their chores or choose to do exactly what I told them not to do, I have to correct them because I love them and want them to learn to obey in order to give them a better life down the road.

I use to always dislike verses in the Bible like, "The Lord loves those He corrects and "Spare the rod and spoil the child" but I now completely agree with them. It's because I care so much about them that I try to correct their behavior.
I don't like how adult-like this post is sounding or how my blogs are more serious and less stories but being a student missionary has changed me. I'm still figuring out what those changes are and trying to sift through what changes that I want to keep that are positive and which changes I want to throw out. And although I am changing and being stretched beyond what is comfortable I am growing. I just pray that I am growing more towards the person God wants me to be and that this experience as a student missionary will only help me grow closer to God and my relationship with Him.

Something that I have noticed in the last two weeks is that I've finally reached the point where I have won the confidence of some of my students and the girls that I live with. It took a long time, excruciatingly long to the point that I wondered if everything I was doing for them was going unnoticed but I've formed deep relationships with them and only within the last few weeks have I started to see the results. They confide in me their fears, boy problems, what they're scared about and will walk with me to class and tell me about how they are feeling. I feel so privileged to have just gotten to this point with them and although it's taken seven months to reach this point, I think it's been worth the wait.

Short and blistered

Sunday mornings are now our service days. We go cut other people's grass, we pick up trash along the road (did that in the pouring rain a couple sundays ago but it made some pretty good memories) and most recently, my older girls went out to machete the banana grove. We tried to machete it every so often last semester but when vacation came, we let it grow and worked on cutting the grass around the mission. Because of that, the grass was taller than my head! My four girls that I had brought with me didn't seem daunted by the task in front of them but began to hack their way into everything, machetes swinging, grass flying and blisters forming. Well, I was the only one who got blisters since i hadn't macheted for a month and my hands had turned soft again but I discovered something, i'm not a terrible machetier any more. I'm actually cutting things when I swing instead of hacking at the same patch of grass over and over again. My girls said I had improved a lot and the only thing I could do to improve would be to keep my body still and just swing my arm as I worked. Yay for trying new things, practicing for months and finally succeeding! Next thing to accomplish, learning to swing an ax successfully.

One, Two, Three - Time to Read

My schedule is a little bit of everything since I teach 6th grade every Monday, teach three different English classes and two 5th grade classes.
There were only three rambunctious boys in my fifth grade classes until last week when one of my girls was moved from 7th to 5th grade. She's older than the boys in her class but she can't read or write. Because of this she will probably not pass her classes although she can copy everything written on the board but not understand what she's writing. Besides my Social Studies class that I have with 5th grade I also have a reinforcement class also known as an hour to study and do homework or study for quizzes or tests. Come last Monday, during the study hour I had Zulma pull up a chair and sit next to me as we went through the alphabet. I have zero experience with teaching someone how to read but I decided that my trying to help her was better than doing nothing at all.
Last year in college I took a class on how to help struggling readers who had fallen behind but the kids always knew the basics and I didn't have to start from scratch like I'm doing with Zulma. Luckily, it's Spanish that I am trying to teach so I don't have to worry about teaching the letter names and the sound or having her memorize site words.
We went over the alphabet sounds and she knew almost all of them so that was encouraging.
Next time together she learned her vowel sounds and what a vowel sound then we started to blend two letter words together. Turns out, I don't know a lot of two letter Spanish words but it's ok.

I'm excited for her to learn and although right now her motivation for learning to read is because she does not want to be embarrassed in her classes, I hope she'll eventually find a passion for reading and spend every minute that she has expanding her mind, exploring new worlds and imagining and creating different images when she picks up a book.

.......

Not to be dramatic or anything but I had it in my mind to pack up and go home after one of the girls from Wiemar told me that they'd seen a flying snake in the jungle while the group heading to the zip line tour. I've seen those nature videos about those snakes that can glide from tree to tree but when I learned that they are literally living within twenty minutes of me I had to calm myself down and ask twenty or so children if they'd ever seen a flying snake and after 19 no's and 1 yes, I felt more at peace. Still, there seems to have been an uprising in snakes recently. After 5 months I'd only seen one dead snake but within these last two months I've killed a snake, seen a baby boa and there's been two bigger ones in Miguel's house that have been found hiding out. The day I find a snake living in my upper story house is the day where I will really weigh my necessity to be here against my fear of snakes.

