August 9, 2014
Have I mentioned before how much I LOVE working in the mission field?? If not, please allow me the opportunity now. I L-O-V-E working in the mission field!! :) There never lacks an opportunity for God to “show up and show out” on behalf of His children and the last two weeks have been no exception.
But before I get into that, let me apologize for the delay between entries. I spent July 9-26 in Argentina visiting my family and spending time with my kids…so I didn’t write an entry for those weeks. It was such a blessing to see and spend time with my children!! I couldn’t be more proud of them! Mikaela, Julissa and Ezekiel…Daddy loves you to the moon and back! :)
I returned back to Familia Feliz on July 27th. I am very appreciative for an excellent group of friends/staff that did a wonderful job on holding down the fort in my absence. Thanks guys!
As soon as I returned, we immediately started getting ready for the kids return. School starts on Aug. 11, but times does fly and that date would be here before we knew it. We made school schedules, worship schedules, kitchen duty schedules, study hall schedules, etc. (I know, lots of schedules! But they really do work with kids.) We got the dorms ready, cut grass around the campus, moved our library and other odd jobs.
On last Friday, we had our weekly study at the Army base. Boy did I miss those studies the last three Fridays while I was traveling! The smiling faces and enthusiasm of the soldiers in participating in the services really do make my day. We had really good time and fellowship together with the soldiers.
Three soldiers volunteered to lead song service. :)
One thing that was also on our minds was the Independence Day parade. If you followed my blog last year, you know what a wonderful and productive event that was for us, as that is what opened the door to our Bible studies at the Army base. The Coronel has been talking to me about this year’s parade for several weeks and wants this one to be better than last year. So, last Sunday, we went to the Army base to practice with our kids that live locally and pathfinders from the church in Rurre. The kids were just as excited as we were. Despite the intense heat (102 degrees F with the heat index….and we’re in winter here!), we practiced a couple of hours and accomplished a lot.
Before we knew it, it was August 6th…Independence Day here in Bolivia. We met the Rurre Pathfinders in town at 7:00 am and loaded up to head to Reyes, a town about an hour from Rurre where we would be marching with the Rurre soldiers, as well as with the soldiers from the Reyes base.
We arrived, changed into our Dress Uniforms and met with Lieutenant Davila, who ushered us through the crowd to our place behind the army’s marching band. All eyes were on us. No one is Reyes knew us and they had never seen Pathfinders before, so there were a lot of fingers pointing at us and people asking, “Who are they?” It was a wonderful opportunity for us to share about the Pathfinder program and our church’s goal for the youth.
The ceremony started with the marching band playing the national anthem, the soldiers marching to the plaza in full dress uniform and several poems read. Then, all of the soldiers exited the scene for the local schools to start the parade. Our Pathfinder group followed the soldiers out, carrying our 7 flags. We walked about 3 blocks and then waited our turn to march in the parade. The Army base is always the last to march, so we had about 3 hours before it would be our turn. We were able to fellowship with our soldier friends from Rurre. They had never seen our Pathfinder uniforms either, so they were full of questions about the meaning of our pins, patches, colors, etc. It was another very HOT day, especially standing in the middle of the road for all that time. But the kids did extremely well and finally the moment of truth was upon us. The army’s marching band was in front, followed by our Pathfinders, then all of the soldiers from both bases. The band led the way, positioning themselves in the plaza in front of the stage where the mayor, lieutenant governor of the state, and other city officials were sitting. We, then, started our march, saluting the officials as we passed. As we marched, the announcer read a brief history of Pathfindering and the SDA church, along with our objective and goals. Just as last year, the crowd cheered loudly and applauded as we marched. Our minds were too preoccupied on making sure we did things just right, so we really didn’t pay much attention to the crowd. But we were told that they applauded more for our Pathfinders than they did for any other group! Both the mayor and the Lieutenant Governor applauded us and commended us on our participation. The kids did an outstanding job!
After the parade, we marched with the army back to the base with the soldiers, where we took a great group picture with both army bases! We also met the Coronel from the Reyes base who was “pleased as peaches” that we were there, sharing the morning with them. He extended his sincere gratitude for our support. And this is where God showed up and showed out. :) Coronel Castro shook my hand and said that after the parade, he spoke with the Mayor and they both wanted to officially request that we come back and start a Pathfinder group there in Reyes! The Coronel expressed his desire to have such an activity for the local youth, to restore values and lead them down the right path in life. He even offered his facilities at the base for us to meet if we would like! He also opened the door for us to go and start Bible studies there with his soldiers! He told us to “feel at home” and invited us to join them for lunch. We had made veggie burgers for lunch and took them with us, so we gladly accepted his invitation. We spent the next two hours fellowshipping with the soldiers and officials from both bases. It was an amazing experience! One official, newly assigned to Rurre, spoke with me about 15 minutes about Familia Feliz, Pathfinders and our ministry. He then asked if he could come and visit us on the weekends he has off to learn more about us and to help with our club. He is a paramedic and wants to teach first aid and other medical honors to our kids! Another interesting thing that happened…as we were eating lunch, they were grilling meat for the soldiers. It was taking a bit longer than expected, so the soldiers were very hungry. We shared our extra burgers with about half of them. They were extremely grateful. But the fun part came when they thought the burgers were made of meat and we told them they were made of beans! :) They couldn’t believe it!
