Snapshots of Santa Cruz de la Cierra

Bolivia has always been a country I've wanted to visit and I can't say exactly why, but it caught my attention and so far it hasn't disappointed.  I arrived in Santa Cruz de la Cierra on 7/9 and I was graciously picked up at the airport at 2 a.m. by a smattering of the Brown family and a representation from the Zabala family. 
Mike and Ingrid Brown and their kids (Dominique, Cristina, Cecilia, and Nathaneal) are my friends from our hispanic group at church and they invited me to visit Santa Cruz de la Cierra with them this summer. The Browns are visiting their family and friends for six weeks this summer.  There was no room for me at the Lopez inn (Ingrid's parents) so good friends of the Browns, Deborah and Carlos Zabala, let me stay at their house. 

I had it very good during my time with the Zabalas and the Browns with curbside pickup (and plenty of company on each journey), treats provided by an enthusiastic chef-in- the-making (Karlita), and a daily itinerary of events provided by the organizing extraordinaire Ingrid.   Santa Cruz is a laid back city blessed with beautiful weather and few tourists.  The people of Santa Cruz are open and friendly and tend to be quick to offer assistance.  I was blessed to get to know many of Ingrid's friends and those of the Zabalas.  One delightful custom of Santa Cruz is afternoon tea and I was pleased to sample many delicious breads and sweets during the many visits Ingrid had planned with friends.  

Another plan of Ingrid's was to share discipleship materials with her friend's small group, therefore I was enlisted to help her present the materials at a small group meeting and there I met some phenomenal women (and have a delicious tea time). 

  The Zabala household is full of teenagers (3 of them were home while I was there: Tayo, Karlita, and Nacho) so there are constantly friends stopping over and late night snacks being made.  My time in Santa Cruz as a whole was nostalgic of my adolescence as I was constantly surrounded by adolescents and repeatedly mistaken for a 16-17 year old.  At first the dropped jaws and incredulous looks were amusing when people learned my true age, but the novelty quickly wore off and and the repeated refrain, "No! I thought you were __ (16, 17, 19)!" became fastidious.  (Although it continued to amuse the teenagers I was with).  I know in 10 years this will be flattering if people still think I look younger, but until then it makes church retreats with 16 year olds more difficult : ).  I did have a great time with the Brown girls and the Zabalas.  It was neat to go to the Zabalas' church's retreat with Dominique, Cristina, and Cecilia and to see their faith as they worshiped Christ.  I was particularly moved by eleven year old Cecilia's simple but powerful faith and through watching her God showed me how important it is to enter into His presence with expectation for God has a plan for each encounter/each day.

I love to dance, so a highlight of my time in Santa Cruz was teaching a few people the basics of swing and the twist (with a little salsa and charleston)!  Tayo and I tried a basic flip and the first night it didnt go so well, but my last night there we landed it.

One afternoon all of the females went to a beauty shop together to get manicures/pedicures since they are so economical in Bolivia. I don't normally like to paint the nails on my hands as the paint usually chips in two days and I have an inordinate fear of choosing the wrong color and ending up looking "pretty in pink", but I thought "when in Bolivia...".  I wanted clear nail polish or french tips, but the woman doing my hands had a grumpy demeanor and I wilted under it.  I found myself looking through the colors which consisted largely of pinks, reds, palid baby blues and shocking yellows -- a clear polish was not in sight.  The manicurest seemed annoyed by my hesitation as I looked over the colors with a sense of resignation, so I informed her that I didn't want a strong color; this led her to rapidly pick through a small sample of sickingly limpid pink hues.  I felt like the kid from the Christmas Story movie as in horror I heard myself agreeing to a particularly ugly shade of sixties prom pink and then I watched as she layered it on in three thick coats.  You can see the end result in the picture below.  Of course I have no one to blame but myself, but it was a bit depressing to have Cristina sit down in the chair next to me and walk away with lovely french tipped nails. It has become clear in my time in Bolivia that I don't know how to react to grumpy salespeople, I tend to try to appease them.  I was the recipient of a long rant in one artesian shop for looking through stacks of sweatshirts for the appropriate size (as the sizes were irregular). I meekly apologized at the end of one rant and was told an apology was not enough and if I was not going to buy anything I was just making a mess (I had planned on buying several things, but now I just felt shuffly-uncomfortable and unsure of what to do).  I am not sure why, maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but I proceeded to reach for a sweater on a different shelf that I had intended to buy.  The young woman looked at me with great annoyance and said, "Don't touch!  And quit making a mess!" Yikes! I couldn't win, so I slunk out, but I felt bad.  I really need to toughen up if I want to continue to shop in the mean streets of Bolivia.

