ANA- Child of the Week

ANA TORREZ is the newest member of the Villa Israel Home so we chose her as our child of the week this time.


Some things to know about ANA: she is 12 years old, and her bithday comes very soon, January 11th. She says she will be going into the 2nd grade when school starts. Ana enjoys reading and writing in school. She enjoys playing, coloring, watching TV, and sleeping. Her favorite colors are blue and pink.

Ana has 8 brothers and sisters. She says this is her first time in Cochabamba and is from a town called Yayawa. Please be in prayer for Ana as she adjusts to her new home and her new siblings and parents.

Even after 23 years of marriage...

Date night for me and my beautiful bride.

...every now and then a kiss!

Happy Birthday to Grace...

Gracey turns four. Seen here with her boy friend Luis.

Thanks Giving at the Timmers

Bonnie is amazing and no holiday shows her God given gifts better than Thanks Giving.

The last of the walls. A week away from the roof.

JHOSELIN- ¨Child of the Week¨

JHOSELIN is our child of the week at Villa Israel.

Here is a bit about JHOSELIN: Jhoselin came to Villa Israel orphanage a few months ago. She is from Cochabamaba. She is 7 years old and her Birthday is February 7th. She has two brothers, who unfortunately do not live at the orphanage with her. She enjoys coloring, and her favorite color is purple. She likes dogs and cats. Her favorite food is baked chicken. She hopes to one day be a dentist. Jhoselin has been studying with Justin, one of the interns here each week and is preparing for school which starts in February.

Child of the Week -#1

Each week we will be posting a ¨child of the week¨from the Muyurina and Villa Israel Orphanages, so you can learn more about each individual child. Our first from Villa Israel is



JHOSELIN, who up to this week has been the only girl at this orphanage.







Jhoselin is from Cochabamba. She is 7 years old. Her Birthday is the 7th of February. She has two brothers who do not live with her at the orphanage. Jhoselin´s favorite color is purple and her favorite food is baked chicken. She enjoys drawing and painting. Her favorite animals are dogs and cats. She hopes one day to be a dentist.

Playing and Working

Last week, I got to go out to Romberto´s site and hang out with them for a week. I took some pretty cool pictures of us playing around. Oh yeah, we did some work on throwing the concrete on the walls as well!

Update in November

Michelle here. No I haven´t written anything yet since being here. Guess I don´t know what I should write! But I shall....

Jaclyn and I are stomach sick right now. We had a marvelous dinner Sunday night at our Spanish teacher´s home, ever since then we can´t eat! I know you wanted to know about that!

Tuesday, Justin went off to Chapare to help out with the work out there. Tuesday was also his Birthday, and we celebrated Saturday night by going out to eat and having ice-cream! Justin should be out there until next Thursday or Friday.

We are really enjoying our time at the Muyurina Orpahnage that is near us. Everytime we go we are encouraged and love playing and tutoring the kids there.

We are still painting/putting protective stuff on the walls at Villa Israel. We have also had some challenges lately with the children there. We were left to watch them the other day, and were a bit disappointed with the children´s additudes towards us. Though this is all apart of the kids adjustment to the homes they are in- including learning discipline and respect for others. This is a prayer request! Also, please pray for wisdom in how to prepare these kids for school in February, which for many of them it will be their first time in school.

Finally , we enjoyed a great dinner at the Timmer´s for Thanksgiving. They were kind enough to have us over when we don´t have our own families with us.

The other day Justin and Jaclyn took two of the kids from the Zona Frutillar orphanage over to the center. It gave them the opportunity to get out of the house, hang out with us, and meet new kids at the center! Unfortunately, Michelle was feeling under the weather so she stayed back at the hacienda to rest. Their summer break is approaching until January, so any opportunity to get them out of the house we wish to take it! The kids had such a blast riding in the trufi´s as well as making some new friends at the center! We are planning on going to Muyurina twice a week to tutor and hang out, whereas before we were only going once a week.

We have not gone to baby washing for the past 3 Saturdays, but it will resume this Saturday. Justin and Michelle are excited to start back up with it as Jaclyn is excited for her first time to experience baby washing in Plaza Principal. We also hope to finish our painting project tomorrow at Villa Israel, which we are looking forward to finishing! The hacienda is a little bare besides the three of us and our dead little mouse friend that we found in our living room the other day! That happens to be the third mouse that has lost his life at the hacienda! Please continue to pray for energy and guidance as we continue to love and pour into these kids for Christ through tutoring and play time! Until next time...

Even More Pictures

Steven did a great job with updating us on the construction, but we have a couple of more pictures to add!

And We Have Walls!!

This just in! Pictures of the construction in the jungle. They have walls!!!

Bicycle Diaries

Along with giving the kids at Villa Israel a playground, they also recently recieved a bike. And oh how they enjoy that bike. They even tried to ride it through the house, but Marta, the housekeeper, put a stop to that quite quickly. Whenever we go over there, someone is almost always on the bike. It is amazing what we took for granted as children. I don´t think I would have been that excited about a bike for that long. But they love it, and we love that they get to spend that energy so enjoyably.

Living in Coch!