Take a Stretch

While these first two weeks back to school have been emotionally draining, mentally tasking and more challenging than I ever thought possible, there have been rays of sunshine that have made their way into the business.
1. Jahel came back to school and nothing has changed between us. His eyes still light up with mischief whenever I glance in his direction. He still loves my hugs and being sassy by saying in English to me, "I am sorry for you" and even though he's 13 and tries to act grown up like a lot of the boys, he will still fall into fits of laughter when he "steals" my nose and I pretend I can't breath until he gives it back. I honestly didn't know I could love someone so fast and so much until I met Jahel. He's the most loveable child I have ever known.
2. Maribel called me "mi mama" and it made my heart melt a little. I was tucking her into bed and teased her by asking if she remembered to give me a kiss goodnight and in her matter-of-fact little seven year old voice she responded with of course she was going to kiss her mom goodnight. Side note: I've wondered at times if I could be a mom because the thought of raising kids seems rather daunting (especially 12 at a time although I realize that most people don't try to raise that many children at once) but hearing her say the words, "mi mama" made me feel so happy.
3. Wiemar came! A group of over 40 people ranging from doctors to dentists to 9th-12th grade students arrived Tuesday midmorning. They're here to help the community by giving free health care, give a week of prayer and vacation Bible study and build a garage for our truck. And while there's been a slight change in our house in that we went from having 13 people in our house to now having 30 and one working bathroom, they're here for a purpose, they're going to do good things. It's been fun seeing their reactions to all the things I've become accustomed to such as tarantulas, putting your toilet paper in the trash can instead of the toilet and lice.

Speaking of lice, I am currently lice free! Woohoo! I think I wrote about how scared I was of getting lice in one of my first blogs when I first got here. I succeeded in not getting it all of last school year but inevitably it found its way to my hair in the middle of December when only about 10 of our 80 students were at the mission. Turns out, lice isn't as scary as I thought it would be. You may think it's gross that I'm saying that but honestly, there are worse things in life then lice and it's not permanent .
I got rid of them the end of December but had Audrey check my hair just to make sure and she confirmed that I am lice free. It's the small victories.

I think the month of February could be summed up in one word - stretched. I've been stretched in more than one direction, my patience has been stretched as has my relationship with God. If I'm going to be stretched though, I want this month to stretch me to make me more dependent on God, to make me rely on His help daily and for His comfort when I'm in the storm.

I'm a mom again

You know that strange Christmas jingle that says, "mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again"? Those lyrics have applied to me for the past couple weeks but in a different way. During vacation I only had two of my girls with me but when school started last Monday, all my girls came back along with a couple new girls. I've been looking forward to school because I get to be a mom and a teacher again. I get to say goodnight to my  girls every night, sing hymns with them every morning and evening, listen to them when they're frustrated and hug and pray with them when they have a bad day.
Yes, my patience with grow thin, I won't be able to understand them at times, I know I'll get worn out and I'll probably want to cry in frustration when what I say is ignored or disrespected but loving them and helping them in anyway I can makes everything worth while.
It's a little crazy going from being a single adult to suddenly being a mom to so many pre-teenage or in full swing teenage girls but the other part of me that isn't terrified likes a good challenge.
I have been given such a privilege - to love these girls with the love of Jesus and I pray that they'll get to know Him on a deeper level these last four months that I have with them.

May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God - Ephesians 3:19

Facing Death

It was a dark and cloudy morning when my dad and I decided to face death head on. We climbed in the back of a fourteen passenger van and set off at a rapid pace climbing our way out of La Paz towards the Andes Mountains. We reached the point where snow began to plaster itself against our red van but we pressed on.

