Catch Up

Well this past week has been crazy. We went to Peru! But sadly I have to catch up with schoolwork now so I can't share all about it. But the pictures are on facebook of course and I will blog about it by this weekend. But this morning I read some really encouraging scriptures that I just felt like I needed to share with the world. My sinful nature is to try to do everything on my own and forget that I have God to plan out my whole life. Here are a few scriptures that just put life and the future into perspective. Thanks God for showing me exactly what I needed just like always.

"In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the LORD establishes their steps." Proverbs 16:9

"A person’s steps are directed by the LORD.
How then can anyone understand their own way?" Proverbs 20:24

"LORD, I know that people’s lives are not their own;
it is not for them to direct their steps." Jeremiah 10:23

"There is a way that appears to be right,but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12

"like cattle that go down to the plain, they were given rest by the Spirit of the LORD. This is how you guided your people to make for yourself a glorious name." Isaiah 63:14

" 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' " Jeremiah 29:11

"Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21

All I can say after that is God is so good. Amen.

ps. eighteen days until Morgan comes!

mis niñetos

I have completely fallen in love with my job. There's no other way to put it. I am actually excited every day to go. Okay some days I'm really tired and just want to stay home, but as soon as I get there I am immediately glad I went. And it's the same with Betaña and CEIKU. The kids are so different in the two, but I love them all so much. In CEIKU I usually work with the grandes or oldest group of kids. The other day I took a picture of each one of them. These kids will be graduating soon from the daycare and onto kinder and other Arco Iris projects. I just love them all so much and wanted to share the pictures with you all!

Jefferson

David

Fabricio

Alan

Jhon

Yancarla

Nicol

Alexander

Gabriella

Rodrigo

Briceda

Marcos

Claudia

Nicole 

Lesly

p.s. twenty six days until Morgan comes!

The Little Things

They say it's the little things that make living worthwhile. I don’t know who “they” is but whoever it is they’re right. I’ve found a few little things about living in La Paz that just makes life so much more enjoyable. So of course I thought I would share them with you all so you can share in this experience.

1.The roof. So our very first day in La Paz Brie and I went exploring the apartment building of course. On the very top floor we found a ladder up to the roof, but they door was locked. A few weeks ago I guess someone went up there and forgot to lock it again. Somehow Brie found out about it so we got to go up there! It was awesome. We went up there for about an hour and just spent time praying together and looking over the city. After we just talked and talked about the incredible experiences God has given us and thinking about all of the future ones. It’s sadly locked again, but I’m sure God’s gonna open it up for us again. 

2. Singing at church. Last Sunday after church we were talking to some of the campus students jamming out while our friend Victor Jugo played the guitar and Christian sang. Next thing I knew Christian pulled out his phone and had all these English songs on it! It was literally the most random selection, from Taoi Cruz to Nirvana. We spent the next thirty minutes rocking out and singing on the top of our lungs in the middle of the church building. I was impressed that they knew they words, I mean they had no idea what they were singing but at least they could pronounce all of the words.

3. Tex Mex. Oh my lanta where to begin. A few weeks ago Brie, Helen, Matt, and I went out to dinner. We just went down to Montenegro but had no idea where we were going to go. We were in search for a new place but with really good food. We found like three Mexican restaurants but they were all either closed or shut down. Right when we had given up home we turned the corner and I literally heard a choir of angels start singing. We ran into a restaurant literally called Tex Mex. Best discovery ever. We walk inside and it literally felt like we walked into Texas. There was country music playing throughout the restaurant and all the seats were wooden booths with a hole of the Texan star in the back of every seat. They had the cheesy signs that my grandma has all over her house with sayings like “Don’t Mess with Texas” and those ridiculous saying about drinking and having a good time. I loved it. Every second of it. And that’s before I saw the menu. They had tacos, ribs, pulled pork, taco salad, chips and guac, and everything imaginable. This restaurant has made me very happy in the past few weeks.

4. Burger King. Ahhh BK. There is a Burger King right around the corner from our church building. In America I was never really a Burger King fan; I’m a Chic-Fil-A addict. But when you’re living in a third world country you take what you can get. The other day Matt, Brie, and I went there for lunch. I wasn't sure what to get but I figured go big or go home right? So naturally I ordered a Big Mac with cheese, King Size, and a sprite. Best decision ever. I forgot how good an American burger was. And I'm pretty sure these weren't even as good as true American burgers. For now these will have to calm my constant Chic-Fil-A cravings. 

