Happy Easter!

ALLELUIA, HE IS RISEN!

   (Okay, I know it’s only Saturday, but I also know most of you will actually be reading this on Sunday, so just go with it!)

This week Jeff started work on the first stage of the upper campus library remodeling project: the indoor garden. He rounded off the outside corner of the room with a low retaining wall. Next, he went rock hunting for the facing. We have spent a few hours today (Saturday) putting together the jigsaw puzzle of stones and cement across the front of the wall, and Sunday afternoon we will do the top of the wall. Here is a picture of the corner before the wall:

The wall itself is supported by bricks and cement:

And here is the stone facing in progress:

           

This got us to thinking about the jigsaw puzzle of life, if you will, about how we each have a place in the world and in church. Just as the lives of your family and co-workers would be vastly different without you, a church is a puzzle made up of all the jigsaw pieces inside, and each one makes church a bit different from the others. Each person, young, middle, or old, married or single, man or woman, working, student or retired; no matter how we label ourselves, we all have an important place in church. Without all the pieces, the puzzle is incomplete. If we take the image one step further and imagine a three-dimensional puzzle (such as our retaining wall!), then a missing piece may cause the whole puzzle to fall, or fail. In our wall, there are large stones, small stones, even tiny chips of rock. The entire whole makes a wall, but separately, they are just rocks. Some of them are quite insignificant rocks. Their importance comes from their participation in community, in something greater than themselves, and something that serves others (in the case of some of the rocks, they support the entire structure!) Seems like a great way of describing the mission of church, both internally among ourselves and externally to the world. Our challenge as people of God, and as church, is to find where our piece fits in the puzzle. Whether this is through a formal discernment process, such as the one Jeff is entering, or an informal personal journey, such as the one that led us here to Bolivia, or something in between, is up to you and your circumstances.

It is my hope for you that this week has offered you an opportunity to reflect upon your place in the puzzle, whatever your puzzle is. Share that journey with those around you if you can – after all, they are parts of your puzzle and you are part of theirs…

Happy Easter to all~

Susan

PS – For those of you who wonder why I did not use the word ‘the’ in front of ‘church’ in my post, I wanted to distinguish between the church building and the people who are “church”. Hopefully this explanation helps!

Holy Week - Semana Santa

Wow, what a relief to be back to our temporary home of the UAC-CP! It was refreshing to go back to our normal routine, and to be back around the students again. Many students and friends have asked us if we were in danger, to which we replied that “no, we just stayed in La Paz, and kept our nose safely out of other’s business.” We are still hearing stories of people that walked through the blockades, and lost possessions, or were beaten. This is one chapter that I am VERY glad to close on our year-long adventure!

Speaking of chapters of our adventure, I have decided to go into discernment towards ordination. When we return home, I will begin the process to figure out where my calling is leading me to. I have been trying to ignore what keeps getting in MY way, by ignoring what is obvious in GOD’s way. This decision has come during the perfect time of year. Holy Week is here, and I personally have much to pray about and be thankful for. As the Passion of this week unfolds, think about what you are being called to do. Most of us won’t be called to carry a cross, to be beaten, ridiculed, and crucified. Most of us won’t even be persecuted for believing in God. What ARE you being called to do? Listen to that still small voice. Let that voice lead you to the paths that you may not have considered. Volunteer, visit a sick friend, teach someone English, run a library (I think you see where I am going with thisJ!) Let that voice take you places where you are needed. It may not be a comfortable place for you, but everyone is needed somewhere. So, this week, listen to that voice. Follow where it points your heart. Remember, that we are God’s hands and feet on this Earth. We are also the voice for those that don’t have one.

Oh, and Cookie says, “Meow!” (Or at least that is what I think he said, as his Spanish is very sloppy, but not as bad as his English!)

La paz y bendiciones to all,

Jeff

Home at last -- with pictures

Well, we made it home! Oddly, the traffic was very light this morning between Coroico and La Paz. We wondered if this was because the waiting traffic had all cleared the area last night when they first opened the blockades, and maybe people are hesitant to travel in between if they don’t have to right now. I know the niece of one of the miners works at a restaurant we have been patronizing all week, and she told us to get home quickly because they will be putting the blockades back up probably Monday. It was a beautiful day today, and the weather was clear all the way through from La Paz to Coroico, so I’ve included a couple of photos we took. The bike tour companies were finally running today, so the first shot here is of a few members of one of those.

