Our current intern in Ixiamas, Bolivia, is 2008 Practicum graduate Becky Forrest. During Practicum, Becky shared her experience on our blog. Now that she is in an intern in Bolivia, she will post updates as our interns in 2008 did. Becky served on short-term mission trips in 2007 and 2008 in Ixiamas.

The last three weeks have been different because the kids of the Internado have been out of school for winter vacation. The vacation is supposed to be two weeks, but because of the swine flu outbreak in Bolivia, they decided to extend the vacation two more weeks. A week ago Bolivia had around 500 cases mostly in the Santa Cruz area. Unfortunately, we have a team arriving from Christ Community Church in Columbus, Ga., tomorrow. I am sure they will be disappointed not see all the kids here. However since the kids are not here, the team will be able to help us with painting the dorm rooms and lower level of the Internado, which we are unable to do with the everyone here. More about the team in my next post.

Midweek of the first week of vacation, Rachel, Mateo, Chas (our summer intern) and I departed for Rurre to get a flight to LaPaz. When we arrived, it was pouring rain. Rurre has a grass runway and no landing or takeoff when raining. Chas declined the bus trip and stayed a few days in Rurre. I had to go back to immigration to see if paper work was finished for my resident visa. Yeah, Praise God, it was ready and I have my passport with the resident stamp good until June 9, 2010. After six long weeks of work, I am legal until my departure in December. However, I still have to obtain my ID card. I was told to return in a week to have a photo made for my card. Guess what; when I returned I was told no photos could not be made because the printer was out of ink…so I will be returning to LaPaz with the team to hopefully have my photo made. I must tell that my return to Ixiamas was done in record time. I flew from LaPaz to Rurre and then took the minibus to Ixiamas in only 8 hours, the minibus being 4 of those, the flight from LaPaz in only 45 minutes.

In my last post, I told you a little about the brothers and sisters living here. Now I would like to tell you a little about the remaining girls. Pati (14) was here last year. Her mother runs a restaurant in town, but because of her busy schedule there, she is unable to keep up Pati’s school work.  Yoisy (14) and Rosa (12) are from the same community about one hour from here on the road to Rurre. We will be visiting their community next week with the team. Carmen (14) lives several hours away and about an hour in the jungle off the main road. Ericka (10) is our youngest girl and an orphan. Her uncle is raising her in the same community as Marivel and Miguel.Ericka is originally from LaPaz and has been a challenge to the dorm mom because she had not been taught a lot about the hygiene necessary living in a jungle area. Once, she had to be hospitalized for a few days because of an infection from scratching bug bites. She is learning the hard way, but she is doing better with her cleanliness.

Please keep our visiting team in your prayers for travel and health while here in Bolivia.

 

Hasta Luego,

Hermana Becky

 

Our current intern in Ixiamas, Bolivia, is 2008 Practicum graduate Becky Forrest. During Practicum, Becky shared her experience on our blog. Now that she is in an intern in Bolivia, she will post updates as our interns in 2008 did. Becky served on short-term mission trips in 2007 and 2008 in Ixiamas.

This is my third week back in Ixiamas, and it has been so good to be back. English and computer classes have resumed; the kids did not forget everything in the six weeks I was gone. English is progressing well. They are now reading some small books and doing very well with their pronunciation.

   

This past Sunday afternoon I looked out my window to see Sneakers with something white in her mouth. It just happened to be the Angora rabbit that Rachel and I gave a haircut (see my last post). The rabbit cage got a hole in it, and the rabbit got out of the Bunny Hut. Sneakers was properly shamed, but I doubt she learned her lesson. We retrieved the rabbit before she tore into him. So, guess what was for supper Monday?

There was no school here last Thursday and Friday because it was the weekend to celebrate the town’s anniversary. The staff went to our cook Catalina’s farm about 3 hours or 26 miles from here — past Two Trees — to get a female pig for the new addition to the pig house. What an interesting trip we had! I had never been that far out before. Several of the kids live out there, and we dropped them off at their homes. We crossed several large rivers that could never be crossed in our truck during the rainy season. We had lunch and harvested some plantains at Catalina’s farm and put the pig in the back of the truck with several people. We had not traveled very far when he jumped out of the truck. This time we tied him down from both sides.