5. Bits 'n Creme. The Coldstone of South America. Bits 'n Creme is God's gift to gringos. It is literally the best ice cream place ever. I go at least two times a week. There are three right by us which makes it dangerous. My selection always costs 18 Bolivianos, about $2.50, but it's so worth it. I get two scopes of cookies and creme ice cream with crushed oreos and strawberries. I top it off with chocolate sauce and a little cone thing they put on top. Oh my goodness it's amazing. It's so thick and so rich and ugh. Amazing. 

6. Movies. One of the best things about living in Bolivia is that movies are so cheap. The other day I went out with my mom and we stopped by a little tienda to look at movies cause they are everywhere. Looking turned into buying twenty movies for less than a dollar each. Such a good investment. I found some of my favorite movies: Easy A, Water for Elephants, Tangled, The Social Network, Slumdog Millionaire, Bridesmaids, and so many other good ones. So worth the 5 Bolivanos. 

7. Sunday night pancakes. Every Sunday night we have family devo from 5-7. During this time we just talk about our plans for the week, prayer requests, and then have a short devo. After is like family night. Brie usually makes chocolate chip pancakes and Brie, Matt, and I spend the night playing cards, watching a move, or planning a Irish party. The latter was all Matt and Brie. I opted out of this one. But it's just such a fun night spending time together dancing, singing, and eating of course. Definitely a highlight of the week. 

Well here are some of my favorite little things about La Paz. They will definitely be missed back in America. 


ps. twenty nine days until Morgan comes!

Halloween Weekend!

     Well this past weekend was crazy. As you all know it was the weekend of Halloween! Surprising people here actually celebrate it. But they also combine it with Día de los Muertos and Todo Santos. So I am a little confused but people definitely celebrate it that's for sure! Saturday I met up with one of the Scottish volunteers in Montenegro (a little shopping area near our house) and tons of kids we dressed as zombies. Everyone had make up on and were trying to scare us. A day early, but at least they are enjoying the fun. Helen and I got to spend some time shopping and just spending time together all day. We both had to buy some clothes and find Halloween costumes because we were having a party the next night, of course! Our original plan was to dress up as the powerpuff girls and having Matt be MoJo JoJo. Sadly, we didn't think that anyone would know who we were and surprisingly none of us had solid dresses of red, green, and blue. So then we jumped to plan B, Grecians. This seemed so easy cause all we needed to find was a sheet and wear gold jewelry. Little did we know a sheet was about 80 Bolivianos, roughly $11. Okay so it's not that much but that's a lot here in Bolivia. So when we met up with Brie for lunch we kinda just left it at figuring it out the next day because that night we were going to a football game!

Cheesy photo, but you get the point. 

When I say football I mean real football of course as the rest of the world sees it. To clarify we went to a  soccer game. And not just any soccer game the biggest one for La Paz! It was between the two teams of the city, Strongest and Bolivar. We had a hard time choosing between the two teams because Strongest represents our zone of the city, but they are the worst team. We finally chose Strongest when we found out the Bolivar tickets were 60 more Bolivianos. After our day shopping, Helen and I rushed home with Brie to get ready for the game. Brie, Helen, Matt, Noelle, and I were going to the game and meeting up this some brothers and sisters from the church. We got to the stadium at 7:00 with the game starting at 7:30 but were then met with tons of stands selling jerseys. We had to buy one of course! So after spending about twenty minutes buying our jerseys were we met by a huge line into the stadium. After waiting in this line for about 15 minutes, it surprising went fast, we entered out section of the stadium to find out there were no seats. NONE. The city sells more tickets than seats and since it's general admission some people don't have seats. But of course we were not gonna be these people. The next thirty minutes we were running around the stadium to the different sections seeing if there were seats. As soon as the police officers told us that there were none, a group of like fifty starting sprinting to the next area. This was actually so much fun cause we were like this huge herd running as fast as we could to get to the next section. Eventually after thirty minutes of running and then twenty minutes of the fans yelling at the police men, they let us enter another section. We entered and all the seats were empty... like seriously there were so many seats. So we missed a big portion of the first half, but worth the experience of course! The game itself was so much fun. Strongest lost of course, but it was an awesome time to hang out and get closer. It's funny we've all become such a family. I don't know what I'm gonna have to do when I have to leave my family!

