Saturday Post -- 09/02/13

Just been round at the site this morning to meet the guy who'll be fitting our kitchen. While there, we took some more pictures of what is now an Off-White House or, in Spanish, La Casa Casi Blanca.

The windows were installed this week.

Most rooms now have their first coat of paint. Here's an upstairs bedroom.

The titular couple.

A view of the back garden from an upstairs balcony. The temporary
foreman's shed is now gone -- it used to sit where the new earth has been laid. 

Three key players talk shop in the master bedroom. From left-to-right:
site manager "Chichi", kitchen designer César and project coordinator
Gunther.

The living/dining area, with 'accent wall'.

Things are really motoring now, with the security fence being put in place and the kitchen due to be fitted out in the next couple of weeks. It's not unforeseeable that we could be moved in by the end of the month, well ahead of the state visit of Mr. & Mrs. A Cunningham in mid-April.

Those readers who don't frequent planet Facebook may be unaware of a major answer to prayer during the week. As mentioned in our prayer points, Amanda had lost her wallet while out shopping, containing a little cash but, much more crucially, all of her major ID and bank cards from the UK, Canada and Bolivia. So on Monday morning (our day off), as we both slowly regained consciousness after the customary lie-in, we prepared ourselves mentally for a day which would be spent visiting Trinidad's police station, immigration offices and various lawyers' offices -- and this to simply get the ball rolling on the long process of replacing Amanda's driver's licence and Bolivian I.D. card. Particularly grating was the loss of the I.D. card, given it just had a few weeks of validity left -- knowing the authorities here as we do, it would not have been a surprise to be told to acquire a replacement and then apply for a renewal.

But, gloriously, we can only hypothesise. Because out of the blue Amanda received a phonecall from Anna, the secretary at FT. Someone had turned up with Amanda's I.D. card, no doubt assisted by the address supplied on the I.D. card. Amanda promptly made her way over to find that the family she met had not only that card, but her wallet too, lacking money, but complete with all the cards necessary to get by here and abroad (though the bank-cards had obviously been cancelled). Wisely, Amanda opted not to ask the family how they came about the wallet, and gave them a small reward as a token of our gratitude.

As it happened, answered prayer was to become something of a running theme this week, with a few other really hairy situations arising in which the Lord graciously proved once again (need we have doubted) that he is overwhelmingly 'for us' and our fellow believers.

Unsurprisingly, the schools were nowhere near ready to start classes proper this week -- perhaps I'll have something more to report next weekend, by which time Carnavál will be out of the way. In February of last year I gave a rough guide to what happens here in Trinidad for this, the biggest of all Latin American festivals. In terms of the church, we've made a couple of important tweaks to the customary all-day event we put on for the youth group: firstly, it will take place on Monday (the traditionally alcohol-soaked peak of the festivities) and secondly, appropriately for an event which involves copious water-fighting, we're staging the event at the laguna, Trinidad's man-made lake resort. It promises to be wetter than a girls'-night-out at Les Miserables.

Prayer

• For safety and a good time for all at the youth event on Monday. Pray especially for our friend Kenny who's speaking on Holiness, a theme with particular relevance this weekend. And pray for all of Trinidad these next few days, for safety and, somehow, that God's voice would speak through the chaos.
• Keep praying for Porfidia, who we are really keen to employ this year as a teacher in the community classes. She is getting closer to a possible job-swap which would allow her to teach school in the morning and work at FT in the afternoons.

Praise

• For the returning of Amanda's wallet.
• For another successful surgical campaign at FT this past week.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 02/02/13

First up today, some pictures taken yesterday of the house, which, like their subject, have been a while in coming. 

The new entrance-way being added to the front of the house.

The kitchen, post-tiling, pre-fitting. No idea what our friend in the baseball
cap is up to.

A view from upstairs, outside the large window.

Unfortunately, the project has been beset for some time by a chronic lack of workers. People in the Beni region have something of a national reputation for sloth, and the traditional Christmas/January twilight zone has seen our contractor struggle to assemble enough guys to make headway.

Amanda and I hadn’t initially been too concerned about deadlines, but with our first visitors for the year – my parents – arriving in mid-April, we began to get a little anxious. So I spoke with the project manager a few weeks ago and, voila, the last couple of weeks have seen a major increase in workers and a hastening in progress. Indeed, it was nigh-on impossible to take pictures yesterday without workers in them.

