Saturday Post -- 04/05/16

Me right now, without the glassesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

You can pretty much count on our posts being somewhat curtailed on the first Saturday of each month, as this is the day on which the Langham Trinidad group meets…at 6am! So difficult was it to find a time during sensible hours that suited everyone that the group elected to stage meetings at a time when everyone would definitely be available (if not entirely awake). Thus far, the early start has not been too much of a hindrance, and this morning we enjoyed our first such preaching class since theLevel 2 conference last month.

Regular readers will be aware that one of the strengths of the Langham Preaching programme is the frequency of visits from their national overseers (based in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba), and, not even three weeks since the retreat, we also received confirmation this week of the first such follow-up visit in October from our good friend Edwin.

My week has mostly been taken up with more administrative tasks for church, and preparation of the morning meditations at Fundación Totaí. Taking place before FT opens for ‘business’, these are an integral part of the day, an opportunity to hear from God’s word and prayerfully reflect upon it. Three of us are involved in this, taking a month each on a three month rotation. I have been slowly but steadily working through Mark’s gospel with the staff, the shortest of the four gospel accounts, yet five ‘months’ later (in reality, since May 2015), we’re only at Wednesday of Holy Week!

I’m passionate about the morning meditations, from a discipleship and evangelism standpoint, and so I’m happy to set aside the time to prepare each of them from scratch, though usually they take me around 90 minutes’ of work. With my other commitments, that requires time management; I usually do one a week, but in leaner preaching spells (such as right now) I try to get a few out of the way at once. It’s paying off, with the Christians in the group coming to a deeper appreciation of Mark’s purposes and themes, and the non-Christians reading through an entire gospel account, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

Amanda, meanwhile, has had various monthly departmental meetings (another trait of the start of the month), but is also turning her attention to the summer’s volunteers. This year we do not have a team, but three individuals spread across the next few months (the third is hoping to stay on for the best part of a year). Next weekend, God-willing, the first of these three will have arrived on a medical placement from the USA, and Amanda will be charged with overseeing her time in Trinidad.

We say 'summer' volunteers, of course, when in actual fact, it's winter here, and feels like it. Hooray!

  

Prayer

• The adoption. You know the score. We remain answerless.
• For Amanda as she prepares for the arrival of this summer’s volunteers.
• For the morning meditations delivered by Craig, San and Elías (this month); that the saints would be built up, unbelievers’ hearts would be softened, and that Christ would be established at the centre of the day ahead.

Praise

• For a great start this morning to the new year of monthly Langham meetings.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 28/5/16

"Goanae no dae that?"

This is likely to be fairly short, as a busy Saturday awaits, due not so much to ministry as a certain football match. Every year, the guys from church and their families used to get together to watch the Champions League final, always a big deal down here no matter who is playing. And when the final was moved to Saturday evenings in Europe a few years back – mid-afternoon here – that very conveniently paved the way for the Champions League barbecue. 

Today, we resurrect that tradition at Casa Cunningham, not that I personally am too excited about the game. Real Madrid’s Francoist past, imperialist bluster and inability to operate fax machines means I’m dead-set against Los Merengues, but Atlético aren’t exactly easy on the eye. Still, given that I might have to get very used to such football fairly soon, I’ll reluctantly back the bus-parkers, not least as most of the guys in attendance are hardline Blancos, and I'd love them to stick it to Ronaldo after that simply appalling 'It's all about me' moment following his only meaningful contribution in 2014.

This week has been one of those extremely bitty weeks in which two public holidays magically collide (the profusion of such holidays here always reminds me of the debate over giving St Andrews day such status back home, and the agonising over the damage a single day away from the desk could do to the economy). Furthermore, yesterday was Mother’s Day (a very big deal), and, of course, mothers were free to take a half-day off work in order to see their kids perform a ditty or two at school. Something of a write-off, then.

In between all that, we have done what we can. If you get our email updates, you’ll have read/skimmed about Amanda’s appraisal interviews with staff. When she started out in HR here, her goal was to disciple/evangelise to personnel. That has somewhat been marginalised due to the administration, the disciplinary meetings, and, oh yeah, a one-year-old boy to look after. So a formal opportunity to speak one-on-one with staff and talk more about their personal situations has been a blessing.

