Recapping the weekend

This past weekend was a blast. On Friday the school had a half day so we decided to have the kids over for lunch (tacos!) and then out to bowling. I scored a 117!! (so what if we happened to have lane bumpers, I wasn’t the one who asked for them).

Sunday was the first time I had the privilege of meeting the pastor of the English speaking church (he was back in England for the summer). What a variety this church is! For those of you who know the Mennonite game (where you try to figure out how you are related someone or at least know of them) we play a similar game. We try to guess where each other are from based on the accents. Church was great. Pastor Andy started a series over stewardship that will go throughout the semester. This week was over Psalms 8, the Lord created the Earth extraordinarily beautiful. He then created us with glory and honor even though we messed it up with sin. He gives us value (God cares for humanity v.4), purpose (made us rulers over the Earth), and gave us a personal relationship with the King (Christ's redeeming grace).

Sunday night was another amazing experience. I had the opportunity to go to a "classico" or a rival game. The two teams were professional soccer teams from Santa Cruz. Let's just say the crowd was ready for this game. We arrived about 20 minutes early and they end sections behind the goals were filled with fans jumping and chanting. After the green team (Oriente) scored the first goal of the game, the crowd started shooting fireworks. Security isn't very tight here in Santa Cruz. If you have high speed internet, I've posted a video of the crowd so you can get a better feel for the craziness! In the end, Oriente beat Blooming 2-0. As the Blooming players were coming off the field, their fans tried to shoot fireworks at them! Talk about loyalty (sarcasm). We decided we should try to get out of there because there has been several times to where the fans meet outside of the coliseum and things get rowdy. Sure enough we turned the t.v. on the next day and there were clips of police shooting tear gas into the crowd to disperse them.

On Monday we had Bible study with the high school. We had 45-50 students show up. We are starting a series over Max Lucado's book "It's Not About Me." This week's lesson was over being self-centered and how Christians should be Christ-centered instead. What does it look like to be Christ-centered in your lives?

As you can see it has been a busy weekend. Thank goodness we don't have anything going on today. Since the vote to keep the president did not go the way some districts wanted, five of the nine districts decided to make a statement and are striking today. So nobody is allowed to drive anywhere today. You should of seen the stores last night. On our way back from Bible study, we decided to stop in and get a few items. As we pulled in, it looked like Hurricane Faye was heading for Bolivia. Everyone was stocking up! (It's just one day) We decided that our lists weren't worth the wait.

Pray for:
-Tomorrow's prayer meeting (I start leading the youth)
-The government in Bolivia
-All the students in the US as they make final preparations and begin to head back to college (wow, that feels weird to say)

God Bless,

Jon

School Time

School has officially arrived here in Santa Cruz! I started this week at the Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center also known as SCCLC (I'll be using that acronym to keep from getting carpel tunnel). I hope to get some more pictures of the school and students in the near future.

We started off school this year with 1/2 days on both the Monday and Friday. On Monday, Mike had the seniors over to lunch just to set the tone of the year. We talked about setting the standard for the school year and how younger students will look towards the seniors on how to respond to certain situations.


Wednesday, Mike opened up chapel with a message from Colossians 3:17 (our theme verse for the year). "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Mike talked about practice making perfect and challenged to students to think about what they are practicing.

Tomorrow, we have another 1/2 of school so we are taking the opportunity to go bowling! I am excited about this. I hear there will be a prize for the person who is closest to the average score. I might have a chance at that one.

This week has been fun and exciting with a few ups and downs. (It's hard to remain in a conversation that switches back and forth from Spanish to English). But I look forward to the challenge of getting to know all the students and being able to lead activities with them.

Continue to pray for:
-the political situation here (something fishy is going on)
-the students at the school as they begin a new year
-me as I begin to develop relationships with students

God Bless.

P.S. I think the school's memory verse is super cool and you should learn it too!


"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:17

A bad finish to a good day

First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes. It's always nice to know that so many people are thinking of you.

Well...my birthday was an eventfull day that needs to be blogged about. The original plans were to help with a party at Mike's house for the youth and then fly out to Tarija in southern Bolivia that night. The party went off without a hitch. We were afraid it was going to rain but it appeard to hold off (at least until I left.) We served spagetti for the party. While I was stirring the spagetti sauce, it decided to bubble up and get me. A nice, steaming hot blob of sauce caught the frontside of two of my fingers. OUCH! I tried to take pictures but I can't seem to get one that shows the true color.

Well I had to leave the party at 7 (which convienently was the same time that we were to start eating.) I didn't get any spagetti. We got to the airport and everything seemed to be in order. Had Subway, first American food in 2 months! Anyways, the plane was late but thats nothing new. When we finally got on the plane, we took off only to turn around 5 minutes later and land back at the airport. The pilot explained the problem (didn't do me any good, I don't know Spanish). I had to call a missionary and hand the phone to the airline attendant. So I waited in the terminal for 2 1/2 hrs for them to fix the plane. It didn't happen. Finally, they came and said that we were going to have to come back for the flight at 6:30 in the morning.

As I was waiting for my luggage to come off the plane, I found out that my neighbors were coming out to pick up someone else from the airport who were flying in from Miami. So I waited with them for a ride home. We didn't get out of there until 1:30 in the morning. The other problem was this. Usually the day flights leave from another airport and we didnt have anyway of getting ahold of anyone to confirm which one until 5:30 in the morning. By that time I had 3 hrs of sleep and I would of been pushing it to get to the airport in time. I'd had enough, so I stayed back and here I am now wishing I was in Tarija and wondering if I will get a refund.

It was a long night.

Jon