Laying Floors at the Deaf Orphanage

After completing the project in Kewnia, I (Weatherly) went with the missions team to the deaf orphanage, as JM was busy in the jungle.  We laid new floors for a desperately needed new building.  While the deaf orphanage is not a part of International Orphanage Union, we often help them with projects and certain needs as they do not have much (or any) support from the States.  The orphanage is run by Bolivians, who divide the campus into a girls and boys home, each with house parents.  The campus is a beautiful plot of land, about 30 minutes from Cochabamba.  The orphanage needs about $30,000 for new building as one of the dormitories is becoming dilapitated.  If you know of a church or special interests group who would like to help, please let me know!

The team from Church of the Good Shepard all decided to purchase some new hats, after everyone got pretty burned in Kewina.

Preparing the floors for new concrete.

The manly men with the concrete mixer!

Aren't these kids darling?  Even though I did not know sign language, it's amazing how much we could still communicate.  I never realized how much charades is a life skill :)

On the campus, they have chickens, ducks, rabbits, a calf (who likes to be pet like dog), a puppy, and sheep.  I was taught all of the signs for the animals.

Laying the concrete floors.

Some amazing women at work :)

Rebuilding Kewina

International Orphanage Union has two homes out at Camp Kewina, a Christian camp that can hold up to 500 kids at a time.  It's located about 2 hours away from Cochabamba.  Anyway, we had a crazy storm come through and it did a good amount of damage to our homes.  Thankfully, while we had to deal with a huge eucalyptus tree falling, it just missed one of the homes.  This week we had a team in from Church of the Good Shepard in Leo, Indianna who were a tremendous help!

A beautiful view of the lake on the way to our homes in Kewina.  

Of course, one needs to be aware of sheep crossing.

The eucalyptus trees that were knocked down during the storm.

The roof of one of the homes was pretty crushed.

A close up of even the roof rafters being split.

 

Our project with the team, besides cleaning up the damage from the trees, was to complete a sewage line from the septic tank to the city sewage line.

The neighborhood kids gathered around to watch the gringos at work!  Some even helped!

Camp Kewina inself got hit pretty hard.  This was their brand new dining hall which was directly crushed by a tree.

The camp is beautiful and at the top of the hill are the corsses we hiked to the first time we came.

There is quite alot of livestock just hanging out on the streets of the town.

A typical home (adobe mud bricks) around the camp.

Finishing the day hanging out with Blondie, the camp dog.

Happy Palm Sunday!

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A Palm Sunday (really Saturday) parade through Plaza Principal. They came though right after baby washing.

Things are a little different in Bolivia...

Such as our roommate, Kathryn needing to brown the top of her lemon meringue pies.  

Why yes, that is a blow-torch connected to a grafa (gas tank).  I'm sure it's completely safe :)

Back in Bolivia

So we made it back! To our amazement, our AeroSur flight actually left a couple of minutes early!  This was a huge surprise given that last time our flight was not only rescheduled for two days later, our flight time of 9pm ended up being 4am.  Not only did we make it, so did all of our luggage which is a huge praise!  Internet is once again patchy until we're in our own place with consistent wifi, but we're trying to keep you all updated until then. Much, much more to come!

Thoughts on John the Baptist

So I (Weatherly) have been reading John McArthur's Commentary on the book of Matthew recently and am struck by the man of John the Baptist. When I think of him, I remember his story, but when looking deeper, I realize just how much I have missed. I had no idea that Jesus referred to him as the "greatest of men" (Matthew 11:11). Wow, seems like I would definitely want to be more like this guy, except if I'm honest, I'm not sure, because it seems so uncomfortable. First of all, John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth which is an amazing fact (Luke 1:15b). Secondly, his life purpose was to make way for the arrival of Christ. But it was not a bunch of press releases or bios, it was calling on Israel to repent of their sins and be baptized. Two interesting facts here (per McArthur): 1. As God's chosen people, the Israelites thought they were doing things right but along comes a man who challenges their very heart. 2. Baptism was not a known concept at the time. Ceremonial washing for the atonement of sin was a consistent (not one time) command and did not include the whole body. In fact, the only people who went through a similar cleansing where Gentiles when they accepted the Jewish faith. So John not only tells the Israelites they need to repent (a cleansing of their hearts), but has them go through a ceremonial cleansing only for Gentiles (a despised people group). Talk about controversial! And finally, John lived in the wilderness, eating only locusts and wild honey and wearing a "garment of camel's hair, and a belt about his waist" (Matthew 3:4). Not exactly a suit and tie of today's age or even the robes of the religious leaders of the time. I am convicted how I would act around someone so radical, who shook up my faith and lived so differently. Admittedly, growing up in a formal church, I still hold fast to my traditions of dress code and propriety. But here, we see "the greatest man" as proclaimed by Christ with one thing- a passion to make way for his Lord, without any regard to being proper or likable. Oh to have that kind of courage and commitment that only comes from the Holy Spirit!

We've Got Return Tickets!

Sorry for not posting while we are in the states.  We figured we would leave this blog to be about our time overseas as life in the US is somewhat predictable :)  On that note, we've got tickets back to Bolivia- yay!  Please check out our newsletter for details: http://eepurl.com/iHdGT