Sermon-free this week, I’ve largely been taking care of church administrative matters. Not much to report there.

We also bid farewell to the Brass Tacks guys on Tuesday morning following their Herculean efforts here over the past couple of months. More on that, hopefully, in the Fundación Totaí email update, due next month (let me know if you would like to receive a copy of that).

There’s a steak with my name on it, so…

Prayer

• Remember Amanda’s staff interviews. Not all of those we work alongside are Christians (especially in the health work); pray for further opportunities to evangelise and show Jesus’ love.
• Keep praying for the adoption. I referred last week to some major issues at local level; these are holding up progress on this front as well (legally, it should have been completed within 30 days of the termination of parental rights, not that we’re expecting that to be enforced in a city where most motorists have no driver’s licence).

Praise

• Give thanks for the work that is going on in the youth group. As mentioned in our email update, we’re getting a lot more time with the young people in small groups this year, and several have made a confession of faith.
• For increased (and most welcome) time together as a family as a result of the holidays this week.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 21/05/16

Last weekend, a group of pastors and church leaders (including myself, Craig) in the company of the eminent Eduardo Rojas, decamped to a remote location for a second spin of the Langham Preaching wheel.

Miguel

If, like me, you know your films, you’ll be aware that sequels very rarely tend to live up to their progenitors (with the notable exceptions of Toy Story 2, The Godfather Part Two, and, of course, The Empire Strikes Back). That was decidedly not the case with Langham: Level 2 (Revenge of the Bedbugs?), which both built, and improved, upon 2015’s gains. Not only that, but after a year of quite literally preaching at each other, by now the whole group was well used to the Langham modus operandi, and so, like any good follow-up, we were free to ditch any introductions and hit the ground running.

Nowhere was this more evident than in our final task: the inevitable preparation and preaching of a sermon. Last year, we were given a full two days’ notice; this time round, a mere two hours.

Eduardo in action.

After Level 1’s introduction to expository preaching in general, Level 2 centres on the New Testament, and Eduardo opted to look at the parables of Luke with us, with a particular focus on the Pharisee and the Publican, the Good Samaritan, and the Two Builders (on which we preached). If you know the gospels well, you’ll know that Luke is rich in parables, many of which are unique to the evangelist. We spent a good deal of time over the first couple of days thinking about what a parable is, seeing that there is so much more to them than simply being ‘illustrative’.

Mary

The focus on the parables also subtly reinforced some of the preaching principles introduced in Level 1. Langham Preaching programmes place great emphasis on both identifying cultural nuances in world of the passage, and communicating the force of these in terminology that people in the contemporary setting would appreciate. Most of the parables are set in and around Palestine of Jesus’ day – i.e., they’re chock-full of such cultural quirks – and demonstrate the power of communicating theological truths in a way that a contemporary audience would understand.

The study of the parables also gave Eduardo a platform from which to introduce a slightly different form of preaching. A narrative text lends itself to a narrative sermon style, and he preached twice in this way; for example, while teaching the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, he assumed the role of a listening Pharisee, i.e., one of those ‘who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else’ (Luke 18:9). The other sermon was delivered in the third-person, while maintaining the narrative tone. While this was something of a departure for most (including myself), there was at no point a sense that the truth of the passage was being somehow diluted. The group itself was not asked to deliver a narrative sermon over the weekend (I guess I’ll have to save my first-person Esther sermon series for another time), but we gave the notion plenty of thought in workshops, including a five-minute exercise in which we told each other the parable of the Good Samaritan from a first- and third-person perspective.

Occasional visitors were welcome.

The big constant from last year (aside from the bedbugs) was the preaching task at the end of the weekend, in which each of the three groups was required to prepare a sermon, to be delivered by one of its members. My group included a Langham rookie, 25-year-old seminary student Ignacio; generally, Langham HQ prefer the groups to not take on new members after the initial conference, but an exception was made for Ignacio given his experience to date. He preached his very first sermon (on the Two Builders), and literally knocked it out the park, as Jamie Redknapp might have put it. If you’ll excuse the pun, it’s fair to say he left the experience with solid foundations upon which to build.