Life in Abundance: God's love through people

My last 9 days in Colombia were filled with family, family, and more family - Nathaly's family.  After returning on a Sunday night from the mission trip we boarded another bus to Chinnauta to attend her family reunion of the Quimbayos (her dad's side of the family).   Some say they originate from the tribe of the Quimbayas because of their last name, but Nathaly doesn't support the theory.  I had a good time getting to know all of her aunts, uncles, and cousins during the swim races (nothing like a little competition to bring out the best in everybody : ).  I was pulled out of the pool by her grandpa to answer a string of questions he had for me; I think I did alright because he offered to share his ice cream with me later on : ).  We also played tejo which is a very old game created by indigenous people from Colombia; the object of the game is to toss weighted disks at a slanted mud platform so that they stick and  earn points.  There are four arrows in a circle in the center of the board and if you hit the arrows they explode and it sounds like a gunshot.  The game is a bit messy because of the mud and it is noisy when the flechas explode as well as intense when the older men play as they are that tricky combination of fanatics and experts who do not want novices bumbling around: thus I did my best not to bumble.  To be honest I never figured out the scoring system, but I managed to stay out of the way of the experts/fanatics and I even scored some points (but I'm not sure how many).
On the ride home from the reunion, Nathaly and I rode with her uncle, aunt, ex-uncle, and two cousins.  Her cousin Jon is the most well versed person in Colombia's gastronomy that I have met; he kept asking me if I had tried different foods and when I replied in the negative he proceeded to chastise Nathaly for being a poor tour guide -- this went on for the better part of two hours as we were stuck in a traffic jam.  This robust discussion about Colombian delicacies inspired Nathaly's uncle to stop at El Vaca que Llora (the Crying Cow foodstand) to have me try the best arroz con leche, arrepas con queso (never mind that Nathaly's mother had already made these for me), and rellenos.  I asked Jon what was in the rellenos and he was evasive (never a good sign). I figured I can try just about everything once so I ate two out of the four.  After eating the first one Jon told me they were made out of rice and cow's blood - blah.

This was not my only opportunity to hang out with this side of Nathaly's family as I went along with her and her cousins the following weekend to plan the next family reunion and then I celebrated her aunt's graduation with them.  In fact I spent enough time with them to hear many of the ins and outs of their different family issues during the reunion and the family meetings.  It was a blessing to share time with this family and to see Nathaly's love for them; especially her cousins.  It is rare to be included so freely into a family so quickly and I really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know these lovely people, as well as the opportunity to see another side of Nathaly as she interacted with them. 
Not only did I meet most of the relatives on her dad's side, but also those on her mom's side who live nearby.   One family lives above Nathaly's parents and her uncle German's family lives a few blocks away.  German is quite a character, he exacts great pleasure out of teasing people and hanging around long enough to have lunch twice (he claims he only eats again at Nathaly's so as not to be impolite).  He also is a taxi driver who freely disperses his vast knowledge of Bogota and Colombia to anyone who will listen, and to those who do not. He and his sister Chia brought me to the airport for my flight to Bolivia and they walked  with me all the way through check in and to my terminal and they searched the airport cafes for tea to treat me to a snack before I left.  Tía Chia also had a dinner for me before I left and German is now promising to pick me up from the airport when I return to Bogota with a banner, a band, and a native costume -- we'll see if he produces ; ).
Among other events, Nathaly's cousin Paola gave Nathaly, Nathaly's sister Carolina, and I a tour of the historical part of Bogota, La Candelaria, complete with additional typical foods to try and a panoramic view of the city from the top of the tallest building in Bogota.  Tío Rodrigo and Nathaly's cousins Daniel, Alexandra, and Paola took me to climb the "mountain" (which is actually a dead volcano) Monserate outside of town, which was delightful. 
Beyond her extended family, I got to spend time with Nathaly's immediate family, her sister Carolina, brother Ericson, and her parents.   Her parents graciously let me stay with them at their house in Bogota. Carolina is loyal to her family and sweet, we had fun going to the gym and trying out the rumba classes.  Nathaly's brother, Ericson, is doing his internship for his medical studies in another town, but I got to see him a couple  of days and hear about his views on  Colombian politics, philosophy, and religion.   A highlight for the Quimbayo family during my stay was their soccer team (Santa Fe Independiente) winning the championship for the first time in 36 (?) years.  I was lucky enough to see a part of this historic event as we all went to the semifinal game.  I love Latin American soccer games!