Wow, Steven had done a good job of updating this page... but sadly he has left us. He has gone back to Canada, and we are all... (it is quite tempting here to insert some idea that conveys happiness, but in all honest we are...) sad. But life goes on, and we are having a good time in Cochabamba. We spend much of our time playing with kids and the rest of our work time is devoted to painting. Twice a week at each orphanage, and twice a week at the center is enough to wear anyone out. We have started to learn our way around on the trufi system, and we have learned to keep our eyes wide open to see where we can go by what bus. Other than that, Justin and Michelle are in the Christmas drama at church, and Jaclyn is getting settled. Yeah, that´s all of us. It is quite a change from the summer crew of at least ten if not up to twenty.
We have also been able to host a couple of families as they come on a vision trip, and we got to inroduce Kim, a new long term missionary, to the joys of Bolivia.

Camp Week!!!

A couple of weeks ago, around 50 high school kids came to Villa Israel to paint, finish up the playground, and do a Backyard Bible Club for our kids and the kids that live nearby. It was fun to see the kids get out and interact with other ¨adults¨ than just the IOU staff. What a job those girls had! They needed to keep the kids out of the house for three hours, and I´d say they did a good job overall! While the kids were playing, other students were painting the inside and the outside of the house and putting together the rest of the playground. Now, the kids have monkey-bars and two swings in their backyard. We also brought them a bike, and surprisingly it has been a big hit with the older boys.
A bit of sad news, Sandra and Paula were taken away by their parents, and we were all quite sad to see them leave us. We also had Miguel and Roberto´s older sister Jaclyn with us, but she was not able to stay as well. So now, Jhoselyn is the only girl in the house, and she is handling that quite well!
Other than camp and the change in the family, we have been there around four times a week cleaning up and just playing with the kids. It has been a blast!

Last Post

WOW! Looking at the last post here in the IOU Bolivia Interns, was September 20, 2007.
As of right now I only have a matter of 4 days left in Cochabamba to return home. You may ask me if I´m excited to head home, well the answer is, yes and no. Yes because I haven´t seen my family and friends for a good 6 months, but no because I´ll be missing my family and friends here in Cochabamba. After this, I´m able to see my family and friends everyday for the rest of my life, or at least a majority of my life but the Timmers and the interns, no idea!
Definitely been a long journey and quite an amazing one, opportunities given to me, making new friends, being closer with the Timmers, getting to see more interns and the huge progress of IOU, it just makes me smile but comes November 6, I don´t think that I´ll be smiling anymore saying goodbye one last time to Bolivia, well at least hopefully not one last time.
I don´t know what to expect because I´ve waited a really long time and can´t believe the 6 months is up. The Lord has provided so much and I´m thankful for that. I pray that IOU will continue to do the work that God has called each and every single member of IOU to do and that God will provide them their needs. And of course to one day expand to other countries or territories.
God Bless each and every single one of you.
Dios De Bendiga (I hope that how you say God Bless You)

Final Stay

Leaving on November 6, 2007, I knew for sure that I needed to go back to one of the worksites at least once more before I head back home, and I did not know what to expect from our boss. I was hoping that for the whole month of October that I would be in Chapare but once October 1 came, I knew that it wasn´t going to happen, and a week had gone by, and still no words on when I´m heading back to the jungles. I was sad, sort of frustrated but a week later, at church Mike brought me the awesome news of Remberto coming to Cochabamba for a couple of hours tomorrow that I should get ready and stay in Chapare for 2 weeks, and I thought to myself, it´s ok that I´m staying for 2 weeks because I would´ve been really sad if I didn´t get a chance to say my goodbyes to Remberto. The next day, I was ready to head out and Mike had told me, that there´ll be sections of the roof that needs to be painted before putting them on top of the orphanage that I should be careful and it´ll be my project for the time being there. That is exactly what I did for actually 1.5 weeks there and finished early.Remberto and I had called Mike a few days before my departure, and the good/bad news came in, where he would not be able to pick me up because of the camp week going on at his daughters´school, so I didn´t know when I´d be going back to Cochabamba. Later on Remberto told me another week because of the camp week. The good news was staying for an extra week, the bad was that I was running out of clothes to wear and the insects were getting at me more.Throughout my time there, seeing the progress that´s been made, it´s been a huge relief because the weather was hard for Remberto and his workers to work in; one day would be raining hard for 5 hours straight and the next day would be sun, for the next 5 days and then rain hard again.After another call to Mike before the day of my departure, I asked him when he would be here and he told me actually another 2 more days, so I waited and when the day came, he didn´t come as he told me again the next day for sure. Got picked up and the total of time spent in Chapare this time was 3.5 weeks.I´m so thankful that God has given me so many blessings and opportunities here and there. My prayers go out to Remberto, his workers and his family that they´ll continue to work efficiently everyday in Chapare. It´s definitely been great spending a total of 2 months, within the 6 times I´ve been in Chapare, and Mike, if you´re reading this, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!! Everytime I look at my Chapare pictures, I´ll remind myself that it was you who gave the go for me to head to Chapare, that I might have been frustrated when week 3 came of Chapare came, but I´m not, I´m actually really thankful. THANK YOU!!!

