My experience as a juror

Well, I completed my other civic duty today, sitting on a jury for the past three days as an alternate for a civil trial. It was a "slip and fall" case, involving someone who had fallen at a restaurant and was suing for injuries. It was a very interesting process, the selection, trial and meeting people that I would never have otherwise.

Because I was the alternate though, I was able to speak with the plaintiff during deliberations, who as it came out during the trial as part of testimony was a Christian. She and her husband talked with me about my mission work and some experiences that they had had on missions of their own. They had mentioned how stressed out they were over the trial, and were glad that I could take their mind off, especially during such a tense period of the case. They even said they would pray for me on my trip to Bolivia and we exchanged contact info. I plan to add them to my email list.

I would say after doing this that 1) I'm glad I'm not in the legal profession, and 2) glad that I don't have to do this again for at least two years, it was tiring!

Flooding in Bolivia

Many of you may have read in the news of the flooding taking place in Bolivia and also Peru. This is unfortunately a fairly normal occurance, but because of the El Niño cycles, this year has been particularly bad. I was looking at a map on the websites of one of the Bolivian newspapers and the worst region hit is the Santa Cruz department. It has had a great impact on much of the agricultural areas of the country and 18,000 people have been affected nationwide with over 44,000 acres of land lost to flood damage. Chuquisaca and Cochabamba departments have also been affected, but not as bad as Santa Cruz. The Beni department where I am headed was largely unaffected, but floods do affect Trinidad from time to time. They got lucky this time.

The La Palmera school that I'm going to has started up for the year and is now in the second week of classes. It was an auspicious beginning with several teachers missing (they were traveling back and delayed by the floods). But everyone is back now and there is an aura of excitement, especially in the high school. Teachers are working hard to teach and discipline and the kids are being attentive and submissive to teachers' requests, something that was a problem before. The school has also opened up a new physics/chemistry lab, so the high school kids will have more opportunities to see those sciences in action first hand.

I am really pushing to be done with support in the next couple weeks, so please pray that I can connect with people, reaching people on the phone and following up has been especially difficult. Pray that God would open up the communication lines, especially for people I've been trying to reach for some time. God willing, I'll be out of here mid-late March.

The latest

And now, the serious news . . .I had a much better week with support raising. I got several requests for information, people who I hope will eventually give. I also got some phone numbers for a few more people who I had been trying to get for some time, so that has given me some more people to talk with. It feels like it's starting to pick up again, so keep up the prayers for those of you that have been!

Superbowl/commercials

I was so impressed last night after the Superbowl at Indianapolis' head coach, Tony Dungy who said at the trophy presentation he was proud to be the first African-American coach to win a Superbowl, but more proud that he and Lovie were both Christian coaches and that they "showed the world you can win the Lord's way". I'm sure it takes a lot of courage and character for someone of that status to express his faith, but in a time when so many Christians hide their faith, I was impressed that he didn't.

As for commercials, usually there are a couple of really good ones, this year was a downer though, not really any that were that funny. Here are my two favorites though:

For humor:


And for creativity: