So, the Internado here in Ixiamas is raising three pigs they keep in a small shelter toward the back of their property.  With the kids gone on vacation, the responsibility of feeding our oinking little friends fell to me.  When I went to fill the feed trough on Saturday night, things didnt quite go as planned….

When I first opened the door, one pig who was poised to make a bid for freedom, darted between my legs and out into the night.  I turned around while hurridly shutting the door and followed it with my flashlight trying not to startle him.  Meanwhile, the two remaining pigs had managed to undo my hurried door locking and also wandered out of the pen.  At this point, I called the girls for help.  I didnt realize that the Internados more michevious dog considered himself invited as well.  When the girls showed up, I was chasing Scott, who was chasing the pigs in circles around the enclosure.  We did manage to run two back into the hut, but the third had had enough of the merry-go-round, and decided to dart off into the woods in earnest.  Picture a scared little piglet, followed by a yelping dog, followed by a lumbering gringo, all trampling through relativly dense jungle, in the dark, with only my flashlight and Scotts barking to guide the way, for about five solid minutes (you can run pretty far in five minutes).  Eventually I was able to tackle the pig and lug him back to the little hut, calling to the girls to find my way back.  Luckily I made something of a U and was pretty close to them by the end of my little jog.  So, fortunately, the Internado still has pigs. 

No other news I can relate is quite as exciting (except for maybe the bat Abby and I chased out of Katie and Abbys bedroom).  We are all well, both in health and in spirit.  Abby and Vickie are now in Rurrenabaque, for a brief vacation and to take care of some buisness.  The rest of us will go next week.  Our next blog will probably be from there!  Until then!

Bryan   

The kids winter vacation officially started this week, and most of them have gone home.  This means that our work has just begun.  While the kids are gone we each have a project that we are working on.  Hopefully they will all get done!  Eugenia, the cook, also gets vacation so the gringos have become the official Internado chefs which is a scary proposition.  We are trying to recreate some of our favorites from back home, but we have almost decided that it is better to just stick with the native cuisine. 

The team from Christ Community Church in Columbus just left yesterday.  They did a great job on construction, and we helped a lot of people by testing their eyes and selling glasses.  They were really a great group of brothers and sisters.

Do you often turn to your computer to search about a topic in the news, a restaurant menu or maybe even a phone number you need? Now, using GoodSearch, you can search the Internet and raise money for SIFAT at the same time. For each search, GoodSearch donates one penny to SIFAT.

One penny may not seem like much, but let’s do a little math to see what a few people can do. Each month, we mail approximately 2,200 SIFAT Journals. If each person used GoodSearch once a week for a month (4 times), SIFAT would receive $88. If everyone did this for an entire year, SIFAT would receive $1,056.–and that’s without ever increasing your monetary donations.

2200 x 4=$88 x 12 = $1056 = Sharing God’s Love in Practical Ways

The next time you are researching a mission trip to Bolivia or trying to find out how to construct a bamboo house in your backyard, go to www.goodsearch.com and find the answers to your questions, while raising money for SIFAT!

This article appeared in the May issue of the SIFAT Journal. To download a copy of the SIFAT Journal, click here.

When our contruction efforts were done for the day, I was greated with the news that we can, once again, communicate with the outside world. There is not a whole lot of news to report, other than the fact that we can now read the e-mails you guys send…. Because last weekend was the aneversario de Ixiamas and most kids were gone, they thought it was a good chance for the newcomers to test out their cooking skills. The pizza on Saturday was a success, however the potatoes here in Bolivia are not extremely conducive to the making of hash browns as we found out on Sunday morning….. The kids began to return to the Internado throughout Sunday, and Olivia, Rachel, and Mateo arrived with the team that afternoon. They brought many pairs of glasses of various prescriptions and the second floor of the Internado was turned into a makeshift optomatrists office for Ixiamas. While half the team helped with that, the rest worked with me and hermano Juan setting and plumbing the forms for the second floor columns on their soon to be new building. A large number of people with whom I can speak my native language has been a treat. We are all well and send our love back home! Now that the internet is back, we should be back to our 2-3 updates a week. Until then!

Bryan

Dear faithful readers. 
Sorry it has been so long since our last post.  The internet in Ixiamas has been down for over a week, and who knows when it will be back up.  Rachel, Mateo and I came to Rurre last night to meet the team from Christ Community Church, hence we have internet for the day.

We are continualy learning so much about Bolivian life, ourselves, each other, and ways in which the Lord works. 

There have been times when we wanted more work to do, but God is teaching us to instead give love (and to recieve Love).  We are learning to be good recievers…of the lessons learned, and the ways in which the kids love us and most importantly recievers of God´s love.

We celebrated the birthday of Ixiamas by taking some of the kids to the parade in town.  It was a good time and everyone was in high spirits because school was cancelled for 3 days. 

We are all excited to see the group from Columbus today.  Our Spanish is improving, but it will be fun to communicate without haveing to ¨listen¨so hard.  Continue to pray that God will reveal himself to us and we can see the ways in which we can best serve him and be apart of his will in Ixiamas. 

-Hermana Olivia