                                         

     After getting home at like 11pm, we went to sleep quickly cause Sunday was just as busy as Saturday. We woke up in the morning and went to church. This was awesome cause Helen came with us! After an awesome service of singing and an incredible lesson by Edson, we headed back home to prepare for our big party! The past week and a half we have spent planning a Halloween party for some of our neighbors and friends! We made awesome invitations with the requirement that everyone dresses up. Mandatory dressing up. After church Helen and Matt came over to help Brie and I set up for the party. We spread spider webs across the living room, orange and black tablecloths, and spooky food. Ew I just said spooky; I guess all in the mood of Halloween. Anyways, the food was awesome. Ashley had the great idea of taking english muffins and making little zombie pizzas. We covered them in pizza sauce, slices of cheese, and then olives for the eyes. They were pretty impressive I must say. We also had the regulars of course; brownies, chips and salsa, soda. I have to give Matt props for making the brownies. They were perfection. And we spent the whole time listening to country music which made it ten times better. At about 4:30, an hour before the party, we realized we still had no idea what we were gonna dress up as. This turned into a frantic search of all our clothes. Brie had been suggesting decades and at this point we were so desperate that we went with it. The best is when we tried to get Matt to do Risky Business. He wasn't a fan of the shorts he had to wear. So finally we settled on a Strongest football player for Matt and the 50's, 70's, and 80's for me, Helen, and Brie. As much as we gave Brie a hard time about it, I give her credit for the time crunch she worked under and with the little clothes we have. 

The guests soon started arriving and I was so surprised by how they all not only dressed up, but some went all out! One of the guys from church, Victor Jugo, dressed up as Charlie Chaplin and another as Captain Jack Sparrow. I was impressed. We spent the night dancing awkwardly between American and Spanish songs. It's kinda embarrassing how Americans can't dance... at all. We tried to teach them the dougie and bernie before we suggested we just turn it to salsa. It was so funny though watching them trying to jerk. After we played "conejo gordita" or chubby bunny as us Americans call it. This might have been the highlight of the night. It was so much fun showing them one of the American classics and watching them stuff their faces with marshmellows. We finished out the night playing a huge game of signs, a camp classic. Surprisingly most of them already knew how to play and we pretty good! The party ended up ending at about ten, two hours after it was suppose to. I would say it was a pretty hopping party. I am just so grateful to be here and to make these memories with all these amazing people! Okay that was really cheesy but whatevs, I'm in a sappy mood.

p.s. thirty seven days until my brother Morgan comes to Bolivia to visit us! Ahhh I'm so excited!

VLOG

So yesterday morning at 5 am (ughhhh) my mom left for the Miami because she's leading a HOPEworldwide mission trip this weekend with her boyfriend Mark! But anyways when Ashely came down to Bolivia the 5th grade girls kingdom kid class at my church, North River Church of Christ, had sent us letters just encouraging us and telling us we're in their prayers. So we made a video for them as a thank you for their cards and just to tell them we are thinking about them! It was suppose to be just a video of Brie and me talking without any pictures our editing, but I got a little carried away. Just a little background information so you who we are talking to in the video. The video was put on a cd and sent with my mom to give to the girls back in Georgia! I tried to upload the video straight to the blog, but it's not working. So attached is the link of the video on youtube. I hope you enjoy our little hello from Bolivia! 

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/jb360miles?feature=mhee

Long Time No Blog

     Wowww well it's been about a month since I've last blogged. Life has been a bit crazy. But I finally have some free time today so I'm here to catch you up on everything in life in Bolivia!