Finally we stopped under the shelter of a toll booth roof. At fourteen thousand elevation, our breath came out in white puffs mixing with the clouds encircling us. We began to put our gear on. First came our elbow pads and knee pads, second our wind resistant pants and jackets and finally came our helmet and gloves. With adrenaline pumping through our veins and knowing full well the risk that we were taking, we began our mountain bike ride down Death Road.

Our guide had informed us before we started that before a safer road was built, there use to be around 300 deaths every year from cars or buses going off the cliffs. Genial. (Perfect.)

We started off on asphalt which was fast but not too threatening. However, after riding 14 kilometers (I don't know what that is in miles.) we began the dangerous part of the trip - the narrow rocky road. As we began, bikers started passing me, little bits of dirt and rocks were flying up in front of my face and I was continually pumping my breaks. As this all happened, this is what was going on in my mind:

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'm gunna die! I'm going to wipe out on these rocks and go right off the cliff!"

It would seem that my mind was partially right because no matter how I drove or how much I used my breaks, my bike always seemed to end up hitting the biggest section of rocks and after one wobble away from completely wiping out and landing on my face, I decided the road was rightly named Death Road.

We took a short break to rest our cramped fingers then we started off again, me at the back of the pack but as the miles and mountains passed by, I started to enjoy myself. The view was gorgeous and we even rode under a couple waterfalls.

After two hours of downhill biking, the cold and clouds were gone and I had fallen behind to go my own safe pace. It was just me, the mountains, blue sky and the cliff but I blocked the drop off from my mind in order to enjoy the Andes Mountains and the Amazon river below.

The last ten minutes of the ride, my bike was getting harder and harder to peddle and I was getting more and more tired with each bend in the road. All the other riders had disappeared minutes earlier having sped way ahead throwing caution to the wind leaving me to ride alone, tired but thoroughly enjoying the view.

My legs were starting to burn and I was beginning to wonder why I was struggling so much when a polite voice behind me said in a Spanish accent, "would you stop?" It was the bike guide who had been trailing at a distance and had seen me struggling. A little embarrassed, I hoped off my bike and let him examine the wheels of my bike. After a second he nodded his head, pulled out a pocket knife from his pocket that had at least 20 little tools attached to it and said, "Your breaks are too tight. That is why it was hard for you to peddle." He loosened something in my back wheel and when I hoped back on my bike, amazingly, I was able to peddle with ease and once again continue along the rocky road.

What if I hadn't stopped when my guide had asked me? It would have made the rest of my journey a lot harder. Sometimes God calls out to me and asks me to stop what I'm doing in order to see what He sees. I can chose to ignore His voice which will make my life a lot harder or I can stop and see things from His perspective, which will help me and my journey towards the ultimate goal; living in heaven with Him forever.

Oh The Places You Will Go

The best thing that could happen, happened. My daddy came to travel with me for my vacation! Almost every student missionary at the mission gets two weeks vacation time during summer break and since everyone had taken theirs, I was super antsy to go on mine. I left Rurrenabaque with no problems, praise God, and met up with my dad at the capital of Bolivia - La Paz.
It was so nice to be with my dad. I'd never traveled with him before so I was excited for everything we were going to do. First of all, La Paz is huge! We took a cable car down the mountain from the upper part of the city into the lower part. It was about a ten minute ride. Everywhere brick houses with rusted tin roofs lined the hills as far as the eye could see. We didn't really have any plans or ideas on what we were going to do the first day so we walked around La Paz for about five hours looking in small shops, admiring the souvenirs and mostly wandering around hopelessly lost but happy at our present condition. It was overcast but dad and I had some pretty sunburned faces by the time we reached our hostel that we were staying at for the night. Once there, I got a fantastic surprise. There was internet and not only that, it was super fast which was so nice since the internet back in Rurrenabaque is snail pace. Still, I can't complain about that because there IS internet in town and that's more than I was expecting when I arrived in Bolivia.

By the time dusk arrived, the temperature had dropped to 56 degrees and I was FREEZING! I sense some serious weather adaption problems in my future when I arrive back in the states.