More recently, we’ve put pen to ink on a couple of important contracts for the installation of the kitchen and security fencing – a necessary evil in this culture. Hopefully we’ll be able to report a moving-in date sooner rather than later.

One date we can point to with certainty is the official start of the school year this Monday coming. Well, theoretically at least. Because of course, here in Bolivia, and indeed throughout Latin America, there’s an unwritten rule that nothing really gets going till that granddaddy of all festivals, Carnavál, is out the way. This year’s celebration takes place relatively early – the 11^th and 12^th of February – and so it is fair to say that this week will be something of a write-off. Besides, many schools don’t even have their timetables in place by the time they return from the holidays. However, at least it’ll be out of the way fairly soon and my FT Education colleagues and I can begin the year’s R.E. teaching by mid-February (Carnavál can fall as late as early March, virtually wiping out a month of classes).

At the Foundation this week the main focus has been preparing for the latest surgical campaign, taking place next week in our operating theatres. Once again, we’ll be assisted by visiting ENT surgeons from Paraguay, who have brought a really positive attitude to the place in their recent visits. Like the Germans, Amanda doesn’t tend to get involved in campaigns these days, but she will again make an indirect contribution by taking sole charge of the audiology wheel in the absence of her colleague, Odalys. Indeed, Odalys has agreed to take on the role of nurse-in-charge at FT, meaning Amanda will be increasingly on her own.

Not so in the youth work, where we have both been involved with the youth committee in getting ready for the new year, which kicks off this evening, with just one ‘normal’ Saturday before next week’s traditional Carnavál extravaganza, which promises to be bigger, better and significantly wetter than anything we’ve done yet. More on that next week.

Prayer

• Since writing this entry yesterday afternoon, something of an emergency has arisen. On a shopping excursion, Amanda misplaced her wallet and turned around a few seconds later only to discover that said wallet had disappeared. Thankfully, I had her main bank card but all the rest of her major Canadian, British and Bolivian cards were all in there. So we need prayer, firstly, that a kind soul out there would return the wallet to us. And secondly, if that doesn't happen, that the road to replacing these cards is a smooth one, particularly here in Bolivia. As mentioned in the last couple of posts, we're in the process of renewing our visas. Once you have your visa, you are then expected to apply for a new I.D. card, which reflects your new visa dates. In other words, we are now so close to applying for our new I.D. cards that for Amanda to be asked to apply for a replacement for her current card would be pretty preposterous -- but stranger things have happened to us here. So please pray for understanding from the authorities. 
• For safety for patients and energy for staff during next week’s surgical campaign.
• For FT staff as the school year begins and for preparation of the hearts of those children and young people who will hear the Good News in their classrooms this year.
• For the new year at youth group, that the Lord would equip us to raise up a generation of disciples. 

Praise

• For an increased pace, after a long period of relative inactivity, in our building project.
• For the relative freedom we enjoy here in Bolivia to teach the Word of God in schools. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 04/02/12

These are indeed dark days for Trinidad’s schoolchildren, and I’m not just referring to the John Major-grey skies overhead in this, the sodden summit of rainy season. Monday sees Bolivia’s school gates fling wide once again and tens of thousands of young people are mentally preparing themselves for the academic year ahead.

At least they can expect a fairly easy ride for the first few weeks. Because here in Bolivia, little, if anything, is in place by the time the new session begins. Monday is also the first day for staff, who will have no timetable to work with, given that nobody thinks to put together the new timetable before the summer holidays. What inevitably ensues are a week or two of constant schedule revisions, while educational opportunities for students are limited to the playground.

A further impediment to meaningful progress is the long weekend bingefest holiday of Carnavál, usually just around the corner at this time of year (it falls on the weekend of Saturday 18^th in 2012). For some reason, the festival’s ever-growing presence on the horizon serves to create a psychological barrier in the minds of educators and students alike, and nothing of any real significance is accomplished until well after the holiday.

After weeks of lesson preparation, I’m raring to get out there and work with students again (the very thought!) but I shall have to bide my time. There is no point in going to the local school, where I’m hoping to take some R.E. classes, for a couple of weeks yet, as it will take time for the dust to settle on the new timetable.

However, preparations for the new session of English classes, starting the 28^th, have been well underway for some time now, and this week I’ve taken things up a gear by getting into town with posters advertising the course, something we haven’t done in the past. The very act of sticking these posters to the walls of Trinidad’s retail hotspots in itself has drawn quite a crowd, and I’m hopeful we’ll have a bigger uptake than ever this year – particularly exciting given that there’ll be a new ‘Biblical Application’ strand this time around.