     Where to even begin! I guess I can start by saying that I finally am starting work consistently! I know it's horrible I've been in Bolivia over a month and I haven't even truly started working. But I am finally getting caught up with school and I am now free enough to be able to start! I have already built so many relationships with the kids in the different projects and I am so excited to really get to know them! So here is my schedule as of right now...
              Mondays: Monday nights I go to Niñas de Obrajes at about 5pm to spend time 
                                with the girls. Ivelisse then teaches a dance class at 7:30-8:30 at the 
                                orphanage that I help out with... or try to. Bolivian dancing is not 
                                quite as simple as American. 
              Tuesdays: 9am-1:30pm at Betaña nursery (in the poorest part of Bolivia)
              Wednesday: Spanish day blahhh. Wednesday morning is devoted to working 
                                    on my Spanish work with Ivelisse. God bless her. Then 12:30-5pm
                                    at Casa de Paso nursery (where most of the parents of the kids 
                                    are prostitutes or work in the streets)
              Thursdays: 12:30-5pm at Casa de Paso nursery again!
              Fridays: Free day! Which means spending the whole day working on
                             homework... so not free in the slightest bit. 
So this is officially my schedule and I love it so much! Brie and I were just talking tonight about how much we love our job. And if spending all day with kids wasn't enough, the days we are in Caso de Paso we are working with another volunteer! Her name is Helen and she's from Scotland, which thankfully means she speaks English... little confession I didn't know that they spoke English in Scotland. Anyway it is so much fun working with her and being able to build that friendship! She was originally suppose to go to Peru for the year but last minute she got changed to Bolivia, to Arco Iris, in the same daycare as Brie and I. God works in amazing ways! But aside from Helen there are about twenty two volunteers not including the Hope team. Two of them are from the United States, sisters from California; three are from Scotland, one of them being Helen; and the rest are all from Germany! So needless to say they almost always speak German to each other, but they do all speak English for the most part. It's so much fun getting to know them and we're starting to spend time with them and build relationships. It's nice to have a group of gringos from eighteen to twenty three that we can relate to and share adjusting stories with! 
     Since I haven't blogged in so long, I have to write all about Coroico and our vacation there! Two weekends ago we had the opportunity to escape the busy streets of La Paz and Rio Selva, a resort in Coroico! The rest was amazing and such a needed time just to relax and have absolutely nothing to do. But the best part was driving there. The whole drive was through the mountains and we literally drove through the edge of the Andes. To get to Coroico, you have to drive two hours up a huge mountain before descending into the tropical city. The sights were incredible; I literally could not believe my eyes. I'm also pretty sure it was the first time I legitimately used the word majestic in a sentence. We drove through the highest point in Bolivia and at one point we were so high that we were literally driving through the clouds. It was crazy we couldn't see anything in front of us; thankfully we had a very experienced driver who said this wasn't even bad. But it was incredible and this was before even getting to the resort.

Just a few pictures from our drive:

      Like I said the weekend was just a time to spend time together and stop of lives. We were right on a river that was absolutely beautiful. The perfect spot to spend time reading and praying to God; you couldn't help but feel surrounded by him and his wonders. On Sunday morning Brie, Kevin, my mom, and I decided to go on what we thought was a little trail up one of the mountains. It turned out to be a real hike; Kevin said it reminded him of when he hikes the Appalachian. Of course Brie and I looked cute too cause we knew we would be taking pictures but had no idea what a real journey we were going on. But as hard or tiring as it was going up, once we got up there it was worth pushing past every time we wanted to give up. It was beautiful. There are no other words. But as cheesy as this is gonna sound, my mom pointed out to me that it's like everything else in life. If we push past the hard time and don't give up no matter how much we want to, we get to experience something spectacular. It really put into perspective how little our lives really last and how all my persecution and trials are gonna pay off. In other words it just made me so excited for heaven. Goodness I cannot wait to spend eternity with the Alpha Omega. After we got to the top of the mountain, it started to rain. At first this was a nice little cool down, until it started pouring rain. I'm talking like a storm. And this was while we were still at the top of the mountain. At that point we kinda just gave up on the fact of staying dry. We made our way down the mountain and found a random shack to stay under until it stopped. Of course it didn't and we got a ride back from someone to the resort. Poor Aunt Noey though was stuck back at the resort and was worried sick. Thankfully she was waiting right by the main entrance to greet us with towels!
     So since our little adventure to Coroico things have been pretty chill around the house. Let me clarify when I say around the house. In La Paz, not so much. We're literally living in history. There have been tons of strikes of the people revolting against the government and the president Evo Morales. The people having being refusing to provide transportation in the city during these days and if you get in a car they'll supposedly stone your car. Staying away from being biased and just stating the facts, a lot of these protestors have been missing or harmed by the police. As well as the people in La Paz, for the last two months the Tipnis people have been marching to La PAz. The Tipnis are an indigenous group from La Paz whose land has recently been taken to build a road straight through it for the selling of coca leaves. The people have spent the last two months marching to the capital, La Paz, to protest against this construction. They finally arrived yesterday with loud cheers from the people in La Paz. There were crowds there to meet them with food, shelter, and care. The Arco Iris hospital was at the spot to admit some of the marchers into the hospital immediately. These people have been marching for two months without much food. They are from the Amazon so the cold weather has given many of the pneumonia and the altitude is another problem. Because these people have spent two months of their lives marching, they had to bring their children along the journey. Children of just one or two years old have been walking all the way to the capital for the past two months. My mom, Kevin, and Gwen went with the hospital to welcome the Tipnis and later help them in the hospital. They couldn't even begin to express how incredibly it was without bawling their eyes out. No matter if I agree with what they are fighting for our not, you can't not respect these people. They have given up months to fight for something they believe in. It's incredible. But so now that they arrived no one quite knows what's going to happen. Evo conveniently left La Paz thirty minutes before they arrived to go see a soccer game in another city in La Paz, so I guess we are all just waiting for him to return. But that's a little insight of the history of La Paz that we're actually living!
     Well that's a little insight on what's been happening the past few weeks here in La Paz! I'm trying to upload a video I made for the kingdom kids at North River but of course it's taking forever. So hopefully you'll get to see a little visual bit of our adventure!