Ignacio

Personally, Level 2 proved to be a timely encouragement. Around this time last year, it’s fair to say I was still riding the Cornhill wave when it came to my preaching, and my chief Langham joy was in seeing others get the expository preaching bug. Of late, however, I’ve felt a slight staleness, and particularly when it comes to getting the message across in terms that people can truly appreciate and apply in their day-to-day lives. I’ve often thought that, for all that we live in a very close-knit – and very Bolivian – community, Amanda and I are often at something of a disadvantage when it comes to truly understanding the lives of Bolivian families, due simply to our ethnicity and, if we’re honest, relative wealth.

For me, then, the most stimulating – and challenging – exercise, was one in which, as a group, we spent 30 minutes listing the various issues that individuals face in Trinidad, Bolivia, on personal, familial, church and societal scales. It was instructive to note how many of these were touched on by the parables (though that was sheer coincidence). I have taken a note of these lists, and hope to refer to them frequently in my future sermon preparation.

My good buddy (and fellow Trinidad coordinator), Cristian

As ever, Eduardo was keen to stress the dangers of becoming mere eventistas, and the hard work now begins as we resume our monthly meetings (in which one person preaches and the others give constructive feedback), starting in early June. We hope this is one follow-up that will not disappoint.

Langham Trinidad. Booyah.

Prayer

• Another great encouragement of Level 2 was simply spending time with each other. The majority of those in the group are the sort of people I’d only see at our meetings, yet they are great, godly people. We sometimes feel our lack of deep friendships here in Trinidad. Perhaps there is scope here; prayer appreciated.
• Wouldn’t you know it? Craig is due to give a sermon tomorrow on Psalm 62. Barely a week gone, and an opportunity to preach what he’s practised.
• Pray for Trinidad as a city. There is a pretty deplorable situation going on right now, with the government withholding salaries for municipal workers for several months (it has been speculated that this is due to Trinidad’s delivering a ‘no’ vote in February’s referendum; we can’t know for sure, but it would not be surprising). This is causing a great squeeze in all kinds of sectors; crime is on the increase; and it has touched one individual in our church, a sewage worker, directly. Pray that common sense would prevail. 

Praise

• For a great Langham weekend, and a great platform established for the year ahead.
• Give thanks for the work of Paul and Aaron, our Brass Tacks volunteers, who this weekend conclude their six-week building and maintenance work at Fundación Totaí. They have been a great help, not just with tools in hand, but also the Bible (Paul stepped in and preached last weekend while all the regular candidates were away at Langham). Their journey home to the UK begins on Tuesday, if you could remember that in your prayers. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 07/05/16

Not the best of pictures, this, but you may be able to pick out a certain
striker.

No two weeks are the same in this corner of the world, but the past week has more unusual than most.

For a start, the good people of Trinidad are only just getting over a bracing south wind, which arrived in late April (normally the tail-end of the summer here), and whose effects were being felt well into this week; it was only last night that we ditched our rarely-used winter blanket. No complaints from our end, of course; tea is all the more pleasant when not diluted by one's own sweat.

Stranger still was a rare sighting of Amanda on a sports field, nay, a football pitch! Last weekend we had a one-off seven-a-side tournament for the youth group, and my dear wife (under no shortage of coercion, it must be said) made an appearance. Fleeing from the ball like Donald Trump from a Mexican, she made precisely zero touches, yet was to leave the pitch with the glory of a 100% strike:goal ratio, having done her bit for the team in the ensuing penalty shootout (not that it probably matters, but the goalie was a nine-year-old boy).

A little more frustrating was Sam taking a bad turn a few days later, with a high fever properly flooring him for 24 hours. Since then, he's generally been his usual chirpy self, but he can't quite shake it off. We're reliably informed that a seven-to-ten-day recovery is not unusual at his stage; patience is the order of the day. 

Of course, Sam is nothing but a heavy sleeper, so it's been something of an adjustment for us to be up at all hours ensuring he's getting his dosages and enough fluids. And how has His Lordship seen fit to compensate us for our efforts? Oh, only by inflicting us with the same illness! Mercifully, our recovery time has been a lot shorter.

Somehow, amidst all of this, we've managed to put in a fair shift. I've been teaching my English classes, preparing a pretty heavy sermon (see below) and getting ready for next weekend (see below too!), while Amanda has had her usual diet of administrative duties and meetings, including one with the local government yesterday to look into ways that FT and the municipality can better work together.

