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!