Explaining our patches and uniform to some local kids who came up to ask about them.
With Coronel Sanchez (to my left) and Lieutenant Davila (to my right) from the Rurre base.
With Coronel Castro from the Reyes army base.
Some pics with the soldiers at lunch:
It was finally time to head back home. I went and thanked both Coronel’s for their hospitality and said goodbye. They, however, said they were the ones that owed us a thank you. Then Coronel Castro said, “I need to apologize to you Miguel. I just found out that you all are vegetarian and we don’t have much that you all could eat. Please accept my apologies and know that next time, we will have vegetarian options for all of you!” I thanked him, but assured him that we were fine and they didn’t need to make special accommodations for us. However, he insisted that next time we came, he would have vegetarian food for us. :) He then invited us to return the following day for a special program the army bases were doing in honor of the flag of Bolivia. He wanted us to be their special guests. I told we’d do our best to be there. We said our goodbyes to the soldiers, loaded up on the truck and headed home.
After such a long day in the heat, we decided to go to the river to cool off. Talk about fun! The water felt very good and was just deep enough to sit in…but these kids (and staff!) sure did enjoy that water! :)
A fish one of the boys caught by hand (no fishing pole, bait or net!) :)
Having fun throwing the kids into the river:
Now, having fun BEING THROWN into the river. :) :)
The following day, we headed back to Reyes to support the soldiers in their program. And boy were we glad we did! They did an excellent presentation to the flag, dressed in their uniforms, as well as other costumes and outfits they had, representing different military and civil activities/occupations. We got a lot of good pictures! After the program in the plaza, we accompanied them to the base to take more pictures. Then, we headed to the “coliseum”, where the soldiers from both bases performed some agility and gymnastic activities. The kids really liked that! Everything finished a little after noon, so we headed back, made lunch and then went back to the river to cool off. :)
Some pics from the gymnastics performance:
This soldiers is the only SDA soldier at the base....for the moment! :)
A group picture of most of us that participated in the parade. Make sure you click on this picture to make it bigger to truly appreciate it! :)
On Friday, we got things ready for Sabbath and for classes next week. A few more students also arrived. Then came time to head to the Army base for our weekly Bible study. And that night, we had over 70 in attendance!! We talked about baptism and what the Bible teaching in regards to it. Several showed interest in being baptized! We’ve also started showing the Nest Animated Bible stories videos to the soldiers, since most do not have any knowledge of the Bible. They LOVE these videos!! So we watched the one on John the Baptist, since it went along with our topic. We also showed a slideshow of some of the over 2000 pictures we took this week at the parades. That was a nice surprise for them. We ended with prayer in small groups. Talk about a sight…70 soldiers kneeling in groups, thanking God for His blessings and lifting their requests to Him! There’s nothing like it!
This morning, we went to church in town. John had the sermon, while Jose Carlos (one of our students) and I joined him on the pulpit. We’re trying to get our kids more active in church service. Jose Carlos did an excellent job!
After church, we went by the hospital to visit Jose Carlos and Juan Carlos’ dad. He had his gallbladder removed this week. Please keep him in your prayers.
Once back at Familia Feliz, we had lunch, then had a Bible/Natura scavenger hunt. The kids really enjoyed that (and it kept them busy for over an hour! That’s always a plus! :) ). We then had some Bible trivia and played Bible Taboo. For vespers, another student, Benjamin, lead the service, talking about Psalms 91 and God’s protective care of His children. A very nice ending to a wonderful Sabbath day!
Please continue to pray for all of us here at Familia Feliz. We have several new students this term, most of which are not Adventists nor practicing Christians. Pray for wisdom and guidance for the staff as we seek to lead all of our kids to Christ’s Feet. Also, pray that the Lord will continue to meet our financial needs to feed and maintain our precious students. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support! May God bless you in a very special way today!
Maranatha!
P.S. I forgot to introduce the newest member of the Familia Feliz family. His name is Coco (coconut in English) and he has certainly been a big hit here on campus! It’s especially a lot of fun to watch him and Janet interact!
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