As for you, dear reader, you can work better together (always liked that phrase) with us by praying. So, without further ado...

Prayer

• The church is in the middle of a mini-series on the 'I am' sayings in John, and tomorrow morning, for the first time, it's Craig's turn. The passage is John 8:31-58 ('Before Abraham was, I am') and it is nothing if not hyper-evangelistic. Please pray for Craig and for those in attendance who are not yet believers.
• Amanda and her fellow directors at FT continue to work under great financial constraints, and require so much wisdom. We ask that you would pray for them.
• Next weekend is Langham Level 2! We've somehow managed to complete a full year of this preaching course here in Trinidad, and, God-willing, we'll be joined by Eduardo & Edwin for four days of intensive training (in other words if there's a blog post next weekend, it'll be Amanda's). Please pray for an encouraging time together.
• Keep praying for Paul and Aaron from Brass Tacks, who are doing an excellent job with the construction work at FT. They're only here for just over two weeks more and are beginning to feel the pressures of time. Prayer appreciated.
• Pray that we might all make a full recovery sooner rather than later!

Praise

• We were greatly encouraged this week by the arrival of several packages from our dear friends at Shettleston New. Give thanks for their safe arrival (no joke!).
• And speaking of safe arrivals, our old friend and house-sitter Rachel Peebles should be flying back to Scotland right about now following her latest visit to Trinidad. Give thanks for the encouragement of our time with her the last couple of weeks.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 30/04/16

We're back! Ever since realising we needed to do a blog post again, since we're back at work and into a semi-normal schedule, Backstreet Boys won't leave my head. I even turned to Sam this morning and tried to give him a "Backstreet's Back" rendition and I am pretty sure the look he gave me was along the lines of, "Please don't. Stop now." I bet you've all realised that this is Amanda writing... I mean, Craig would never ever lower his standards to listen to the Backstreet Boys, while I had posters plastered all over my room when I was younger. Actually, they weren't posters so much as pictures ripped from my friends's magazines and newspaper articles as my Mom would not let me spend money on boyband pictures. Actually she did buy me New Kids on the Block PJs once, but it was because they were on sale and she had no idea what she was buying. But... I digress.

I don't even know when our last blog was, and I am very sorry for our absence, but the last three-to-four weeks have been slightly crazy, so we appreciate your patience. We shall start with the business that I have not yet been able to get over yet: Craig left me in Bolivia and went gallivanting! Joking... I'm fine, its really not still keeping me up at night or anything. I am totally OK with the fact that he got to go away on holiday for a week without me... and he went out for nice meals, and went to a gorgeous wedding (Congrats, Douglas and Chantal!!!!), and went for nice meals, and saw his family, and he ate BBQ, and went to Monticello, and ate at this apparently new amazing bagel place, and went golfing (OK, that one didn't keep me up at night). There must have been cake at the wedding. I love cake. I'm fine...really. In all seriousness (this time, I really am being serious), Craig had a great time and we're (both of us) glad that he got the opportunity to be there for Douglas and Chantal's big day. The only thing I regret is that he couldn't bring me back bagels from this new, apparently amazing bagel place. I love bagels, but I doubt they would have gotten through customs. I got two T-shirts though, one being a UVA (University of Virginia) top, to go with my Ohio State top from the Limings (thanks, guys!). I think collecting lots of university clothing defeats the purpose of being loyal to one specific place and therefore wearing their clothing, but as I am not American I think I might be exempt from this. I feel strongly about not going around in UofT clothing or Western clothing though. I went to Mac and I will only wear Mac clothing. I digress...again.

So, Craig went to party it up in the States and as Sam and I were dropping him off at Trinidad airport I kept thinking, "I can do this. It's only three days till my Mom gets here to help. People look after their own children by themselves all the time. It can't be that hard." And the first day went well, no worries. I didn't go to work the next day to be able to stay in and watch Sam and we were fine...but I think at some point that day Sam figured out he hadn't seen Craig in a while and he got so clingy. This kid wouldn't let me go. I also went from doing 50% of the work to doing 100% of the work and, to be honest, there were moments when I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I showed up to Youth Group on Saturday night and I looked and felt like a zombie. I had to apologise to my small group for being unable to have a decent conversation; my Spanish flew out the window and I was only understanding little bits of what was going on and I couldn't remember anything, like their names. It was bad. And then Sunday came and my Mom arrived. Yasssss!!!! I essentially said, "Here... take him. I need a nap." And even though he was clingy with everyone else with Craig gone, he grabbed onto his Grandma with both hands. He loved her more than me most days I think, and I didn't even care, because it meant I got naps. And I love naps...and bagels.

