El Comienzo: The Beginning

"Can we please have four big cold water bottles?" That was our request to the waiter at a small cafe in Rurrenebaque, Bolivia on August 19, 2024. We had finally arrived in Rurrenebaque after traveling for over 30 hours straight. Our group of eight very tired, hot, and hungry student missionaries were crammed into the cafe hoping for some cold water and food. We were very low on sleep and most of us had not eaten anything but a granola bar for the last 17+ hours. Just hours before, we had watched out the window of a very tiny plane as it landed on a very tiny runway. Jungle and small mountains were surrounding us on every side. We had hopped off the plane directly onto the runway and eagerly retrieved our luggage, relieved that our many, many suitcases had arrived safely. (Our Bolivia student missionaries are apparently not light packers, because we each had 3+ items of luggage.)

Below: We all met up in Santa Cruz before finishing our journey to Familia Feliz together. My sister Sierra also got to come and train us in as student missionaries for ten days, which was a great blessing.

Below left: A photo that student missionary Kelsey took of me on our way to Cochabamba.

Below right: A photo of student missionariy Aiden waving to one of our cameras as he arrived in Rurrenebaque Bolivia.

We were picked up by a big truck from Familia Feliz (the orphanage we were headed to work at for 9 months), and proceeded to stop in town to buy a few necessities for our time here: pillows and fans. Then we all stopped at a cafe for lunch. Carlie, Kelsey, and I observed that our feet were swollen from the heat and dehydration, so we figured we needed a lot of water. The waiter had to hide an amused smile as he brought us several huge bottles of cold water and watched us desperately drink them while remarking how thankful we were for it. We then drove to Familia Feliz where we were greeted excitedly by 70+ children waiting for us. Thus a new and exciting adventure began.

Below: Kelsey (right) and Lauren (left) enjoying our giant cold water bottles.

We are now coming up on two weeks since we arrived, and have already experienced so many new, unique, and trying things. My job at Familia Feliz is to start a farm to feed the orphanage, as well as to teach the children the useful skill of gardening. Much of my first week was spent sorting seed packets, planning planting locations and times, and getting to know the kids. I spent much time in the houses where the girls stay as well and enjoyed playing with them while attempting to talk to them using my very limited (but rapidly improving) Spanish. This week I have also spent much time helping take care of 13 hyper little boys in the house fittingly named The Leones (the Lions). My time there presented many unique experiences and challenges of its own that I will likely give you a larger glimpse at in future weeks.

Below left: One tired out little boy from the Leones.

Below right: Me, one of our little boys, and Blue, the resident parrot of The Leones.

Below: Pinkie, one of our little girls standing in a blanket "hammock" she set up herself.

Much of this week has been spent shaping lots of garden beds with the older kids. I was very pleasantly surprised when I arrived and found a whole garden plot tilled out of a jungle forest by a tractor in preparation for my arrival. We also harvested around 130 grapefruits and about 70 volunteer squash. We even have a lemon tree full of lemons ready for lemonade and other delicious food. God is already blessing us with food to harvest from plants that we didn't even plant.

Below left: Harvesting grapefruits!

Below right: volunteer squash

Below: Me and some of the girls after working in the hot sun on the garden beds for awhile.

Saturday night, all of the student missionaries really wanted to get together to hang out and debrief about our first week at the orphanage. Most of the student missionaries are house parents, meaning they act as the mom or dad of a house full of 10+ children for the duration of their time here. Therefore, since they are with children all of the time and hence have very little free time, I decided that it was up to me to make sure that we got to meet and had something special to eat. I proceeded to get together the ingredients for garlic bread (something that is not a regular dish at Familia Feliz), and started roasting the garlic on the stove since our oven in our house does not work. I put a banana leaf on top of the pan to keep the steam in and it proved to be very effective. Then I attempted to make garlic bread without having any measuring cups or spoons, tasting the dough to make sure it wasn't too salty, and praying that it would turn out. I went to the Leones house and used their gas oven that provided very uneven heat to bake the bread in. I rotated the bread a lot trying to get it as evenly baked as possible. Then I finally took it out and met the student missionaries in the middle of the dark yard to catch up and eat. Thanks to God's grace for my less-than-ideal cooking situation, the bread turned out and we had a wonderful time catching up and encouraging one another.

Below left: Garlic bread

Below right: Happy student missionaries at our get-together Saturday evening.

There have been challenges too, however. One such challenge is very close to home -- in our home, actually. I am living in the clinic with our student missionary nurse, Sophia. Unfortunately, we have found 10+ rats living there also -- in our food, in our sink, in our bathroom, in our stove, and even on the medical supplies bins. We have tried a variety of solutions: everything from chasing them out of the house, to letting one of the older boys take care of them, to getting a kitten. Our kitten, named Shark out of hope for its hunting capabilites, has only caught one and refuses to pounce on them if she is too full from a meal already. Shark also likes to wake us up at night and climb on our mosquito nets as we lay inside, afraid that she will tear a hole in them. We tried a rat trap, but apparently Bolivian rats do not like peanut butter. Needless to say, we have taken up covering and hiding anything that we do not want rat paws to touch, and have resigned ourselves to the having few remaining rats as housemates until Shark decides to catch them.

Below: Shark and a very warm Ellie in Bolivian heat.

I will close this blog post by sharing another one of God's big blessings I have experienced in the world of farming these past couple weeks. Before coming to Familia Feliz, I took a week-long Tropical Agriculture Development course in Florida to prepare me to farm in a tropical setting, as I only have experience with farming in the non-tropical portions of the United States. While there, the generous staff gave me about 30 plant cuttings for Cassava and Cranberry Hibiscus. For those of you who are less agriculturally inclined, some plants are best reproduced through cuttings, which are a literal piece of a more mature plant that is cut off and then planted to become its own plant. Those cuttings were flown from Florida to Washington state in July and temporarily planted there because I was visiting family. Then they were flown to Michigan to be temporarily planted there for about a month before I left. Then they were once again pulled up, de-leafed, and packaged to travel 30 hours to Bolivia. I planted them here immediately upon arrival and began praying for them to grow. Somehow God kept most of them alive through three transplantings, 7+ flights, four different soils, and He even got them through Bolivian customs with zero questioning whatsoever. Now, those much-prayed-over plants are sprouting leaves and getting ready to be planted in the ground on our farm at Familia Feliz. I am so beyond grateful that God is the real farmer and not me. He can make things grow in any situation and truly gives us the help and encouragement we need when we work for Him. What a faithful God we serve!

Below: Baby cassava leaves