     Yes, once again I got hit by the stomach bug. I have spent my whole morning sitting on the floor of the bathroom either doing homework or as Matt calls it working on my "diarrhea diet." This is not how I planned to spend this day at all; today was supposed to be my first day in the orphanage that I will be working at regularly. Today was the big day starting our consistent schedule and finally getting settled with what we will be doing from now on; instead I am home alone enjoying all the joys of being sick. But since now I have five extra hours open in my day, I decided to take a break from my schoolwork and blog. Which by the way I do not think I have explained yet. Since I am still in high school, I needed to take my classes for this semester to make sure that I am on track when I return in January. We were thinking about enrolling me in the International School here in Bolivia, which is conveniently a five minute walk from our house, but between the start date, the dues, and having to be surrounded by Americans all day, we decided not to choose this route. Instead I am taking online school through Georgia Virtual School, which is not as simple as I thought it would be. Despite the fact the I am taking four APs online, working school on the internet is so different than a classroom. I took one class this summer online to be able to come down to Bolivia, but the fact the it was only one honors class did not prepare me for this at all. But it is definitely a learning period for me and is challenging me a lot on my diligence and my procrastination. But anyway now you see why I wanted to get away my classes for a bit.

      An update on what is happening, last night I translated for the first time at church! I conveniently sat next to Gwen last night who is learning Spanish and is doing awesome, but understanding a whole sermon at church is still difficult. As soon as church began she whispered my name and I knew automatically what I was about to get pulled into. I tried to convince her on getting Brie to translate for her, but she was set on me. But despite my fear and insecurity, I was able to translate the whole lesson for her which not only helped my spanish a lot but was extremely encouraging that I can do that! In just three weeks I think my spanish has grown so much! It helps living in a country where about every twentieth person only knows about ten phrases in english. 

     But besides my big victory last night this weekend is a HUGE time for FAI. About every two years FAI has a fundraiser and dinner to raise money and spread the word about all the aspects of FAI. On Friday we are all going to a rock concert that the foundation is hosting. Bands will be playing all the classics: Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eagles, and more; a nice taste of America. Then on Saturday we have a non stop day. In the morning we are going to help Edson and Teresa, who lead the church, because they are moving to a different part of town. None of their family is from La Paz, so we offered to go over for a few hours to help out. After that we planned to go on a double decker bus to finally see the city we have been living in for the past three weeks. I am not sure if we are still going on this, because of the big program on Sunday for FAI. Sunday FAI is having what we think is an all day fundraiser. We are going after church for lunch and then a whole day of activities and raffles. Despite the fact that we are literally all working for FAI, we really have no idea what's going on. But what we do know is that there are over 300 donations that will be used as prizes that need to be wrapped. Yesterday Brie, Noelle, James, and I spent a few hours helping Father Jose wrapping up some of these gifts. Side note really quickly, James is James Jacoby who is the most recently, last minute addition to our team. He thinks he will be staying here for about a year and helping out wherever there's a need. Back to the wrapping though, we did it in the hospital so we actually got to go in it for the first time! We saw the office that Kevin, my mom, and Gwen work in every day; I know they're working in an office in a hospital. My mom is dying a little bit; our family is not quite the sit in one spot all day every day and do the same thing. But it's character building right? We also got to see some of the other floors of the hospital where the patients are cared for. Because there are over 300 donations with more coming every hour, we offered to spend Saturday helping wrapping again. Which is why we might have to cancel our tour guide Saturday morning. But I know God will work it all out, like I hope making me stay home today was part of his plan too.  

      Andddd the best part of my past few days is that I got to skype Morgan last night. Which I told him to read this blog so he better be reading this right now. But I was so grateful to just see his face! We got to tell each other all about what we are doing. He's in the athletic program at UGA studying to be a P.A. so his schedule is non stop. Which kinda stinks because now we don't know if he came come down for Thanksgiving. Just another thing I'm having to pray about. I think God's trying to send me a message to trust him more. But I hope this caught you guys up a little bit. I feel like my thoughts are kinda all over the place and I don't even really know what I just typed, but it was a much needed break. Now back to the joys of calculus and physics. What a fun day.