The other family I saw during these two weeks in Colombia was my cousin Brian's spouse Elizabeth's, brother Alvaro and his family. That might be hard to follow, but in latino culture he is my family and therefore he picked me up one night to have dinner with his wife and two daughters at their home.  Alvaro and his wife Carole are both lawyers working for a French company in Colombia (she is French) so it was really interesting hearing about their international  work with all of its politics and intricacies.  Extended family is great!

One of my prayers before I left the US to embark on this sabbatical time was to be loved by God through others and to love God by loving others. I can definitively say that I have experienced God's love through those I have encountered along the way: Lisanne, So Raya, Andrea, Sister Muriel, Alex, Vivi, Nathaly, her family, Samuel, the waiter who gave me his cellphone to use last night, the Zabalas and Browns, and many others.  Even as I am writing this I was interrupted.a few minutes ago by an eccentric older man who had been watching me for 20 minutes as I typed and who was marveling over my many facial expressions.  He proceeded to give me a rundown of his credentials (PhD, vice president  of something, he followed an oil company for 10 years and brought them down for lying to the FCC, etc.)  He confirmed these facts by whipping out a newspaper article on himself that he keeps in a manila folder (always on hand?) -"two page spread, very generous of the newspaper." He asked me if I was Dutch and when I said I was American he said I looked European, specifically Scandinavian.  I admitted to having a Scandinavian background and with a triumphant look he exclaimed, "you're from Minnesota!"  (Minnesota is know for its Scandinavian heritage he explained).  He then proceeded to  critique my itinerary for Bolivia and insisted on dictating a list of books for me to read. He was disappointed to hear I liked theology, but was then consoled to find I was not strictly aligned with a particular denomination, because he too is judeo-christian interdenominational (although an atheist.)  He was glad to hear I had firm beliefs about faith, but he was sure that living in Cambodia with monks would cure me of my belief in absolute truth.  He preferred my smile to the serious look on my face when I explained why I believed in absolute truth, it frightened him, but he was happy to hear I was a serious person.  In all his travels working in 25 different countries and uncovering fraud he was a self proclaimed paranoid person and he does not let people get too close to him -- he is also sure my friends consider me  to be an eccentric person due to my expressive face and unique interests and intensity (what do you think friends, am I eccentric?).  Finally he was disappointed to learn I  wouldn't abort my travel plans for his suggested route, but he finds me very interesting and is convinced I will be successful, he only requests that I remember him in an acceptance speech in the future.  Thank you God for making people like Ramiro Paz who make life more interesting!

Well I have experienced God's love through others, I am not certain how I am doing at loving God by allowing God to love others through me.  I don't think I have done well.at this in the last month as I have had a hard time finding a rhythm to the days and haven't felt totally like myself. It is good to know Jesus' grace covers me in all attitudes at all times.  As I read Romans 6 last night and one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 16, I was reminded again that it is for freedom that Christ set me free and I am free to choose those things that are good, righteous, and just.  It may sound odd, but sometimes I need to be reminded that Jesus has paid the price of his life and has risen again to life in order that I may be free to choose to do the things that bring me life.  As I think of the lovely people God has surrounded me with at home and abroad and as I see the goodness of God as Christ faithfully walks with them I am filled with life - the abundant life Jesus talked about.  So let me take a moment to thank God for the little one my friends Ryan and Rosalita will have this Christmas season - congratulations you two!