And then...the Brass Tacks team arrived! FT has been back and forth with Brass Tacks for about a year now trying to organise a team to come out and do some construction work for us on unfinished parts of our building. They are an organisation based in the UK that helps missionaries and missions projects with builds and construction, and we are very excited to have them with us. I think it might have been the day Craig left when I received an email from their Director asking if they could move the construction project up from July to...right now. They had to cancel a job in the Middle East and didn't want the workers who had taken time off from their own jobs to lose out of working on a missions project. I looked around slowly (at no one in particular, because I was alone) and said, "OK...I guess so." So, on Friday afternoon I went to the airport (my third time in eight days) to pick up Paul Dodds and Aaron O'Neill who are here working on the completion of FT's second dorm room and trying to sort out our septic system, which is a shambles, apparently (I had just kind of gotten used to the smell after six years, but apparently it is unpleasant to newcomers). They hit the ground running in a way I have never seen, not even interested in resting for a bit. I was willing to take a nap in their place, since they wanted to work, but my afternoon turned out too busy to do that. Shame.

And then that evening... well, I got to be a judge in a talent show. All the AWANA Clubs in Trinidad came together to host a talent show amongst all the kids involved in the various churches in order to raise funds for the annual AWANA Olympics. It was an honour to be asked by my church to be the judge from El Jireh; it would have been more of an honour if they had not asked Craig first (as the musically gifted one in the family) and had to accept me as his replacement because he was going to be out of the country on that date. I am sure his judging would have been better than mine as my judgements consisted of, "That kid was better than those kids... I think." In the category of musical instruments, the first participant played the recorder and I couldn't bring myself to give him a high score. I felt sorry for him having to receive the weight of my own personal baggage, but I was having unpleasant flashbacks to elementary school that I just couldn't get past. It worked out in the end because the kid who won that category played the drums in a rock number and he had a drum solo and everything. I knew if Craig was there he would have been able to tell if the kid was playing in time and all the technical stuff that comes with playing the drums, but I was at least able to figure out that he was better than the other kids, in rhythm or not. One of the choreography numbers was called Magical Princess and six little girls came out dressed as fairy princesses and did a choreographed number to a song about princesses. It was cute at first, but got dull really fast as they kept doing the same thing over and over and some of the princesses didn't know the steps... so they got a mediocre score from me because by the end I was like, "Yawn!" But the judge next to me gave them a 10 and I wanted to yell, "You're being manipulated!!! This is a talent contest, not a cuteness contest!!!" But my shouting would have fallen on deaf ears, so I stayed silent and stewed in the unfairness of it all. It also turned out that I was the only judge who actually was fair in the judgements and didn't automatically give out 10s to the groups and kids from their own churches. Ya, who knew that fairness was optional in a Christian talent competition. Because of my fairness our church was the only church that didn't win anything. The prize for the winners of each category was a whole roasted chicken (when Craig found out he laughed and said, "That is so Trinidad"), and as I drove a whole pile of youth home after the contest I got hit with a lot of, "It's your fault that we didn't get a chicken", "I wanted to eat chicken." Well, la-di-dah...we all want something we can't have. I will not compromise my morals for chicken, whether it comes with french fries or not and I told them just that.

Oh my goodness, this blog post is long... and Craig hasn't even gotten back from the States yet.

So then Craig arrived back from the States the next day and on Sunday morning we had an open air evangelistic service in honor of the church's 11th anniversary where we served cow's head soup to all our neighbours. I went and I chatted with people, but I couldn't bring myself to eat any cow's head soup. There are some sacrifices I have made in the name of ministry, and I will continue to give away my portion of cow's head soup to the children who have none for the sake of the gospel, because I am awesome like that. It was a great event where there were at least 100 people, with at least half of them being from the local community and not regular attendees.

