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!!!