Surprises and Delights: Casanare and Vichada

On the 25th of June Nathaly and I left for a mission trip to the departments of Casanare and la Vichada (less than 48 hours after I arrived in Colombia) with the intention of sharing Christ's love with those who we met along the way.  The trip was organized by a very capable and efficient woman, Marisol, who has been visiting these parts of Colombia for 20 years and who is part of Nathaly's denomination El Movimiento Missional del Mundo.  There were 12 of us on the trip from Bogota and we joined up along the way with Marisol's aunt and uncle who are pastors in a village along the Rio Meta.  This trip was part of a larger meeting among the churches in the Vichada and Casanare departments, but for the first time the meetings were to take place in the indigenous village of Morichito on the Rio Casanare.  We began our trip in a claustrophobic mini van that seats 14 (hence the claustrophobia) that took us to one of the main bus stations in order to catch the night bus from Bogota to Puerto Gaitan.  We were stopped by police at the bus station and hassled about having the correct permit to bring people of various churches in a van authorized under only one church, but  luckily when pressed further about the legitimacy of the fine that the police officer wanted to charge, he let it go.  The bus ride to Puerto Gaitan was actually quicker than expected as the bus didn't stop much and there was no traffic at night; we arrived at 4 a.m. and hauled our bags to the port to await our boat.  We were informed that we should store our luggage in garbage bags in case of inundation; this proved to be a useful tip once I got a look at the boat (see photo below).  After a good deal of hurry up and wait we were crammed into the boat along with huge sacks of food and clothing heaped on the top and away we went.  The boat had two motors and was able to cut through the calm river efficiently and got us to our destination, Primavera de la Vichada, in a short 4 hours.  We arrived at 10 a.m. and hurried to have breakfast while a larger boat with a small motor : ( waited for us.  After a breakfast of caldo (soup of beef broth with a huge chunk of beef, potatoes, yucha, and platano) and arepas we headed down to the riverside only to find that it had been decided we would take a different boat as the first one was too slow and so we settled into the shade as the temperature was 30 at least.  2 hours later we were told we could board a smaller boat with a slightly bigger motor so we lugged our stuff to the side of the river, but it was then decided, for reasons unknown to most of us, that now was not the time to leave so we shuffled back into the shade leaving our food bag with our blankets (for padding for the concrete floors we would sleep on), treats for the children, and sweatshirts (my favorite blue hoodie and only sweatshirt in Colombia and Nathaly's prized Minnesota sweatshirt) behind alongside other smaller bags our colleagues had left.  An hour later when we got the okay to board the boat again (this time for real) the bag was no longer there and thus Nathaly and I were left without sweatshirts or blankets making our sleeping arrangements less luxurious than previously anticipated. Another 5 hours later, during a rainy trip down the Rio Meta where the tarped roof of the boat worked spottily to protect us from the gusty rain, we arrived in Agua Verde for the night.  In Agua Verde we were served a big bowl of caldo and some rice and meat before quickly setting up our tent on a concrete patio and laying down our 1/8 inch sleeping mats and then we were off to a church service.  The church service was in the rural Pentecostal style where we all joined together in the white plastic chairs in rousing hand clapping chorals and long slower alabanzas, where the older women bring hand towels which they wave around intermittently to ward off mosquitoes and to create a slight artificial breeze in the midst of a poorly ventilated church, throughout the prayers and preaching cries of "bendito," "gloria!" "hallelujah!" and "amen!" can be heard, and the pastor brings the Word of God to the people with passion and gusto.  The entire team from Bogota was also brought in front of the church to bring greetings and introductions.  I was especially singled out by Pastor Bermudes from Bogota who took a liking to me and who pondered aloud to the congregation that God has great plans for my life and who knows but I might be a pastor to these parts (these ponderings may have been sparked because a woman from the United States served as a missionary to the Vichada years ago and is credited with bringing the gospel to many in these parts) -- upon hearing this I sat up a little straighter in my seat (where I admittedly had been struggling not to drift off to sleep from exhaustion) and gulped because I knew from previous experience what would follow.  Sure enough, I was asked to "give a few words" to the congregation as we all stood in a line at the front; the Lord is gracious and He helped me muster some recollections from my time in Europe and the diversity of the Body of Christ that I have been privileged to see.   After the service we stumbled in the dark (literally, as the lights go off at 10 p.m.) to our "beds."
Colombian Map with Departments

Question of the morning: will this boat sink once people are added?