Beginnings

Fleetwood Orphanage property

Fleetwood Group is an amazing company located in Holland, Michigan. They
produce some of the finest wireless electronics and educational furniture
but that's not what makes them amazing. They are Christ center and
employee owned. Willing missionaries; not enough funding. That was the
unusual backdrop to the beginning of the Fleetwood story.

Norwood Hubbell founded Fleetwood in 1955 with two inspirations:

First, he was convinced God had called him to lead a company that would
provide funding for missionaries struggling to get the financial
assistance they needed.

Second, he had a great product idea - mobile educational furniture.
True to their calling fifty years later Fleetwood remains convinced they
are called to take a Christ-centered approach to business.

Diane Suits an employee/owner at Fleetwood asked us to share with the
Fleetwood's mission committee what International Orphanage Union was doing
in Bolvia. One month later they asked if they could fund the construction
of our fifth orphanage. We serve an amazing God!

Tony, Mal and Syd during youth group scavenger hunt (in el tanke)

Syd and Mallory at Laura Vargas' slumber/birthday party.

Congrats to Mallory and the other girls on the CCS bowling team, 2007 all-city champions.

Home, Sweet, Home

The house Romberto and Vic live in while building the third orphanage.

Family Photo!

All the kids with the house-parents and the house keeper.

New Kids!!

Hey guys! Just thought I´d give yáll an update on what´s going on in the orphanage at Villa Israel. The orphanage now has five new kids since we last talked. Two sisters, two brothers, and a precious little girl. The brothers are named Roberto and Miguel, and they get along quite well with their new brothers. The little girl is named Jocelyn, and she just got two new sisters. We haven´t me the other two little girls yet (when I say new, I really mean new!), but that is the planned activity for this afternoon.

More Company

After almost 1 whole month with Justin now up at the Hacienda, there won't be anymore days where it's just Justin and I because a family is here for 2 weeks and then once they leave, another intern or two will arrive. It's actually pretty good having company around because the Hacienda isn't so quiet anymore. The family is a really nice family, very welcoming and helpful all in all, and of course, very friendly not being nervous around us interns and communicates with us very well. Overall I'm glad that there's more company up at the Hacienda.

Foundations

Pictures from pouring concrete at the Orphanage

Pictures!!!!

Some Construction Photos of the Orphanage

Days in Chapare

WOW! It certainly feels weird to be back in Cochabamba after spending 2 1/2 weeks in Chapare working at KM21 orphanage with Remberto. Throughout those 2 1/2 weeks, I´ve learned a lot just through the actions of the Bolivians that live in Chapare and have such a huge heart for God. In one week, at Neuva Jerusalen (the church right by the orphanage) has 4 services, 1 in the morning on Sundays and 1 at night, 1 at night on Tuesdays, and 1 at night on Thursdays and being a Westerner, you barely see churches with 4 services in one week. Even though at times no one would show up we would have great times of fellowship just chatting and talking about random things like culture, language, animals in Chapare, etc. It was definitely a great experience and definitely what I had asked for, and I want to extend me thanks to Mike in giving me this great opportunity and of course everytime heading to Chapare, I thank God that He´s been the one making the decisions and protecting us from sickness.
It has been a great opportunity for me just getting to know Remberto more as we have our one-on-one conversations at the dinner table from time to time and just having no option but to speak Spanish really helped me a lot.
Remberto has certainly been a great testimony to my life just hearing the things that he desires and my prayer to him comes from Psalm 37:4 - Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. I have shared that passage with him and also Micah 6:8 and pray that he will take those 2 passages to heart.
During my stay I also got the chance to see Evo the President give some sort of speech and with my Spanish, I didn´t understand a thing but I did get a couple of pictures of him.

The Timmer Family

Here we are with our first son. Bonnie and I with Tiffany and Braeden, Ashley, Mallory, Sydney, Emily and baby Gracey.

From the "Ground" up?

Sorry we've been so late in getting photos to this site. It's been a long slow start in the middle of the rain forest. Alejandro is the site leader and he's run into so many obsticles; everytime he dug the footings in January they would fill with water. The village had their worst rainy season in 30 years. After trying for a month Alex returned to Cochabamba and his family and waited til April to start again. So you can see in the photo we've decided to put the entire home up on cement stilts. We're building from "above the ground" up.

Hanging with the Boys!!

On Tuesday, we went to visit the orphanage in Villa Israel. This is the orphanage that is currently searching for house parents. It has four little boys (picture included) Joel, Brandon, Samuel, and Erlan (oldest to youngest). Joel is about nine and the others are approximately two years apart. They were taken away from their mother after the community the boys were living in petitioned the government to take the children away. They had been raising each other and running wild. We think they are a little behind in education, and we tried to address that problem. Yes, that picture of Brandon laughing in my lap while Sydney tries to read him a book about the alphabet... He´s not laughing. It´s more of a squirming attempt to escape and not learn the alphabet. Anyway, we get to visit them and help the temporary house parent with providing the presence of some discipline. But don´t get me wrong, we still play, and they are such a joy to spend time with!!

Photo Archive

Photo Archive thru the 2nd floor