In the afternoon we had Sam's first birthday party!!!! Sam is now one!!!! He spent most of the time attached to his grandma as he was confused as to why so many people were in his house. As was I, as half of the kids who attended were not invited. I kept turning to Mariana saying, "And who's this one?" Kids kept coming up to me and saying that the order of people jumping on the trampoline wasn't going fairly and I kept thinking, "Who are you?" Apparently word got around over cow's head soup, so all the neighbourhood kids turned up... and a good number of youth showed up uninvited as well, as you don't normally invite teenagers to 1st birthday parties, but I acted like it was all cool and they were actually welcome, which they were, because I had had the crazy idea the week earlier to order two massive cakes instead of one and order 150 empanadas instead of 75, so there wasn't even anything to stress about. It was the most awesome first birthday party ever...which Sam will have no recollection of. Sigh.

Sam is up now and I have run out of time to write more... essentially, we left for Santa Cruz in the car on the Tuesday after running around like headless chickens on the Monday trying to get ready for the Tuesday. We then hung out in the hotel, swam, ate a lot (sadly, no bagels) and generally rested. Thanks, Mom, for the holiday! Sam got spoiled rotten by Grandma... and the car was very full on our way back, so much so that we had trouble getting his stroller back in the car after dropping my Mom off at the airport and we had a moment of panic when we didn't know what we were going to do. But elbow grease and a lot of brute force is always the key.

We have been back at work this week trying to catch up with a lot and trying to help the guys in the big construction project. Craig is right now out with them trying to get some more supplies. Unfortunately, a lot of building and construction terms that we don't really know in English are words that we definitely don't know in Spanish, so a lot of our translating at the stores have been, "You know... the thing that goes in the thing", with a lot of hand gestures. But so far, so good.

Prayer

• Pray for Paul and Aaron (from Brass Tacks), for their time here in Trinidad.
• Pray for a family in the church who have recently suffered a terrible bereavement, with a mother and daughter murdered. Pray for wisdom as to how to help this family move forward.

Praise

• For a refreshing few weeks with family, in the USA and here in Bolivia.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 02/04/16

Not every day you come home to this.

A busy few weeks are upon us. On Thursday, I’m due to travel to Virginia for a family wedding; sadly, Amanda and Sam will be unable to accompany me due to his adoption not yet being finalised. Meanwhile, Amanda’s mother is due to arrive next Sunday afternoon to lend a hand with his lordship. I’m due back in Trinidad the following Saturday (following an overnight journey from the USA), and then we’re off to Santa Cruz for a break for a few days the following Tuesday, dropping Amanda’s mother off at the airport before returning to Trinidad on Monday the 25th of April.

Chances of any prayer updates between now and then: slim to none.

So, I’ve done my best to remember all the things that will be going on between now and the month’s end, as well as mentioning the week’s highlight as usual.

Boo!

Praise

• The English class was great this week. The group are really getting used to both the format of the lessons and each other’s company. In many ways, it’s a shame we have to break up for a few weeks after this Tuesday’s lesson. Still, much to be excited about.
• Craig is just back from the monthly Langham early-morning escuelita, where it was his turn to preach to the group. Give thanks for continued enthusiasm there.

Prayer

• Amanda is speaking at the youth group tonight on the small topic of making wise decisions.
• Pray for safety for all of us in our various travels over the next few weeks. Pray for an encouraging time for Craig with family in the US, and for some much needed R&R in Santa Cruz later in the month.
• Sam and Amanda were a little off towards the end of the week with a suspected stomach bug, though you’d hardly guess from his lordship’s general demeanour. They’re gradually getting over it now; pray for continued recovery.
• Craig would also appreciate your prayers for wisdom for himself and the other leaders with regard to some challenging situations we are facing among attendees of the church, including a family whose parents have not been around for a couple of weeks and a youth group member who was caught stealing at the Foundation yesterday.
• The 17th of April (Sunday) is a big date for two reasons. Firstly, in the morning, we’re hoping to have a special event for the church’s anniversary. The hope is to stage our usual service in a neighbouring street, and to include a meal for all attendees post-service. Please pray for wisdom as we plan this event, and for the necessary finances. Pray, too, for all those who attend and who will hear the gospel preached.
• Later on the 17th, God-willing, we’re hoping to host our own little celebration for Sam, who will have turned one year old on the 14th (alas, Craig will still be in the US on the day itself). Birthday parties here tend to be fairly uniform, with much birthday boy/girl-glorification at the centre! So it’s a great opportunity to publicly give thanks for Sam, and above all, give the glory to God alone; pray that this would indeed be the case.
• And speaking of Sam, of course, we value your continued prayers for the adoption process. We are very tentatively looking into going on a short home assignment in Canada and Scotland early next year, so in order to get the ball rolling on visas etc., it would be a help to have the adoption confirmed sooner rather than later. Pray that God’s plan would prevail and that we would gladly submit to it.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 26/03/16

Their first verb. I envy them.