Nathaly, the dentist, and Juliana

Rio Meta at daybreak

The scene of the crime of our stolen bag

The Bogota team at lunch

All that is between us and the concrete floor below

Nathaly giving drum lessons in the Agua Verde church

Our fashionable white boots

Nathaly, Leidy and I

La lancha that took us all around the rivers

Nathaly and the remnants of our meal

Leaky tarp roofs

Alice and I 

Our kitchen - if you squint you can see the meat hanging to dry 

bathroom - no flush needed, just a bucket of water

Bath

The next day we again boarded our faithful boat and set out for Morichito, a mere 3 hours and 15 minutes further downstream.  It rained on the way to Morichito, following the pattern of the previous day: rain starts when we enter the boat.  Choosing your seat in the boat is a little like playing Russian roulette in that you don't know which tarp may leak or if the wind will be spraying water from the right or the left (and of course if the bottle of antifreeze doesn't have a cap on it your white rain boots may turn red) so no seat is a guaranteed "safe" seat. Morichito is populated by the  Sáliba people and it located on the Casanare river in the department of Casanare -- very close to the border of Venezuela.  Located 3 km down the river from Morichito is the village of Getsemane which is populated by the Sikuani people and 5 km further is the village of Caño Mochuelo, home of the Kuiba people.  On Monday we visited both Getsemane and Caño Mochuelo and invited the people to join us during the week for the activities.  Of the villages Caño Mochuelo is the poorest and also the biggest.  Many of the families from Getsemane and Caño Mochuelo came during the week and Nathaly and I got to work with the boys from 2-12.  It was a bit difficult to find activities for such a big age range, but the boys were surprisingly well behaved and seemed to genuinely enjoy the stories, songs, and games we had planned for them.  The biggest difficulty that we had was the language barrier that existed for the youngest Kuiba boys as they spoke Kuiba in the home and  had not yet learned Spanish.  The indigenous people tend to be more reserved and the Kuiba were even more so (probably due to the language barrier), therefore Nathaly and I had to be strategic to make sure that everyone was able to participate.  With the bible story we ended up splitting into groups so that the older Kuiba boys could translate for us to the younger Kuiba children. At the beginning of the week we had 50 boys, but by the end we had 80 which made for sweaty afternoons as we ran around in the heat playing duck, duck, grey duck, sharks and minnows, and cat and mouse under the sweltering sun.  There was not a plumbing system in Morichito or running water so we had to conserve the water that was held in big tanks, therefore baths consisted of one bucket of water in a tarped area. The people of Morichito like to pray before dawn so we too were up at 4 a.m. to pray with them to start the day. The food available in this area was similar to that which I had eaten on a mission trip into the interior of Honduras: yucha, platano, potatoes, casave -- in other words: starch.  We also had caldo soup two times a day and plenty of chiguiro meat (see photo of chiguiro below) and cow meat.  As most of you know, I am not a fan of meat in general and the portions of meat that were generously provided for us were large enough that I resorted to sweetly imploring other people to take eat my meat for me by the middle of the week.

Un Chiguiro

The indigenous people in this area get married at a very young age and have children at a very young age as well.  While we were in Morichito two babies were born.  I got to visit one mother with her baby several hours after the baby was born.  The mother was only 15 years old, but she looked calm and comfortable when we saw her; her grandmother had come to help her with her labor.  The other mother who had a baby had difficulties during the labor and one of the pastors staying with us was called to help in the middle of the night. There is not a doctor in the village and I didn't hear of any midwives either so it appears that each women invites whomever she thinks best to help her. The dentist who came on the mission trip was very busy as there is not a practicing dentist in any of the nearby villages; he mainly cleaned teeth and extracted teeth as he was not able to bring sophisticated equipment.  Although the Sáliba, Kuiba, and Sikuani people are timid in nature, they enjoy observing and they often looked on from the windows of our classroom as we prepared materials or watched the dentist as he extracted teeth.  