The next day we took a four hour bus ride to go to Lake Titicaca. On our way, we passed through a poorer than poor area. There were houses that were as small as my room back home, muddy pigs and dogs wandered the dirt roads and the women walked around in their native shawls, thick skirts and bowler hats perched on top of their heads. I don't understand the whole hat thing but almost every elderly Bolivian women wears them.
I'm not exactly sure if they wear these funny hats because it's a cultural thing or a way to show their wealth but our tour guide told me that a good hat like that in La Paz could cost over 1,000 bs.
Other than the extravagant hats, poverty was everywhere and as we drove through the middle of it, I felt completely hopeless to do anything about it and unable to help them in any way. Their way of life is the only thing they know but it really made the fact that I have a roof over my head, clothes to keep me warm and money in my pocket to buy my lunch all seem like such huge blessings and not something that I should be taking for granted. I easily could have been born in their situation but for some reason God chose to put me in a good house with a loving family, safety and security and I am thankful.

Lake Titicaca is huge! We arrived at one of the narrower parts of the lake and had to cross in a small motor boat while our bus waited for a bigger flat motor boat. I'd never seen a lake where I couldn't see the end of it until I saw Lake Titicaca. I could see the curve of the earth as the water met the sky and it was a pretty incredible sight.

Once we took a couple hour break at the lake to do some sight seeing, we headed for the Peru border where I had a surprise awaiting me. I got my Bolivian residency for the year so that I can work at Familia Feliz but the only thing about being a resident is that you have to pay a lot of money every time you want to leave the country. All the tourists happily got their passports stamped then walked into Peru and got on their bus while I searched my purse to pay the fee. I'm still confused as to why they charge me to leave their country.

After that, my dad and I took an all night bus to Cusco Peru. I wanted to make so many Emperor's New Groove references since the main characters name is Kuzco  in the animated film, but my dad hasn't seen the movie so I refrained and decided that we'd have to watch the movie together when I go back to the states.
Our hostel had hot water and I had my first hot shower since October when I'd gone home for my sister's wedding. It was amazing! The rest of the day was spent wandering around town and planning more of our trip. We're more planning it as we go.

There is so much information to say about our trip but since I don't want to write a 10,000 word blog, I'll condense.
In Cusco, we drank some horrible coffee which made me suspicious about all future coffee that I thought about buying while in Peru then the next day we took a drive into the mountains to a train station that would take us to the city below Machu Pichu. The train took us right along the Andes Mountains and they were breathtaking! It was an hour and a half train ride but I couldn't stop staring out the window at the river rapids, the enormous mountains and the lush greenery encompassing everything.

The town of Machu Pichu is quaint, has a lot of tourist shops, restaurants and people. We had a scare about our Machu Pichu tickets but everything worked out in the end, praise God, and we were able to get on the bus and make it up to the ruins by 6:15 the next morning.
I don't even know how to describe one of the seven wonders of the world. I stood in awe of the view and took lots of pictures before the clouds covered the ruins. I don't know how the Inca people were able to carry all those rocks up the top of the mountain to construct their houses and temple. We were glad we had gotten there so early because after an hour or so, the clouds came in thick and covered up everything. We'd already taken our far away pictures and were content wandering the ruins and posing with llamas (Again, so many Emperor's New Groove opportunities).
It was a pretty spectacular day and one I won't forget in all my life.

And So Ends December

Christmas time has come and gone so here's a "quick" catch up on what happened leading up to the new year.

With 8 days to go till Christmas, we decided to have our Sabbath vespers at the Amazon river. It's quickly becoming my favorite place to be at dusk because as the sun slides over the mountains, pinks, purples and oranges from the sun reflect off of the river and make the view breathtaking. As we packed the twenty of us into the back of the truck and set off on our twenty minute ride to the town/river, Pablo, Kevin and Jonathan pulled out their ukuleles and began to strum You Are Holy, All In All and a couple other songs. I sang along in English since I don't know many of the words in Spanish yet, Angelica sang in Spanish and Audrey followed along in French. We couldn't hear each others voices very well over the noise of the truck but it was still pretty amazing to be praising God in three different languages together.