The more I mull it over, the more I warm to Justin Welby's proposal of a fixed date for Easter, not least as the mooted date is in early April, giving us all a little more wiggle room between the two biggest dates on the Christian calendar. It's really snuck up on us this year.

Indeed, even the weather here has strangely resembled March back home, with an unexpected (and unseasonal) sur blowing into town overnight on Thursday. Temperatures have plummeted to a mere 22 celsius. Don't laugh: on a short outing to the plaza yesterday afternoon, there was barely a square-inch of flesh in sight.

Yesterday's day off was a welcome break in a busy week, details of which follow.

Praise

• The English class is progressing well. There is a steady group of around 15 students attending class, and this week was the first in which we were able to have two consecutive lessons (the general strike put paid to that last week; as if Bryan needed any more excuse to despise socialism). For all that the culture here is generally more relaxed, education can be rather po-faced in its delivery, and the students seem to be slowly adjusting to the very relaxed environment I like to foster in the class. Pray for deepening relationships and commitment to the class from the various attendees.
• Speaking of Bryan & Amanda, they finally arrived home on Monday evening. They did very well considering the great disappointment of the general strike on their scheduled departure day, and while it would have been a great burden for them to not see their children as early as they had hoped (something we increasingly appreciate), they certainly didn't show it; we also appreciated the unexpected opportunity to let them see the church in action at the weekend. 
• Give thanks for the discipleship opportunities afforded us. We are currently meeting weekly wth four young people: Amanda with Milly, and Craig with Diego, Daniel and Daniel. All of them are relatively young Christians with leadership responsibilities in the ministries for children and teenagers in the church.
• Give thanks, too, for what appears to be a genuine growth spurt in the church. The last few weeks have seen numbers go up dramatically; we haven't experienced such consistently high attendances on Sunday mornings since arriving here in 2010. That's not only down to the usual increase of children in attendance now that the children's ministry has begun (pretty normal for this time of year), but several adults and couples as well, from a variety of backgrounds. Pray for consolidation and commitment.

Prayer

• Craig is teaching tonight at the youth group; the subject is the Bible as a tool for helping us make correct decisions in life.
• On Monday, we are hoping to submit papers for the adoption proper. The process should last about a month, i.e., we should be done and dusted a couple of weeks after Sam's first birthday.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 19/03/16

BLOG UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

Hello there!  The blog is being hijacked, shanghai-ed, commandeered, "liberated" and in every way buccaneered this week by Bryan and (la otra) Amanda.

Lucky you, we're brilliant!

We're so great that Craig and Amanda have put up with us for the last nine or so years since we met back in Glasgow.  That's no small feat!

And since it had been the better part of a decade since they left the Auld Country, we figured it was just about time to go see what this whole "Bolivia" thing was about.

The view on the way from La Paz to Trinidad was ok, I guess... 

Well, maybe since this is a missionary blog I should tell the truth: Craig and Amanda are nice, and Bolivia is great and all, but there was a small matter of a wee Sam we had to see to.  Yeah.  Like you wouldn't fly across the world to pinch his cute little cheeks.  You've seen him, right?  Irresistible.

But coming here did afford a number of wonderful opportunities to see our dear friends and the important work that they do here in the Beni.  (I'm not sure if that is even appropriate phraseology, but I heard Craig once refer to the region thusly and I thought it sounded rad.)  It was really strange for us to both experience this radically foreign culture for the first time and at the same time see how well Craig and Amanda have adapted to their environment here.  

This is us "fitting in."  Ohioans are duty bound to do this wherever we go, because there were only two of us we had to enlist the Cunninghams' help—dance puppets, DANCE!