On the way home, we made two interesting stops. The first was to see a German Amish couple’s farm. We had given them a ride from town, and they wanted us to see their house with a basement and a washing machine run by horses. They have only been here for four years, but have done so much work. The basement housed the family’s bedrooms for the parents, four daughters and three sons. This would have been hand dug. I wish I could explain the washing machine system better but basically the horses were harnessed to go round and round and that pulled a system of pulleys that ran a regular washing machine. The next stop was at the house of the Mennonite pastor about one hour from Ixiamas. They have been here less than a year and are from Tennessee. Their home has five bedrooms and three bathrooms with a large family room and kitchen. It was really hard to believe you were so far out. They had solar power and water that came from a mountain stream pumped in to a big holding tank, so they have running water in the house.

I wanted to tell you a little about some of the kids here. We have 3 sets of brothers and sisters. Nancy (15) and Julio (11) were here last year and their father works for one of the saw mills several hours from town. Their mother was killed in a wreck when Julio was very young. When school is out for long weekends, they usually stay here because the saw mill is not a very good place for a 15-year-old young lady to stay. Marivel (15) and Miguel (12) are from a community about 1 ½ hours from here on the road to Rurre. They have a small store and farm there. My mission team visited their church in 2007. Samuel (12) and Joel (10) came the week before I went to LaPaz. Their family lives in the jungle several hours from here.

Hasta Luego,

Hermana Rebecca

Our current intern in Ixiamas, Bolivia, is 2008 Practicum graduate Becky Forrest. During Practicum, Becky shared her experience on our blog. Now that she is in an intetn in Bolivia, she will post updates as our interns in 2008 did. Becky served on short-term mission trips in 2007 and 2008 in Ixiamas.

Life is definitely never boring here at the Internado. On April 5, I left Ixiamas by bus for LaPaz to start on my work visa, since my tourist visa will expire on Apr. 25. Rachel was already in LaPaz on business, so I would be meeting her there. God blessed me with a traveling companion that spoke English. My fear of traveling alone was taken care of by his grace. The trip up the road was uneventful, and I arrived bright and early Monday morning after only 26 hours of travel.

When we arrived that afternoon at the immigration department, we discovered that I would have to leave the country in order to obtain my work visa. We took care of all necessary paperwork we could. I have to wait until it is ready in a couple of weeks. We decided it would be best for me to return to Ixiamas with Rachel on Thursday.

Two trips on the road in less than a week, am I nuts? The trip down was great until we arrived in Rurre early Friday morning with rain coming down in buckets. Rurre is a river town on the Beni River, and there is no bridge. The bus has to cross the river on a pontoon boat, while the passengers cross by water taxi. After having a quick breakfast, we crossed the river to wait on the bus. We waited and waited. It would not stop raining, and we knew the road to Ixiamas would be getting bad. Finally, we were told to get our luggage off the bus that it was going back to LaPaz, since they could not cross in the rain. We would have to travel the rest of the way by mini bus. Around 3 p.m., we boarded a mini bus for Ixiamas. Rachel was really glad when she saw the driver because she had traveled with him many times and said he was really a good driver. On the road from Rurre to Ixiamas there are not many bridges but there are many rivers and streams. It had been raining since Thursday night, so the water was high. We knew there was a chance we would have to come back. But we had the world’s greatest mini bus driver. Several times, he would get out and walk across the river to find just the right path to take in crossing. He even made a snorkel out of soda bottles. Eventually, we arrived at a river too deep to cross. All of the passengers decided to cross on foot and walk the hour it would take to get to the next town, Tumupasa. I just knew I could not make it after being up for around 36 hours. So Rachel and I stayed with the bus–knowing we may have to sleep there. We watched the river as the sun went down, and it seemed to be receding some. We also noticed that the driver had walked down to the woods and was gone a really long time. Upon his return, he said he had found an old road and a way to cross the river where the water was shallow enough. I could not believe we were driving down what looked to me as a path in the jungle, but he got us across the river and we arrived in Tumupasa in time for supper. We got a room in the little hotel there for the night. Early Saturday morning, we arrived safely in Ixiamas after 42 hours of travel.

