Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas in whatever city, state, or country you are celebrating.  May we all remember our Lord Jesus and the grace of God who sent His only son to die for us on the cross.  I pray that your Christmas is blessed and thank you for your prayers and encouragement during my time in Bolivia this last year and a half. 

I am celebrating here in Montrose, Colorado with my parents.  It is snowing and we are expecting record snow here over the next few days.  Telluride ski resort which is a short one hour drive away is expecting four feet of snow as part of a BLIZZARD warning.  Needless to say if we can get there should be excellent skiing.

Back in Colorado!

Friends, I am back in Colorado. I arrived yesterday at DIA to find temperatures at a freezing 22 degrees! Just so you know, that's 70 degrees cooler than the current temperatures in eastern Bolivia. Thankfully my friends that picked me up brought a coat for me since all I had was a fleece jacket and a pair of jeans! It's a bit hard readjusting to the cold after being spoiled by tropical weather, but it's also very nice to not be sweating constantly.

I'm in Denver until Monday when I planning to take the train to Grand Junction to meet up with my parents for the holidays and then I'll be back in Denver around New Year's and will be here all of the month of January. Praise the Lord too, I have found a condo to stay in for January in Louisville, so that will be very nice.

My trip from Trinidad to Santa Cruz last Thursday was not without adventure though. On my bus, about 30 min into the trip, we started smelling smoke and everyone started yelling at the driver to pull over. We realized it was the air conditioning unit which was failing and causing problems. We told the driver to just turn it off, which he did. The rest of the way we went with the ceiling emergency exit windows open to get some fresh air into the bus. That made things at least not completely unbearable. Then, when we arrived to Santa Cruz, as we were making our way through the city towards the bus terminal, the bus ran out of diesel. The driver managed to pull over to the side of the street, but we realized it wasn't going anywhere, so we all got off and just collected our bags and got taxis to our respective destinations. You gotta love Bolivia . . .I had nice weekend with my good friends the Porcels in Santa Cruz and each time I am inspired by their hospitality and kindness.

More adventures on the road

I went to Santa Cruz this week with the Secondary 3 kids to see a movie, which was their prize for winning a year long Bible trivia contest. We saw the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace (very good btw). Part of the movie takes place in Bolivia, although I had to laugh at some of the parts because it was not a very good portrayal of the Bolivian culture. Still, it was overall a good movie.

On the way home Wednesday night, we ran into a roadblock at the town of Guarayos, about halfway between here and Santa Cruz. The people it seems were without drinking water and were protesting by blocking the road in two places. We left Santa Cruz at 8:30 pm and arrived at Guarayos at 2:30 am. There we waited . . .

After a restless night of 20 of us trying to sleep on the microbus, but failing miserably, we awoke the next morning to find the blockade still on. We saw people crossing on foot though. After a few of the students talked with the people managing the blockade, they said the blockade would not be lifted until the next day. Then Erika, the pastor's wife who went with us along with Pastor Carlos Hugo suggested we call La Palmera and have them send the truck to get us and we could cross on foot and get picked up on the other side (this process is called "transbordo" by the way). We found out however that there was not one, but two roadblocks, one on each side of the town and the other one was a fair distance from the town (about 2 km).

So we set out on foot at 9 am to cross the whole length of the town and just as we were nearing the other roadblock, a moto passed by and someone yelled "no more blockade". Just a few minutes later trucks started passing by and we realized this one was lifted. We phoned Kapa, who had stayed behind with the bus, to find out if they had lifted the other one and he said they hadn't yet. We continued on.

At the roadblock there was a house with a lumberyard and a family that invited us to come and rest on their porch while we waited for the truck. The family also opened up their kitchen to us and said we were welcome to cook something if we went and got food. So Erika went into the town on a mototaxi and then came back with some stuff to make a "locro" or stew. It was so great to find this family and it was great to know that there are still generous people in this world. God definitely was looking out for us.

In the end the truck arrived at 12:30pm and we returned to Trinidad without any problems, arriving at 4pm. I am definitely looking forward to coming home to Colorado and not having to worry about roadblocks or horrible road conditions.