Another new project for 2012 is our intra-staff discipleship and evangelism service. As a Christian foundation, our number-one concern for the staff is their spiritual welfare, yet at the moment, little is in place to encourage our staff in this way. Therefore, as missionaries, we’re looking to make regular personal contact with staff outside of work hours, in order to support one another better. A formalised programme is still in the works, but this afternoon Amanda will be meeting, for the first time, with her fellow audiologist Odalys, who is fair champing at the bit for some spiritual input in her life.

And later today, we’ll have the second meeting of 2012 with the youth group, whose programme for the year kicked off last Saturday. After the customary month or so off post-Christmas, it usually takes the young people a few weeks to get back into the rhythm of Saturday evenings, but there were around 40 in attendance last weekend. Several of these youth are now into a pattern of meeting individually with us as missionaries for weekly discipleship sessions and we’re excited to see what God has in store for the youth ministry this year as they grow in maturity.

Prayer

• Please pray for the new academic year and for the involvement of FT’s educational workers in teaching R.E. classes, particularly that the local schools will be receptive to our involvement.
•  For this year’s English classes, that God would bring to the foundation those people whose hearts are fertile soil for the gospel message.
• For Amanda as she begins meeting with Odalys (not a believer) this afternoon.

Praise

• For an initially positive response to the English classes.
• For a good crowd at the first youth meeting of 2012.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 20/2/10

To date, these blogs have tended to focus on day-to-day activities more than our leisure time. We may be boring, but we’re not so boring that we don’t let our hair down come the weekend (alas, a purely figurative statement in my case)!

On Saturdays, Amanda will leave the house with KC around 9 to go and do the grocery shopping for the week (see previous entry). I, meanwhile, join Dr. Santana and about 6 others for a frontón session. Frontón is like squash without the mid-life crisis. You play it on an outdoor court which is about the same height and width of a squash court, but twice as long. You play it in teams of two, one at the front and one at the back, with racquetball equipment. It’s fast, unpredictable and utterly addictive – so much so that we play on Wednesday evenings too.

Our only other ‘engagements’ at the weekend are church-related. I meet the other band members for a practice at 3pm on Saturday and then, at 10.30am on Sundays, we have our main service, which is followed by a communion service and usually finishes around 12.15pm. The church’s music situation is in need of something of an overhaul. We have a small, but eager band of 3 guitarists and a keyboard player. However, the vast majority of music at present comes from a theologically-sound, though somewhat antiquated, hymnbook of about 50 songs. Chicho (Rachel Peebles’ husband) and I are endeavouring to expand the range. This week we photocopied ten new worship songs for use, though hopefully we’ll have use of a projector in the days to come. Add to all this the fact that Bolivian singing voices tend to be about as pure and unblemished as Paul Gascoigne’s criminal record and it is clear that music is an area of crucial importance.

These aside, we tend to spend our weekends in a perpetual state of elegant slumber, reading, snoozing and watching sports. And the Winter Olympics.

As mentioned last week, Carnavál, while providing Bolivia with an unrivalled opportunity to celebrate its culture in all its drunkenness (22 deaths nationwide and counting), gave those of us at FT a much-appreciated two-day holiday on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, we helped the young people (Jóvenes) of the church out with their programme of outdoor games. Some 50 young people turned out for this event, which included a time of worship and gospel presentation in the morning and evening sessions. Our main involvement, however, was throwing water balloons at unsuspecting teenagers and photographing them in all their mania. A good time had by all.

Tuesday was scheduled to be our ‘day out’ but unfortunately, we were not able to see as much of the surrounding countryside as we would have liked as there had been severe flooding all day Sunday and throughout Tuesday morning. We therefore drove about 10 miles out of town to a fish restaurant near the river and this proved to be a most sobering journey. On either side of the road, all one could see besides acres of water was treetops and rooftops of houses, with only the electricity pylons standing strong above it all. At the immediate roadside were hundreds of makeshift tarpaulin tents – in other words, the temporary homes of those who had to evacuate (no joke: on Monday, for one of the water games, we were generously donated the ‘roof’ of one of the participating girl’s bedrooms – a single tarpaulin sheet).







We arrived at the fish restaurant and you can see from the first picture how precarious the flooding had rendered the entrance. We sat down and enjoyed a fantastic meal together (pictured are Craig, Amanda, Maicol, KC and Chicho). But while we were enjoying ourselves, the third photograph demonstrates the fragility of life for the restaurant’s neighbours.

On Wednesday, we were back at work, enjoying the fact that another weekend was none too far away. Amanda’s Spanish is picking up (she’s now telling the moto drivers what to do – know the feeling, guys!) and on Thursday evening I was able to give a brief, three-point talk in Spanish at the prayer meeting.

Finally, a brief ‘hello’ to a Mr. K. Fisher, none too impressed by the mixing of first- and third-person in previous posts. Trust you’ve enjoyed this post, Kenneth. And get a life.

Praise
• A relaxing, rejuvenating two-day holiday.
• Encouraging signs of progress in language-learning.
• Safety during Carnavál.

Prayer
• Craig is giving a sermon in church next Sunday (28th). Pray for preparation.
• Amanda’s development of relationships with co-workers.
• The people of Trinidad who have had to desert their homes during the flooding, and FT’s ability to deal with the health/community needs arising from this.

Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 13/2/10

Well, our first week here was always going to be a little different and it's fair to say that this week we were brought down to earth with a bump. On our knees. With a wrenching stomach.

Amanda went to her first session at the clinic on Monday afternoon, reporting mild nausea but otherwise looking forward to getting started at last. Within half an hour, she was desperately trying to remember the word for "toilet" and, having managed to locate aforementioned excrementary recepticle in the nick of time, she promptly emptied herself of all but love.

As first impressions go, it takes some beating.

Not content to keep it all to herself, Amanda proceeded to pass said virus on to Craig as he was attempting to nurse her back to health that evening. I'd expected long, agonising nights in a posture of prostration as I set off for the mission field, but this I had not bargained for.

Needless to say, we took Tuesday off, but what we lost in work hours we more than made up for in Doctor Who episodes. By Wednesday morning we were able to nibble again and were back behind our respective 'desks'.

Amanda was attended the clinics this week and paid a visit to the local maternity/paediatric hospital. This was the first week of a new study into hearing deficiencies of children who are in the accident & emergency facility there, as part of the foundation's ongoing ¡Oye, Bolivia! ('Hear, Bolivia!') programme. She's enjoying being back at work and already, despite her lack of Spanish, feels part of the team. The other day she was pointing out to one of the nurses the differences between the English verbs 'to kiss' and 'to kill'. A beneficial distinction, you'll no doubt agree.

I've spent a half-day every day this week working through my online TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course. Though a lot of the reading is fairly theoretical, most of the assignments have a really practical basis. Just like being back in the classroom, then.

And speaking of classrooms, we've commenced our Spanish classes with our teacher, Farid. Amanda attends on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and I on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Farid is a Chelsea fan, so he's not had the best of weeks (he should be used to those) but his footballing knowledge does have its linguistic benefits. When I was trying to remember the meaning of the Spanish work 'puente', he said 'bridge...Wayne Bridge!'. I think it's best we leave it at that...

As you can see from the photograph, Trinidad is once again feeling the negative effects of rainy season. This is a typical scene, particularly in the southern outskirts of the town, which sit nearer the river. It is at times like these, of course, that the Foundation's assistance is most required. And yet, while many thousands struggle to keep their houses in order (in an all too literal sense) the citizens are preoccupied with Carnavál, i.e., the traditional Latin American festivities in the days preceding Lent. Lent, of course, is a season of abstinence, of inward contemplation and renunciation. It thereby follows that Carnavál is the perfect time to get your vices out of your system! You've got to love the logic. If Lent was observed half as enthusiastically as Carnavál, Trinidad would be experiencing true revival!

Needless to say, it's not the best time for Christian missionaries to be in town (chocos are a particular target of youths with super-soakers!). So instead, we're helping the young people of the church out with a programme of activities all day on Monday. And on that same note, we had a meeting with the church elders on Sunday to look into possible roles. Amanda's going to be helping out at the Sunday school and I'm going to be helping the praise band, though I made a head-start on this, guitar in hand, last Sunday. And I'm going to be put on the teaching rota, probably speaking about once a month. I've been asked to share something at the Communion service this Sunday. I think they want to check that I'm not a heretic...

Praise
• For Amanda’s increasing confidence in Spanish (see previous post)
• For a speedy recovery from our bout of sickness.
• For a quick adjustment to our new schedules.

Prayer
• For the people of the town who are worse affected by the floods.
• For Craig as he gives a brief message on Sunday.
• That our relationships with the people of the community would develop.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda