Beauty for Ashes

Before getting into my blog, I’d like to apologize for the long delay. Because it has been 4 weeks since my last blog instead of two, this will be a bit of a longer update. Life has been busy recently and I hadn’t had a chance to finish this on time. But I hope you enjoy it just the same!

I am now coming down to the end of my time here — only 6 more days until I fly away from Rurrenabaque and my Bolivia home. I have been trying to soak up my last bit of time here, and it has been a very good few weeks. So many blessings and some difficulties too. My Uncle Rick (a faithful reader of my blog) was able to come and visit 3 weeks ago and start constructing a green house for the garden so that we can have the most sensitive plants shielded from the rain. The greenhouse will be a huge blessing! It was so nice to have him here, and I’m so grateful that he came to visit. And without further ado, here is a whirlwind life update about the last three weeks here:

Three weeks ago on my day off, Carlie, Justin, my uncle, Santi, and I all got to go on a hike to the cross. There is a hike here in Rurre that goes to the top of a mountain where there is a white cross. We had fun going up and Santi was quite impressed by the view! Justin took one for the team and carried Santi up nearly the entire hike! I felt much less out of shape than the last time I climbed the cross (pretty recently after having Dengue), so that was very encouraging.

Since most of the student missionaries were getting ready to leave a few weeks ago, we decided to have one last Friday night worship in the houses with the kids with foot washing and an agape feast. I went to the Flores house and gave the worship talk, and then got to participate in foot washing with little Dianara. It was a very sweet moment to see her wash my feet and to wash hers. I love that little girl so deeply, and she’s growing up so fast. I really got a small picture of Jesus’ love for us as I washed her feet and as she washed mine. We’ve been through so much with Dianara and she has grown so much in our time here. And after all that we’ve been through, I love her more than I can say.

Afterwards, we enjoyed an agape feast with delicious lentil burgers, cheesy noodles, and even yogurt (quite the specialty here). Thanks to Kelsey’s good cooking, we all enjoyed the food so much. And we laughed basically the entire meal. So much laughter, so many jokes, so much joy was shared at that agape feast. I’m definitely going to look back on it as a very precious memory.

Then Sabbath evening, we all headed to the river to play and have worship. The kids loved it and pretty soon everyone was covered in mud. More happy memories were made as the kids splashed around in the water, collected clay, and had mud fights.

The student missionaries have all left since then except for me and Hope. It was such a sad goodbye the night that the last of them left. Everyone gathered around and there were lots of tears shed and hugs shared. Then we all gathered for one last prayer together. I had found out a few days before Sophia left that the original family who was going to take care of Santi (our resident 3-year-old) after she left, was not going to be able to take care of him until May. So, I was given the responsibility of caring for him since he already lived in the clinic with Sophia and I.

It was so hard to watch him say goodbye to Sophia. I had to take him to the clinic yelling and crying as they left because he was so sad. My heart broke for him. By the time I got him to sleep, I was really crying out to God for Jesus to come back soon. Watching Santi’s heartbreaking parting with Sophia made me desire so much that he could have a family that will take care of him and never have to leave, and that Jesus will come back and heal all of the broken hearts whether big or small. I long so much for the day when we will never have to say goodbye and when tears will no longer be shed. Sometimes I get glimpses into how much we need Jesus to come make things right and heal broken hearts, and that night was one of those glimpses. A true “longing for Heaven” moment.

One of the last days of working agriculture with the Leones boys was a lot of fun because we harvested our first mandarin oranges of the season! I was nearly as excited as they were because I don’t get much mandarin harvesting experience in the states. We filled up two big buckets from that tree and distributed them to the cafeteria and the Leones house. And of course we each had to eat one too. They were the best, sweetest, largest mandarins I’ve ever tasted. Absolutely incredible!

Now I have the little Guerreros boys for work in agriculture in the afternoons. The first day we brought them into the garden, we gave them a garden tour to show them all of the plants and explain them to them. I have never seen any children as excited about the garden as they were. They enthusiastically ate spinach leaves, basil leaves, bean leaves, cucumbers, peppers, and even raw okra, declaring all of them “Rico!” (Delicious).

Before bringing them into the garden, we had told them they could only walk in the walkways and not on the beds. We did not want them compacting the soil or stepping on plants. So when we pointed out that in one corner we have some zinnias and a sunflower blooming, they got soo excited and raced off at top speed to go see them. They wove in and out of row after row being careful not to step on the beds and then stopped in front of the sunflower and just stared at it. It was such a sweet and happy experience to behold because they were so very excited about everything  in the garden.

The past week has been difficult because Santi has been sick. I have had many sleepless nights where I stay up for hours with him and when I do get to sleep, get woken up about every hour. I was soo exhausted yesterday, but thankfully his fever broke last night around 2 am and he slept from 11-7. It was such bliss to sleep for more than an hour straight! And since it’s my day off today, I got a nap this morning as well. Still very tired, but feeling much better than the past few days. Thankful for God’s sustaining strength through it all!

Partway through my uncle’s visit here, we went on a jungle tour for three days to Madidi National Park in hopes of seeing some wildlife. It was raining when we left and we hopped in a wooden boat with a motor on the back and headed up stream. The river is very high right now, and we were amazed as we watched the driver skillfully steer us around rapids, whirlpools, currents, and dangers we couldn’t even see. We could tell that he knew the river very well. It took us 4 hours to arrive at our destination and on the way we stopped at a little island to use the “Inca toilet” as the guide called it. While on the island we saw tapear tracks and capybara tracks too! Then we hopped back in the boat and later spotted the head of a capybara as it swam through the rough water. It is so funny looking: like if you pictured a gerbil with a boxy head swimming.

We hiked into the jungle for about ten minutes before arriving at a little community of wooden houses with thatched roofs. We swam in the lake and ate delicious food that evening as well as took jungle walks during the day and after sunset.

The next day, we took off for a 3 hour trek into the jungle. It was absolutely gorgeous. Massive trees made up the top canopy of the rainforest and there were trees of every shape and size beneath. Brightly colored mushrooms and fungi were everywhere and pretty flowers, leaves, and butterflies were abundant. And the smells were amazing. Wafts of sweet flowers came and went, and everything smelled fresh and humid. We heard lots of cool bird sounds and saw cool trees like the walking tree that has leg-like stumps that it grows in order to adjust its position in comparison to the sunlight. There was a tree that has a trunk full of water and if you cut into it, water will pour out and the tree will die. And there were other trees that were hundreds of years old.

We hadn’t seen much in the way of wildlife yet when our guide suddenly got excited and pointed out a jaguar territory marking on the trail that had been made since the rain that morning. As we continued along, we saw more and more markings and they were getting fresher and fresher. One hadn’t even had any leaves fall in it yet: we were tracking a jaguar! On one, we could even still smell the jaguar animal smell in the paw mark on the ground — it was that fresh! Unfortunately I’m pretty sure the jaguar watched us pass by instead of us seeing it pass by because the freshest marking finally was behind us and there were no more markings and no jaguar. Later we saw monkeys and got to eat a cool type of tree bark that tasted like the artificial cherries that they put on sundaes.

That afternoon, after we returned to the camp and had a nap, we were ready for our next activity: piranha fishing. We all caught piranhas and it was a lot of fun! We saw tons of curious monkeys beside the lake as we finished up our fishing expedition. Later that night we went on a boat ride on the lake and the stars were gorgeous. We looked for alligator eyes with our flashlights but the water was too high to see them well. It was a little unnerving as we realized that the same water we swam in the day before was also where we caught our pirahnas and where we were looking for alligators.

The next day we went on a 2 hour trek into a different part of the jungle and saw lots of tapear tracks, waded through swamps, swung on huge vines, and saw more monkeys. By the time we headed home in the boat, we had seen Red howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, cappuccino monkeys, macaws, piranhas, a capybara, and tracked a jaguar. I even saw a toucan fly by my deck one morning.

It was a lovely trip and provided a much needed break in nature. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I prayed that God would teach me through His nature as we were on the tour, and something I repeatedly noticed was that some of the prettiest things I saw were things that were growing on dying things like fallen stumps. I have tons of pictures of gorgeous intricate mushrooms, and we also passed a huge fallen tree with bright pretty ferns and moss growing on it. I realized that there were so many things that were so pretty, but that would not have been there before sin came into the world. But as I thought about it, I was amazed as I realized how God truly does make everything beautiful in His time. Even dead trees are made beautiful by brightly colored ferns, mushrooms, and moss. And if God does that with nature, how much more can He do that with us?! Each kid here at Familia Feliz has had such a rough start to life, all of them living without their families some as young as 3 like Santi, and all of them having other trauma in their pasts. But I was reminded that just like beautiful mushrooms, ferns, and moss grow on dead trees, God can make beautiful things out of these kids lives. They may have started off like a dead tree stump, but God plans to cover their lives in beautiful brightly colored plants and once again show His amazing ability to turn bring good things from bad situations. Please pray for each of the kids here at Familia Feliz, that they will let God take their hurt and turn their lives into a beautiful thing to glorify Him.

As I was writing this blog, Isaiah 61:3. came to mine: “To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.””

May God give each precious child here at Familia Feliz beauty for ashes and beautiful ferns to grow on some of the hardest parts of their lives — so that one day they can look back and see that some of the most difficult parts of their lives eventually brought the most beauty of all.