Here’s a shot of the road, that’s Coroico way off in the distance.

And finally, no travel in this family is complete without some kind of adventure, so of course, since our trip from La Paz was completely uneventful, we had a flat tire on the way home to the UAC from Coroico. We had taken a cab because we had a bunch of stuff to carry and it was just easier. Silly us! The bus that we could have ridden passed us while we were waiting for the spare tire to come in another cab from Coroico.

But, fortunately, there were some really pretty rocks to look at, and pollywogs in the stream, and a waterfall, so it was a pleasant half-hour break.

Finally, when I downloaded these pictures from the card, I found the picture below. I apparently never posted it, and I apologize! It is of Jeff cooking Shrove Tuesday pancakes – he says he didn’t have an apron, so he wore a t-shirt from home instead.

Thanks again to all of you that have thought of us, prayed for us, and been there for us this week. We really appreciate it, and the ease of today’s journey home, after all the trials of this week, just shows that prayers are answered!

Headed home! (We hope...)

Well, there have been multiple announcements on the TV, plus a couple of reliable sources have confirmed that the blockade is being lifted for the weekend. So, we will get up in the morning, gather up our stuff, and head up to the bus terminal to see if we can get a ride home. It may take us longer than usual to get there, but we will try to post an update when we get home.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and comments, we really appreciate that you have been thinking of us.

Susan and Jeff

Still here!

Hi everyone!

     We thought to post an update here for those of you who are not on Facebook. We've been in touch this week mostly that way, and we know not everyone uses it. It has been a VERY full week, so, here goes!

MINERS' BLOCKADE Tuesday morning the government stopped all further action on the new law as a first step toward addressing the miners' concerns. This did get the miners to come to the table to talk, but nothing came of that meeting. There have been talks with a mediator, several meetings the miners have walked out on, and much appealing to the "court of public opinion" by both sides. Meanwhile, thousands of passenger buses, commercial trucks and private vehicles have been stranded in long lines of traffic on both sides of each barrier. People are trapped in bus terminals with nowhere to go and no money to care for themselves. Wednesday night the miners opened a few of the blockades for a few hours as a humanitarian gesture, but it was not long enough, and some of the worst ones did not open, including ours. We thank God that the timing was such for us that we have had the financial resources to stay in a hotel (and to eat!), rather than being stuck for days on end at our (completely outdoor) bus terminal. A man died overnight trapped by the blockade near Cochabamba. There are no details right now, but it sounds like maybe exposure? I can certainly understand it. At 12,000 feet here in La Paz (and Parotani is above 8,000), it might be 70 and sunny during the day, but it still gets down close to freezing at night. Please pray for those still trapped in vehicles, for the fourth day now, with no heat, water, food, or bathrooms, especially the ones in and near La Cumbre, the 15,000+-foot pass between La Paz and our home in the Yungas region. There are rumors that maybe they will lift the blockade for the weekend. The last time there was one like this, about 18 months ago, they did lift it on Saturdays and Sundays. We are hoping that we will be able to get seats home tomorrow. It would also be good for them to let some trucks thru, as there has been a beef shortage here in La Paz since yesterday, and now the chicken supply is beginning to dwindle and prices are rising accordingly. Of course it is possible for food to be flown into the airport from other places, but that costs substantially more.

EARTHQUAKES As most of you probably know, there have been two major earthquakes in Chile this week, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Iquique is about 250 miles to our west, and on the other side of one of the highest mountain ranges in the world. However, one of the types of seismic waves that these earthquakes produced goes over pretty long distances under the right conditions. What that means is that both earthquakes were felt in high-rise buildings in La Paz and two other large cities here in Bolivia. We are staying on the 6th floor of an 8-story hotel. As with most other buildings older than 5 years in Bolivia, it is an unreinforced masonry construction, which is a big no-no in an earthquake, as it this type of building tends to just crumble into dust and collapse during strong shaking. Fortunately, the distance attenuated the waves so that by the time they reached here, they were too weak to do any real damage. However, the shaking was certainly scary! Earthquakes are pretty rare here, and people panicked in the areas where the bigger quake on Tuesday night was felt at ground level. The stadium and a covered market were evacuated, along with numerous high-rise (over 10 stories) buildings all over the central part of the city. Tuesday night's quake lasted most of a minute and was an 8.2 magnitude in Iquique. Here it was felt at about a magnitude of 4.5, enough to sway a tall building pretty effectively. The furniture and draperies in our hotel room were doing quite the dance, and it lasted a VERY long time. Several of the aftershocks have been strong enough to shake us again here, the biggest one being the 7.6 on Wednesday night. One thing Jeff and I were concerned about is where we would run to if a bigger quake came and the building started to come down. The only exit out of this building is the main doorway onto the street in front, which is narrow and bound by more multistory masonry buildings that might fall into the street, or at least present a falling debris hazard. We took the opportunity to go up to the roof and figure out an escape route that gets us away from that hazard, so we now have a plan just in case. Over the last 24 hours the aftershocks have seemed to slow, so maybe the danger has passed, but who knows? One thing we don't need to worry about in La Paz is tsunamis -- if one reaches us here, most of the land on the planet would be underwater like in the movie 2012!!

