Hellllooo out there

So, um…..where was I? Haven’t posted in a while. A few things hit. At once.

A judge (1 of 2 we work with regularly) resigned on Thursday and now the lawyer for one of our kids is rushing papers through. That had big repercussions for us on Friday as we scrambled wildly to do labs and obtain a medical report.

Silly but important things on my car were acting up AGAIN (like not being able to open the little door to gas up…..kinda bad when you’re low AND there’s a shortage in the city).

A bus hit my car while my Dad and sister took it to the mechanic. So then they had to go to the bus driver’s mechanic as well (that’s the way you fix up things here in Bolivia…not much talk of insurance or calling police, ha!).

Five people from social services showed up on my doorstep to meet 3 of the kids for their adoption papers…….never mind that 1 wasn’t present (we brought her in ASAP from CDA III, delayed slightly due to a wreck on the main road).

Social services can’t afford phone calls right now so we are completely in the dark as to communicating with them! Makes things REALLY interesting! They told us they were actually bringing us a 3 year old boy on that same totally hectic afternoon but at the last minute took him somewhere else. Yikes!

Monthly meeting with the accountant which I barely had time for, cuz…

Esteban was in the hospital 3 days recuperating from a particularly vicious attack of parasites. We got him out on Saturday around midday, only to have his same problem (vomiting) return on the drive home!! He’s a bit better now—slowly but surely. Hopefully we won’t have to run him back in for anything.

Thursday and Friday my Mom was stuck in her house dealing with shippers packing stuff they are shipping back to the US.

Annette, a nurse from Germany who has lived all over the world working and serving, visited us on Saturday. It was nice chatting with her. We have both taken the same course, Children With Hope, although in different countries at different times.

With Annette and my sister Emma, I picked up baby Angel from the family where he’s been staying during the chicken pox outbreak. So amazingly and wonderfully, he got very few spots (maybe 20 at the peak) and never gave us reason to worry about complications. WHAT A RELIEF!!!

…..And I'll stop there!


While much of that was going on, I was supposed to be at a women’s retreat. I haven’t been at one of those in a while. Like YEARS. I almost never made it on the first half day (Friday). It was nuts and I was beginning to hate the phrase "women's retreat" because I was gonna need a retreat just trying to GET to it!! My Mom and I did catch the end and the first session, then we left. I hadn’t had one spare minute to pack even a toothbrush on Friday!

Saturday I caught all the sessions, amazingly, even though I was gone for almost 5 hours in the middle of the day to be with Esteban, Annette, and baby Angel…and pack quickly to spend the 2nd night on site. (I'm grateful to my Dad and volunteer Katrina for spending nearly the entire morning getting Esteban out of the hospital so that I could catch the first session of the day.)

The retreat was great!!! A huge blessing. I wish I had had more chance to fellowship with the missionary ladies from all over Bolivia, many of them serving here 10, 20, or even many more years, but the sessions couldn’t have been timelier for me. The main speaker, Hilary Price from England (husbad is pastor of the People's Church in Canada), shared on REST. That’s my word for 2009!

She spoke from Matthew 11:29 ("Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls") and John 15 (abiding in the vine). From hearing testimonies, the session on having your "secret place" with God seemed to be the most impactful!

Then the breakout session I chose was on burn out. Oh yeah, can relate with that one. In fact, the 30 or so ladies listening and participating seemed to be a little TOO up on the term, according to the workshop speaker, a former missionary to Africa. We had no problem coming up with all sorts of spot-on definitions and phrases to define burn out, stress, and overwork. Oops.

SOOO...that in a nutshell is the craziness of our past few days!! This week will be full as well as I catch up and tune into the other babies to see what they need (a few have worsening coughs), visitors arriving from Texas, etc., etc. Never a dull moment!!


You know it's been nuts when I haven't even had time to take pictures, much less post them, but I did get a silly one of a couple of my boys yesterday and will post that later tonight when I leave my family and get back to the Baby Home...

Here it is! Toddlers B & R entertaining themselves (and the others) while they waited their turn for baths (those are their shirts around their waists, and B is wearing one of the girl's shoes).