A map of the local villages painted on the wall of the classroom

Some of "my" boys checking out what we are doing

My favorite parts of the trip revolved around seeing how God works in the lives of people in big and small ways.  I so enjoyed working with the younger boys and it was gratifying to see them open up more and more during the week as they got to know Nathaly and I.  It was a delight to hear them singing the songs we taught them with gusto and to know that they truly captured some of what we were trying to teach them about Jesus.  We didn't have materials to work with for the classes so we had to be a bit more creative; one day Nathaly asked the kids to draw in the dirt pictures of the story of Naman who was healed by God of leprosy (2 Kings chapter 5) and the elements that the kids included in their crude drawings were insightful and showed that they had understood elements of the story such as obedience, faith, and God's supernatural healing.  

Most of them are paying attention -- not bad?!

What am I supposed to be doing?

My 2 year old buddy Samuel who sang and did cartwheels at random, distracting others, but was so darn cute (and little) that I had to excuse him : )

And one little girl who wandered into the class

It fills me with joy to see how God delights in surprising His children as He works in mysterious ways.  Among the team from Bogota, was a woman who has been visiting the Vichada for 5 years twice a year to share Jesus with others.  She is a true servant and thoroughly enjoys letting people know that God loves them; she takes on whatever task needs to be done, even the less desirable ones like cleaning a little one's festering wound.  She is 39 and a teacher who loves kids; she always had wanted to be married, but as the years went by she laid the desire down.  On this trip however a man whom she had met a year ago on a similar trip let her know that he had been thinking about her for the past year and that he admired the way she served and he had sat behind her during a prayer gathering and he delighted in her prayer and now he wanted her to know that he would like to marry her. This wasn't an official proposal since they barely know each other, but as they spent time together during the week it became clear that they both saw admirable qualities in one another and they thoroughly enjoyed each other's presence.  They were both quite giddy as they parted on our last day and my friend told me she couldn't believe how sweetly the Lord was fulfilling the desires of her heart.  Of course every wish of each child of God is not fulfilled according to their specifications, but how beautiful it is to see the sheer joy of those who receive God's blessings in His timing.  It was a true blessing to rejoice with my friend as she contemplated the possibility of a new chapter of her life that God had laid before her.
The final way that I want to share of how I saw God fulfilling the desires of His children's hearts was the instillation of a new pastor at the village of Getsemane.  Getsemane had a pastor years ago, but the pastor had passed away and the community has been without a pastor for quite a while.  Daniel is a man from the neighboring department in Colombia who has been acting as a pastor in his village for many years and he has now responded to the call that God placed on his heart to move himself and his family to this unknown area and village to fulfill their need for a pastor.  I was blessed to meet Daniel and his wife and three of his children who arrived a day after we did to visit the village where they would live.  Daniel and his wife have three other children, but they had to leave them with family as they did not have enough money to bring them as well (money is now being raised to bring them as soon as possible).  I was blessed to be at the service that installed Daniel as the pastor of Getsemane and to see the surprise and delight on the people's faces as he addressed them in Sikuani, their native language. Although the transition to a new village and new people will be difficult for Daniel and his family it is obvious that he is excited to follow God and to bless this precious group of people. 

 

Pastor Daniel and his family

We arrived back in Bogota on Sunday night after a couple of long days of travel and although my body won't miss the starchy food or the mosquitoes, I will miss the people of the Vichada and Casanare.

The lovely ladies from Primavera de la Vichada who cooked for us

Leidy and Nathaly leading worship through music

A fun shirt with a mysterious meaning

Another delightful shirt in English:  America 9 Progress R Snake Wear Star

Cristian

A woman of Cano Mochuelo

Juliana, Susi, and I

Hermana Guia and the Tia

Llanera music typical of this region