Thankful for you!

Hi all,
if you want to hear stories and see more pictures of my past year, you are welcome to come to my home church, Bergfeld EMMC, Saturday January 28th, at 730 pm. I'll do my best to share a bit more and also answer any questions! If you don't know where the church is, please facebook, email or call me or my family and we can get you there!

THANK YOU for your prayers over the past year, for those of who contributed financially, with gifts, sending letters or food, and for keeping in touch and encouraging me. I miss the people and community of the south, and I will never forget them. That being said, I am so thankful to you all for letting me back into your lives as I come back a little changed, it has been oh so good to be welcomed and loved and diving right back into the good friendships and community that I left behind.


   Mid flight laughter                       Good times with good friends            

       Enjoying some minus temperatures with my sister, post-arrival

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen

Guembe

Throughout the year, Nancy and I dreamed about the time when we could just let loose and have nothing on our minds, and just relax. These dreams finally came into fruition in December, where we were able to go to a resort combined with a biological park, called Guembe Biocentro and Resort. We also were able to convince a couple good friends of our to come along, so we had a grand ole time, with nothing to do but relax and laugh together. And count pools.

Getting there was interesting, the first taxi that we hired to take us there didn't actually know where it was, and we didn't either! After a few frantic whatsapps back and forth, we got dropped off at a nearby and more well known location, the Ventura Mall. From there we flagged down a few more drivers, and finally found one who thought he knew (he did - whew). It's a little out of Santa Cruz, and along some backroads, so I don't blame these guys.

This place is a resort, but not like a giant hotel. There's a variety of rooms, and they're all in one area of the park, but not all attached. Little cabins, large cabins, huts, more normal hotel rooms. Our room was just beside la Isla de Monos, monkey island. A manmade lake, with an island in the middle, which served as the home to many many monkeys. There were also monkeys on our side of the water, little tiny ones that came in hordes. This park has 13 or so little pools, some with sand on the bottom, some with cement, and then 3 large pools. It's on different levels, with rocks, palm trees and beautiful scenery all around. Mini golf course, huge play structure for kids, open grass fields. The biological part of it is in a orchid sanctuary, a huge aviary (where we went every day, it's so cool), a butterfly sanctuary, a reptile and creepy crawly place, and some weird bones and skeletons in a historical place. All in a very green and luscious forest. It's way better than just going to a hotel with a nice pool, here we had so much to see and do, or even just to walk around and do nothing.

One thing we would say... they have advertising in English, which is normal for a higher end hotel. But in booking, and upon arrival, absolutely no one spoke English, creating some fun misunderstandings!

 

The orchid sanctuary. Weird towers of rock with flowers everywhere.

 

 The tower up to the top of the bird cage 

 

 One end of the bird cage. Huge and beautiful.

 The top of the cage

 These smart macaws will steal your park pass (a bracelet) right off your hand, if you're dumb enough to let them.

 one of the official Bolivian flowers, patuju

 Butterfly food, old bananas, with a butterfly

Two of the many little pools, at night

Many turtles

 Kayaking on the one natural pond. Those paddles are made of very heavy wood.  Also I tried standing up and paddling, which worked great. After a long time, some employee noticed me and started yelling :(

Good friends!!

 

 

If bamboo fit in my suitcase, I would have taken it all home with me.

 

One of the large pools, and us enjoying it, and each other

I was extremely blessed by the friendships with these people, and I'm so thankful we were able to spend these last few days together.

my eyeballs' journey

Throughout most of my life, I've used glasses or contacts. I don't remember ever not having glasses. Over the last two years, they have been strained until I had headaches and weird eye pain. This year that just got even worse, as literally everything I did required focusing my eyes on little details (writing lesson plans/worksheets on my computer, writing music on my computer, reading books, watching movies). I mentioned that to a fellow mission team member at the beginning of November, and just the cost of glasses and eyes in general. She told me of another friend who'd had laser eye surgery done here in Bolivia, with very good results! The cost is not super cheap, like some other medical things here, but slightly cheaper than the average in Canada. My glasses and contacts are expensive enough that over a few years, the surgery would be paid for already in eyewear. The biggest pro was the waiting time. I emailed in one week, had my tests and appointments the next week, and Nov 18 I had laser eye surgery! The appointments and checkups have been funny and frustrating, as only one technician and my own surgeon speak English, out of 20 or more staff. My name has been changed to Haffer Ah-nay, and other combinations. But the end result was successful surgery!

It has been a rough haul, the first day right after surgery was excruciatingly painful, some of the worst physical pain I've ever had. Thanks only to Eva, another mission member here, did I survive that day with getting around. Also, workwise -- the last week of school was the week following the surgery, and reports cards were due! I did not think ahead at all, plus the doctors told I'd be able to due almost everything normally (not taking into consideration that I needed to write report cards, clearly), so this was a bit stressful and quite difficult. But I went back for a checkup 7 hours after surgery, and the surgeon said they were healing so fast that it looked like it had been two days after surgery. He'd never seen that before! And when I went back three days later they were healing perfectly.

One difference from the experiences I've heard of in Canada is the vision healing time. People have told me 4 days, or 7 days, till they have perfect vision. Here I was told 4 weeks. I'm at about 2.5 weeks right now, and my vision is slowly improving. It's already good enough that I could play probably any sport other than baseball or maybe badminton, and not need contacts or glasses. That in itself is AMAZING; I've never been able to before! Playing piano for school, working with sheet music in choir and Christmas performances.. that has been hard, and mostly relying on memory.

I'm scared, honestly, that it will not improve all the way, especially the details and closer stuff. Abstaining from reading and being outside in the bright sun and from sewing has been quite difficult, and by now I definitely do read and spend time outside. But reading too long isn't comfortable (mind you, I like reading for 5 hours straight, maybe that's just too long in general), watching a movie definitely is useless (which isn't the worst thing on earth, eh? I won't complain about that), and sewing is definitely straining. So I hope and dream and pray that I will get 20/20 vision. It would be wonderful.

 I woke up at 5 to catch the sunrise, on Nov 18. Just in case it was the last one.

 Not so beautiful in the morning, but me with glasses, one last time.

They operate on your eyes for about one minute. And yet you must put on this entire outfit, including the vodaemchalla pants and the long thick socks. The waistband on these pants could have fit two of me. On a distantly related note, there were three of going in for this surgery this morning. One spoke a bit of English, the other not at all. But it's amazing how you can relate to and bond with someone when you're all alone in a very sterile environment with this institutional clothing, and then they give you relazapan. We were blood sisters.

 My pills and drops right after surgery. I ended up making a very nice chart that the nurses would have approved of, with dates and times and places to sign. All very orderly.

Thankful
~ English speaking eye surgeon
~ much improved eyesight already
~ a pretty good end of the school year
~ a solid closing program
~ Good friends. And campfires, camping, going to resorts and bad futbol games with these friends

Praying for
~ wise decisions for my future! One option I was really looking forward to has mostly fallen through, but HE's got a plan!
~ eyes healing to 100%
~ that I would be able to adjust to culture and climate and people at home (I have a feeling it will be difficult!), coming up very quickly!!

Clausura - closing program

The last day of classes was November 24. Leading up to this, I spent the majority of my music classes practicing with the students for the Clausua, the closing program. Imagine spending 5 hours, singing the same 1 or 3 songs, all day, for a few weeks. I know those songs backwards and forwards now!

As is typical for any school year and students, regardless of location, as we got closer to the end of the year, kids were more and more antsy, with less patience and ability to pay attention. But us teachers were a little antsy too, so we all understand. Temperatures were also a factor in this, we had some really hot days on and off - I think just above 40C. Luckily, we had some colder days in between.

One interesting twist in our schedule is that the marks and report cards were due (required by the government) Nov 21st, a few days before classes actually ended. Tests, papers, etc, all needed to be done before that. Busy busy the week before, but then at least the last few days we could focus on the program.