DELANEY Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, Delaney stayed home Sunday night when we came to town. She and the cat are muddling along on eggs for the girl and dried sardines for the cat (his favorite treat!), as the people food is all stuff that needs to be prepared from scratch and preparation for much of it is beyond D's comfort level, and the cat's food was nearly empty when we left. I have a nice bag of cat food in my backpack, bought it Monday morning to take home to him... Unfortunately, the emergency money we left for Delaney ended up paying for the egg delivery Tuesday morning, so now she is insolvent. But, she does have plenty of eggs to eat! Our friends and neighbors are watching out for her, and are there to help if she has an emergency. God bless Ina, my department head and a fellow American volunteer. She has been covering my classes and checking up on Delaney every day. Thanks, Ina! We are also at the other end of a text or phone call if Delaney needs us, and we have been checking in with each other a couple of times a day. For a 15-year-old girl home alone on the other side of a 20,000-foot mountain range with no cash and minimal food, she is holding up remarkably well and we are very proud of her. We asked her this morning if she was ever going to stay home by herself again, and she said that the cat would have been frantic without her! Trust Delaney to think of the pet before herself. :)

     This is all we know for now, other than we are both ill from going a 2nd day without our usual medications and not sleeping well because of stress. Jeff was able to find a couple of blood pressure pills for me at a pharmacy nearby this morning, that being the most important one to not miss! We will let you all know if we are able to get home tomorrow or not, but in the meantime, it is a beautiful, warm, partly cloudy day here in La Paz, so we have the window open in our room and plan to just try to rest and feel better today. Thank you for all of your concern and prayers, please know that they are not just needed, but also greatly appreciated AND effective!

Love,

Susan and Jeff

Stuck in La Paz...

Hello friends!

      Well, Jeff and I came into town for yesterday's dentist appointments. The good news: my tooth seems to have been salvageable, although it is the largest filling my US-trained dentist has ever done and he is concerned about stability. Time will tell! I'm just happy that the still-living nerve is now safely buried under a huge filling. The relief was almost instantaneous. The bad news: we are now stuck in La Paz. It probably hasn't made the international news, but a conflict flared up yesterday between the miners' unions and the government. A new law was passed that makes it illegal for mining cooperatives to have any relationship with private interests. Mining is nationalized here, and the idea was to prevent subsidized mining interests from taking advantage of taxpayers by privatizing. (US petroleum companies, are you listening? That is the model they are trying to avoid here.) The problem is, the miners aren't compensated very well, so they are angry that the government intends to exclude a major potential revenue stream. They have responded by storming out of yesterday's meeting, then blockading the routes between the major cities yesterday afternoon. Now, La Paz is completely hemmed in except by air, and they have expanded the blockade today to include pretty much all the paved highways in the country, or at least that is my understanding. They intend to bring economic activity in Bolivia to a standstill, and since most transportation of goods and people happens via surface roads, they are doing a pretty good job of it.

     We intend to make the most of our time here. We will be out getting estimates for the library remodeling project at the UAC that Jeff is designing, plus we will be getting the three estimates Sister Jean needs to buy a new piano keyboard for the chapel on lower campus. Unfortunately, as along as we are in La Paz, we are forced to stay in a hotel and eat out, which can expensive quickly. The hotel where we are currently staying does provide a nice free breakfast, but hopefully we won't be here too much longer, because eating out can get expensive even if you go someplace cheap!

     Please say a prayer that they will resolve this conflict quickly, not just for our sake, but for the sake of the businesses and people of this country, and for the sake of the miners, two of whom were killed in a clash with police at the blockade near Cochabamba last night.

     Peace to all of you,
     Susan