In other news I almost blended a cockroach into everyone's peanut butter when it was my day to make food. I put the toasted peanuts, sugar and water into the blender and turned it on but nothing happened. Then I realized that I needed to make sure the lid was securely on before the motor would start so as I tightened it, I absentmindedly looked inside the blender and was startled to see a cockroach trying to crawl it's way to the top of the toasted peanuts. The cockroach was quickly scooped out of the blender and squashed by my flip flop then I started the blender and made what I think was the best tasting batch of peanut butter I've made so far. As far as I know, no one saw me remove the insect so no one knows that they almost had crunchy peanut butter for breakfast that day.

Speaking of food, Miguel really wanted cookies this past week and so he splurged and bought ingredients to make three different types of cookies. There were oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies and sugar cookies. That was fun because we always make sugar cookies each year at my house so I still got to bring a tad bit of my family's Christmas tradition to Bolivia. Usually we decorate the sugar cookies on Christmas Eve at my home and I leave the best decorated one out for Santa to eat (aka: my dad) but we don't have frosting here so I was content with just making the batch of sugar cookies. Turns out, I'm actually pretty good at making cookies which is a relief because when I'm in the kitchen I either burn the rice, spoil the cereal or make lumpy pancakes. Yay! Kaylie can successfully make cookies! Anyways, Sabbath morning we had sugar cookies for breakfast, oatmeal cookies for lunch and the peanut butter cookies for supper. Cookies for breakfast. Mmmm! Seems like the holidays to me.

This was my 4th Christmas's away from home and it hasn't gotten any easier for me to be away from my family. However, Christmas Eve was Sabbath and our director, Miguel gave a sermon that really changed the way I see spending Christmas away from home. The heart of his message said that when we're away from our families, when things are at their toughest and it feels like no one cares and when it feels like we're all alone, we're not because God is with us - Emmanuel. It's so simple. It's just one of the many names that God has but it helped my homesickness and comforted me. God is with us - Emmanuel

Christmas Day all of us went to the hospital in town to sing to the patience and hand out Christmas cards. Rurrenabaque is a small town and it turns out that hardly anyone wanted to be in the hospital for Christmas so we went to the two rooms that had patience and sang to the four people there. Once we were done we made an hour stop at an Internet cafe/ restaurant to connect to wifi and talk to our families. It didn't feel like I got to talk to my family long enough but I was just praising God that the Internet was good enough for me to actually hear and see the faces of my parents and siblings. The rest of the day was spent at the mission preparing supper. Since I didn't feel like putting out a fire, I opted to wash dishes instead of cook a dish for our Christmas dinner. We were running on true Bolivian time and ate at 7:15 instead of our planned 6pm. However the food was delicious and Kevin even made peach cobbler from precious peaches Miguel had bought in town. (I realize I am writing a lot about food but eating anything aside from the regular beans and rice is exciting.)

Moving on, last Thursday Josh taught me how to drive the tractor. It's been on my list of things to learn here and I finally learned! I'd usually settle for one accomplishment but I had another opportunity to do something later that night. I was just about to have evening worship with my girls when Kevin called me downstairs to kill a snake that was in the room of one of the girls who's visiting for a bit, Ashanna. Kevin's going to be a zoologist and doesn't like to kill anything so I decided to be brave and kill it. I grabbed a machete but all courage failed me when I saw the black snake with brown rings frozen in place against the wall in the bedroom. It wasn't large but it wasn't small and it definitely was poisonous. I put on some rubber boots just to be safe and Kevin left the room claiming he couldn't watch me kill it while Ashanna watched the action from the safety of her bed. I aimed my machete above the snakes head and naturally missed it when I swung. The snake was startled and so was I so I began to frantically hack at it, the snake was withering, Ashanna was screaming and blood was squirting. Before I could hack it to 1,000 pieces though, Kevin scooped it up and threw it out into the jungle. It was definitely deader than dead though. I learned to drive a tractor and I killed my first snake. Not a bad day.