Ixiamas was a very beautiful sight that morning. It was Easter weekend so all of the kids had gone home for the holiday to be with their families. It was so great to see them again when they returned Sunday night.

I leave Saturday for LaPaz again, and then on to Puno, Peru, so when I return I will pass along my travel tells from that journey. Thank you for all the prayers for my visa problems. I am sure God will take care of all the details. As I was told in an email, this is just a hiccup in His plans for me here.

Blessings

Hermana Rebecca (Becky)

Our current intern in Ixiamas, Bolivia, is 2008 Practicum graduate Becky Forrest. During Practicum, Becky shared her experience on our blog. Now that she is in an intetn in Bolivia, she will post updates as our interns in 2008 did. Becky served on short-term mission trips in 2007 and 2008 in Ixiamas.

What an exciting 2 weeks! My birthday was March 21, and the kids gave me a party. Chocolate cake, my favorite, but the Bolivian way to have cake on your birthday is that your first bite has to be face first into the cake. Needless to say, I had cake all over my face. Two of the older kids held my head to make sure I got a good bite. They laughed very hard at me. They all made me cards, and Rachel gave me an apple and grapes that were a real treat to have fresh fruit. It was definitely a birthday I will not forget.

On Friday when I went to check my email, I had two mp3 files, one with Pastor Mike´s sermon and the other with the choir’s anthem from Belin UMC. What a wonderful gift it was! I had really been missing church in English. I couldn´t get home fast enough to listen to them. For those who don´t know, Belin has the greatest choir and God blessed me by being a part of them for many years. They are also my largest group of prayer warriors and donors. Several people were involved in creating a file small enough for me to download quickly since I have to pay for my internet use by the minute. I want to send a special thanks to Mark, Chip and John for taking the time to do that for me. You have no idea what it means to me.

Saturday was our great field trip for the kid’s hard work in the Chaco harvesting the rice. We went to visit a Mennonite family from Tennessee that has a farm out past Two Trees. We had to walk part of the way there because of the heavy rains we’ve had, and we were afraid we might get our four wheel drive truck stuck. Their house is deep in the jungle and what a great farm they have. It was like stepping back in time at least 100 years. They have no electricity, but they do have a small solar panel for lights at night. We had church there with them, and it was nice to sing familiar hymns even though they were in Spanish. The pastor gave his message in Spanish and English since there were only 2 of us that did not speak Spanish. The other lady was visiting a Russian family here and is from Canada. After a very nice lunch the kids went with Mervin up to a deep swimming hole in the river that comes down from the mountains. They had wanted to hike up to a big waterfall but the river was too high. I stayed and visited with the family in their very nice home. It was hard to believe we were as far away from everything as we were. They had a very nice stream that ran beside the house, and they pumped water up to a holding tank that ran to the house. They are building a place to house tourists to come and learn about organic farming. As we were leaving they ask me if I had eaten wild pig yet. When they found out I had not, they insisted on giving me some. She said she usually cooked it with onions and garlic. So Sunday, I tried my hand at cooking wild pig and it turned out very good or so everyone said.

In Christ,

Hermana Rebecca (Becky)

Short-term Mission Team Leaders:

We have updated the team leader info page with new versions of some of the forms. To view this page, click here or go to www.sifat.org/tlinfo.html. The forms are at the bottom of the page. If you have questions, please contact us.

For general information about SIFAT’s short-term mission teams, visit our team page. Room is still available for 2009 mission teams. If you are interested in leading a team from your church or being added to an existing team, contact Peggy Walker, walkerp@sifat.org.