Nov 24, a Thursday, we practiced at church for a few hours, with the entire school. On this day I thoroughly regretted trying to sing a song with the entire school. Getting them all lined up, realizing the back half of the choir couldn't even see me!, it was chaos. But we went through all the items for the program, practiced walking in and out, until we mostly knew what we were doing. Each grade presented a dance, song, mime, skit, something. It was very well done.

Sunday, Nov 27 was the day of the closing program. This was a very busy day for me personally, a mission/agricultural group from southern Manitoba just arrived that morning for church. It was absolutely wonderful to see faces from 'back home.' I went out for lunch with them in Pailon after church, then rushed back to get ready for the closing program. The closing program went really well, kids were relatively calm and all the presentations were great. The parents and guests fill up the church for this, so the students and teachers were all in the back foyer. Whenever it was their turn to do something, they would go outside the church, line up, and enter the stage for the doors from outside. Coordination was key.

After the program, it is apparently tradition to have rollkuchen and watermelon at school, so we had a giant buffet of this -- soooooo good! Later on, I joined the MB group at their sleeping place, a nearby guesthouse. It was really refreshing and relaxing to spend time with them.

The grade 12s leading worship to start off the closing program

 

The entrance of the church, where all the students and teachers sat.

 

The sanctuary of the church

 

Kinder class, singing a song

 

Some of grade 5, finishing up a mime.

 

The whole school, singing Singabahambayo. The performance day was waaay better than rehearsal.

 

Us four teachers were leaving, so they gave us gifts and said words of appreciation, I think!

 

The staff of Villa Nueva  

Pool Day: where's waldo

Nov 1st we all went to a pool complex in Santa Cruz. In reality, a lot of kids were missing because parents realize that it's pretty dangerous with lack of supervision, so it's not actually the whole school. We went to the Blooming complex, which is the training facility for a futbol team here (called Blooming). Beautiful beautiful soccer fields. And 4 pools. We left school at 8ish, arrived by 10. The bigger pools weren't open for a while so a bunch of high schoolers and teachers went to play soccer on the field that we were allowed to touch. Not as nice! But still good to play on. After a good game all the pools were opened, and so the rest of the day was spent in or around the water.

One thing that was terrifying, and it should be... no supervision. 100ish kids, and yes there were teachers and parents, but no one was assigned an area to watch, nor did anyone really watch carefully. No lifeguards. No pool rules like NO RUNNING (the first one I can remember learning). But no one got hurt, other than scrapes and normal things! So that's good.

We are a Mennonite based school, even if there's tons of Spanish/other descent coming to the school, so we are ultra conservative. No bathing suits, no tank tops, no topless men. Sports jerseys and shorts were the wardrobe of the day. It works out quite well.

We stayed the pool til about 5, and then tried to leave. Our not very experienced bus driver managed to drive through a sand pit while turning around, so it took another hour or so to get out of there. Let me just say.. people don't have very much experience with getting stuck, or with getting out. Nancy and I told stories as we were waiting, of winters and icy roads and blizzards and deep snow. Kind of relatable!

 Bus ride in

 Pailon, where I live, used to only be accessible by that train bridge. Going to Santa Cruz, the only city nearby, would take 6 hours potentially. Recently they've built a highway bridge, so now it only takes 1.5 hours ish.

 Here's a game, like where's waldo. How many adults do you see?

Found some! Alas, they are facing inwards and can't actually see the pool.

Oh another thing, you can get a glimpse of the mix of cultures, we have more traditional Mennonite women, some less tradiional, and some kids.. all dressed very differently. 

 Me, Whit and Nancy. We're so busy posing for pictures we can't supervise.

Actually the purpose of this photo was to show off our swimming attire! 

 The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round..

We had a mix of clouds and sunshine, so not straight beams the entire day. The few days after this, every kid had bloodshot eyes, red/peeling faces (the ENTIRE face peeling, I've never seen that before), or they just didn't come to school! It was a long day, but a lot of fun playing with kids outside of the classroom!

Musikj Owent/Noche de Musica

I and a good (and musical) friend, Whitney, hosted a music night on October 28. My first reason for wanting to do this was to showcase the the new skills of the students, as a sort of piano/guitar recital. And then it grew a bit (I'm not actually sure why or how it happened), we added a few songs by a volunteer high school choir. This was volunteer only in the sense that they didn't HAVE to come to the music night. They all learned the songs in school, in music class, but only 17 or so came out for the night. (Which I was happy about, it could have been 3!) After that, I thought.. let's have a worship time! My thinking was that God gives us our abilities, he gives us our brains so that we can learn, therefore we are praising him unconsciously when we play an instrument or climb a mountain or play futbol. Doing what HE made our bodies to do. So why not end off the evening with intentional and conscious worship and thanksgiving to him?

So the evening was piano and guitar, handing out certificates, choir time, and some worship. AND most importantly, some friends baked some cookies and I hired a local lady to bake 400 more, so we had a free cookie bar all evening long! It was delicious.

Over the course of the year, I had quite a few private music students. 16 piano students and 10 guitar students, when I actually add them up. Some stayed all the way through, some quit after a few months, some just started a couple months ago. Most are at a beginner level. This has been... not really outreach, in terms of direct witnessing or anything, but it has been a really good time. A way to encourage, teach them a little bit, and hopefully show them a little bit of love. I also had to do a lot of learning myself, as I didn't really know anything substantial about guitar before coming here, now I know a LITTLE bit. It definitely has been really good for building relationships here, and for them and myself to practice perseverance. It also has opened up my eyes and shown me how terrible a piano student I must have been - sorry!!

For the music night, I had no idea what to expect. No one's had a piano recital here before. There's been a couple worship nights, but the people who led them are gone and no one has tried since. I was hoping the parents of my kids would come, but also hoping that people of some local communities would attend. We had it in the sanctuary of the Villa Nueva Church, but I really wanted more of a coffeehouse feel instead of straight pews. So... do we set for 50? or 400? We really had no idea.

In the end, Whit and I moved the very heavy benches all to the sides, creating a semi circle, and set up 10 tables in the middle. So table space was about 80 people, overflow/benches could be a few hundred if needed. Turns out, it was perfect. It was a great relaxed atmosphere, the tables were mostly full and the benches were nicely full. I have no idea how many people really came, I would guess around 200 hundred but I actually don't know. But it was a perfect feel of not empty, and not crammed in full.

Posters were posted:

Thank you to a million people for editing these! I struggled.

Now onto the actual evening.

 Setup and practice before

 Just the beginning of the cookies!

 A grade 12 student kindly translated for me

 The youngest student, in grade 4, starting off the recital part.

 I tried to teach both classical music (with staves and notes) and also contemporary stuff with just chords. A few students chose to play a worship song, with just the chords, for the recital. For these pieces, Whitney and/or I sang along so that the song made sense!

 The students waiting to perform

 With the guitar students, I played along as well, just to help them out.

 Certificates

 Grade 8 to 12 students, VOLUNTEERS only

 Worship time at the end. Whitney recruited her husband (on the drums) and some other local people who often sing in worship teams at church.

And that was the evening!! It was crazy, really. So many moving parts, and I was involved in every single part, plus managing everything. It was stressful beforehand, but the evening itself was more than I could ever have wished for, it was oh so smooth and amazing.

- Thank you to all the students for practicing and learning so much this year, and for being brave and playing in front of all those people:)
- Thank you to Whitney, David and Nancy for helping set up, baking cookies, taking pictures, managing the food, filling in for random music parts, writing in the certificates, cleaning up afterwards, and all the other ways you helped! So appreciative!
- And THANK YOU to God, who loves to gives us gifts such as music. What a rich life we live

~ to God be the glory ~