El Día de Los Niños by Dominic Pierri

    This blog is specifically written for the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, (great) grandpas, (great) grandmas, friends, and acquaintances of the SHYG students currently on the Bolivia mission trip of 2014. If you do not possess one or more of these titles, then you can stop reading this and get back to BuzzFeed or Yahoo News or whatever. I mean, unless you really want to… I guess it could be an interesting read. It is more legitimate than most BuzzFeed articles after all.

    Anyways, I know you’ve all been on the edge of your seats waiting for the greatly anticipated blog of Dominic Pierri. Don’t worry. Here it is. Let’s talk about today.

    The team woke up earlier than we have ever woken up this morning. We got out of bed at 6:00 in the morning (a time of day I didn’t know existed) and ate breakfast at 6:30. Toast, granola, and the most exquisite scrambled eggs prepared by the great and mighty Dan Westman.

    I guess you could call today “El Día de Los Niños.” We spent the first half of el día at the work site hanging out and making balloon animals with a huge group of Compassion International niños. Bolivian babies are beyond adorable. While that was going on, there was a designated prayer room in the building where the students sat in solitude praying for major impact on the non-Christian Bolivians and the families we were serving. Prayers were lifted up for the doctors and dentists on site as well.

    A lot of other stuff happened, but Linzy told me I don’t have any more time. Thanks Linzy for leaving people in the dark. Time to go eat steak with the team and the Bolivian workers we built with. If you want to hear more about what happened today, check out David’s blog post.

     I love you, Mrs. White! I miss you so much!

- Dominic Pierri

Hard Work = Steak Dinner by David White

    Today was another incredible day in Cochabamba Bolivia. Let me re-phrase that.... Today was an incredibly long day in Bolivia. This morning, everyone was told to be out of bed at 6:00 AM this morning to begin our day. We all ate as many eggs and toast as we could, so we would be ready to face our first and biggest task.
    Today was the day when anyone in the community could come and hear about Jesus, receive medical care, and receive dental care. Many of us got to be "dental assistants" or "medical assistants" but most of the time we were entertaining the kids with music, balloon animals, and of course FÚTBOL. The experience of seeing the condition that many people were in brought sadness and gratitude. We are so lucky to have the care and medicine available to us... wow. Some people may even be classified as dentists now, because they got to pull a few teeth.

    We then had a VBS activity for a kids club a few minutes away from the clinic where music, games, the gospel, and crafts were shared with the children. This incredible day full of hard work finally came to an end after cleaning up the clinic and sharing laughs.

We now are at the house preparing for an incredible steak dinner in Bolivia with all the team the workers and the Holman family. Dominic and I were to hungry so we hustled down the Tienda to grab a coke and some wafers.

    Shout out to Mrs. P! You're such a blessing, and I love you so much! <3
    I can't wait to see you Mom and Dad and Sarah and Toph, I miss you guys a lot and I love you!!! I'm doing great, I just broke a couple fingers and toes [Linzy insert: This is NOT true. No broken bones and no injuries!]. ;) Christopher you better be there to pick me up.

- David White

Musings by Clint Park

As the cool, crisp Bolivian air beat upon the Bolivian team member Clint, he was awoken by an unknown being.

Now that would be a cool way to explain my adventures in Bolivia, but Dan and Linzy said I had to be "real" and explain "actual" events. So I will do that. 

Today was our last day of building. We were slightly tired from the events of yesterday. (VBS with kids, and downing six pieces of pizza), we were still able to get up, and do our daily devotionals. I went to my normal spot on Ben's bed, (sorry Ben) and read my chapters in Mark for that day. As usual, I went ahead and ended up reading into the next days devotional.

As we headed out to the work site, I started to notice that the church started to take shape. It has been only a week and already the church is near completion. I also found out how easily I can get distracted. Especially like when writing this blog. The rest of the day followed of us laying brick, throwing brick, catching brick, using a pulley to bring brick up to the second floor... The rest just followed like so.

As the day settled, we circled with the Bolivians and with thanks and prayer, we ended our last day of building. I will never forget the people I met here, and with the progress we have made in only a few days, this building will be completed in no time. I am sure God will have amazing plans for this building.

I'm not sure who will be reading this blog, but shout out to my parents, brothers Calvin and Colin, my fish, friends, family, and doughnut that I am hoping to eat when I get back. 

Ciao,

Clint Park

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Building Complete! by Ally Lee

Today was our last day of building. By this time we were all quite tired of laying brick; however, it was all worthwhile knowing that the Bolivians would be using the space between the walls as a church for the neighborhood residents to attend. where the church would meet before was a small yard, now more people can be drawn to God.

After building for the week was finished several of us play futbol with the Bolivians. Then gathered around for a circle of prayer and thank you's. During this time I was brought back to last year's circle and how next year I will just be a past circle.

This country has taken hold of my heart in the last year and this was the beginning of the good-byes. Even the children could sense it after the gathering we walked back to the bus and I was swarmed with hugs of children asking if I would see them again.

Hello Aunty, Adam, and Dad. I want to let you all know I miss you and to Adam I cannot explain how proud I am of you for your completion of Teen Challenge. I wish you the best in Guatemala and hope you experience a new world and love on those children.

Yours Truly,
Ally Lee