Home again

Thank you for your prayers!! We made it back safely and can't wait to share all of our stories with you all in the coming weeks.

relax + reboot + RETURN

We spent our last night in Bolivia at the Sun Hotel, resting and debriefing our trip. It was an incredible time as a team to reflect on what God did and pray for what He will continue to do in our lives and in Bolivia.

Here are a few highlights!

Now we are in Miami and headed through customs before our final flight back to Chicago. See you SOON!

And we are off!

Santa Cruz bound! Please pray for safe travels.

Final Night... DANCE PARTY!

We will miss this crew.

Last Day in Cochabamba // Paul Ankenman

This trip has been extremely busy and action packed, but today was very chill.  We spent most of the last four days working to build the third floor of a church and today was largely a celebration of our progress.

Today, the church was having health clinic, so we would play with the kids of the parents who were receiving free health care.  During the morning, not very many families were showing up, which is common in Bolivia where people will show up late to almost everything, so we rode 20 minutes through Cochabamba on the back of a pickup to pick up some cookies and bring them back to the church.

A small group of people and I also walked through the town to see the house that we finished building a few days earlier.  Although the family wasn't there at the time, it was nice for because Claire couldn't go to the work day when we finished the house, so she hadn't seen it when it was finished.

-- Paul 

Operation Pillow//Dylan

   Today was our last full day in Bolivia and it was a great way to close the trip.  Today, doctors and dentists came to the community center/church to offer free services to anyone who wanted help.  I was able to help out the dentists by cleaning their equipment for them.  I felt very bad for the child that had to have his tooth pulled as he was screaming during the situation.  I think he felt better though when I handed him some popcorn and an apple juice packet.

  After lunch, it was my turn to pray over the people coming to the event and the church which was a little hard to stay on track since I had 20 minutes to do so before I got the next person.  Praying was nice to have quiet time to focus on God and remember the reason for the event and clear my head.  After my prayer time, I got to play with some fresh puppies who were just learning to walk.  My favorite puppy was brown and named Lava (she looked similar to lava cake) and was the cutest puppy out of the group.  Seeing a little kid dancing around, I decided to join him and realized soon that his energy never ran out.  He was always ready for me to pick him up and swing him around again and again.  He also had this huge smile on his face that was so cute and contagious that you thought he would have been on a cereal box.  

   We started to make balloon animals for the kids, but with my lack of balloon animal making skills and Spanish, I struggled to make acceptable creatures for the kids.  To close off the day we thanked the Bolivians for allowing us to help them build a house and the third floor while being able to play with the community kids, beat them in soccer, and share the gospel.  We prayed with them and waved goodbye as we left to go back to our last night at the guest house.

-- Dylan

Bittersweet Goodbyes // Emily Mangione

Hello!

Today marked our final full day in Bolivia, one that was both hard to let go of but full of gratitude. We woke up at around 7:15 this morning to the smell of fresh coffee and strawberry jam. I started out my morning with my bible and journal sitting in my favorite spot in the world. It is the first landing on the staircase leading up to our rooms. You can see the sun peaking out from right behind the mountains before it rises- a simple reminder of the beautiful places God has created for us to enjoy. 

After eating, we loaded up the bus and headed out to the same church/ community center that we have been working on to do a community outreach. This supplied doctors and dentists and their services for free to anyone who needed the medical attention. During their visit, the people were being preached the gospel which resulted in many people coming to Christ. While some people were working on the medical services, like cleaning the tools for the doctors, others were helping in other ways. For example, we were given a 6 foot tall bag of something similar to what we would know as popcorn. When I say 6 feet that is no joke- this bag was taller than I am. We then bagged the popcorn to give to the people receiving care and their children which mostly consisted of work ( and eating a lot of it....oops??) Then we ate a great lunch which consisted of rice, yucca ( a root vegetable that tastes like potatoes), and chicken.

After that we headed over to Teo's church and got to see the city which had the most beautiful flowers all over it. This car ride was on of my favorite parts of the day. When we got back we played with 1 week old puppies who all simultaneously fell asleep on us and snuggled into our warm and cozy t-shirts. It was incredible how trusting the mother was. She let us hold her puppies and just sat next to us calmly, only getting up to sniff them every so often. After that, we gave the remaining food to all of the children who beamed with joy. We take eating food and a full pantry for granted all the time, but these kids are always wondering where their next meal is coming from and if they are even getting one. It was so rewarding to give them some food knowing how grateful they are for it. 

We then all gathered in the main room of the church to pray. The room was intermixed with us and the Bolivians, all singing together and praying. It is so incredible that even though here is this huge language barrier, we can still worship the same god together. The Bolivians are big on goodbyes and we took a long time to hug them all and show them our appreciation. They made us feel so welcome; we were family the minute we said hello to them. I have never met more kind and thoughtful people in my life who radiate Gods glory. 

Their hospitality and kind hearts ares a wonderful reminder that you don't need to have an abundance of money or materialistic items to be happy. Saying goodbye really sparked my allergies (no, I wasn't crying... okay, maybe I was) because once these people touch your heart, it is hard to imagine living your life without them. I am beyond grateful that I had the opportunity to meet these beautiful people. Now we are sitting at home, playing games, and waiting for Dan to arrive with some really great pizza.

- Emily