It has been an exciting time to be here.  On Monday, we went to court!  Yay, Bryan (future lawyer) loves court!  The occasion was the expiration of the statutory period of appeal for Sam's biological parents to appeal termination of parental rights.  As no such appeal had been made, the judge was able to enter a final judgment of termination for Sam.  Craig and Amanda hope to start the work for formally requesting adoption this week and after papers are submitted the court will have no more than thirty days to act on them.  We pray to the Almighty that this time passes quickly and uneventfully!

We also have been able to see Craig and Amanda engaged in many of the various ministries they perform here.  On Tuesday we went and saw the Foundation where Amanda is very much in her element.  Working at the very nerve center, she oversees the various cogs, gears and whizz-bits with a maestro's aplomb!  On Tuesday night, we saw Craig in action kicking off another series of English classes.  That was a hoot.  To get the "J" sound as in "jacket"—which doesn't exist in Spanish—the class were literally screaming JACK-et JACK-et!!!!!!

"No, not 'JACKET!!!'" Craig explained calmly, just, "jacket."

"In America they would say 'wadder' whereas we say 'waTer.' See the difference?" [Blank stares].

One of Amanda's highlights was attending Bible study on Thursday night where families gathered together not just to read the Bible, but to learn about how to read the Bible.  One of Bryan's highlights was traveling out to Maná, a small village outside Trinidad which is home to many of the families of the men in a nearby prison.  Needless to say, neither of us had seen anything quite like it.  We went to Maná to catch some of the OANSA program—Bible study/memorisation for children. 

Kids in Maná getting their Jesus on!

There were probably sixty or so children there, most of them traveling the dark streets on their own to get there.  It was held in a school courtyard where the electric lights brought in hordes of of insects that would have impressed even Moses which the children warded off by burning cardboard egg crates and whirling around t-shirts like horsetails.  "Let the little children come to me" I could hear deep in my mind as the children sang and recited verses from memory.  Later we would learn that several of the children gave their lives to Christ that night.  God be praised!  We pray that they will be filled with the Spirit and that the love of Christ sustains them in the difficult years they have ahead.

We've also had a "taste" of life in Bolivia.  Where to start on that...  We could tell you about the family of five we saw all crammed onto one moto scooter, the general disregard for traffic laws, common sense or human dignity on the roads.  We could tell you about the wonderful food that seems to be everywhere (google "salteñas" and then wish you had smell-o-vision).  We could tell you about the western women in La Paz with their great, voluminous skirts and funny little top hats hawking dubious drinks in plastic bags on the roadside.  We could tell you about the heat (ugh) and humidity (UGH!).  Or about the cow's head that was left in the middle of the street being devoured by stray dogs.  But none of that would be it.  None of that can capture Bolivia.  I guess you'll just have to come and see for yourself.  

Speaking of cows in the road, MOOOOOve it, already!

You're lucky, you know.  We're not even supposed to be here writing this.  You could be reading Craig if it wasn't for a general strike that was called on Thursday to protest, um... I don't know, it's Bolivia.  We were supposed to fly out to La Paz on Thursday, you see, but these kindly folks blockaded all the roads early in the morning.  We couldn't make it to the airport and even if we had, we would have been the only ones there.  That's when we took this vacay to the bonus round!

And despite the hefty surcharge for rebooking, we're kind of glad it all happened that way.  Every day here with the Cunninghams is such a blessing and we're very happy to get to worship with the church on Sunday.

Prayer

• OANSA program in Maná
• The completion of Sam's adoption process
• Bryan & Amanda make it back to the States on Sunday/Monday

Praise

• Decisions for Christ made this week
• Great time of fellowship and encouragement this week
• Salteñas!

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig Bryan & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 12/03/16

"Sorted."

Many exciting things have taken place since we last posted. New ministries have launched, we’ve passed an important adoption milestone, and Amanda wore Craig’s trousers to work by accident.

Without further ado, then…

Praise

• On Wednesday, we attended the hearing for the termination of rights for Sam’s biological parents. Their family members had had over a month to respond to an edict in a national newspaper, asking them to come forward. As we had been half-expecting, and as was confirmed in the hearing, no-one showed during that time, thereby ruling them out of the process henceforth. So that hurdle has now been overcome and all that remains is for the adoption proper to be confirmed in the next month or two (excuse the vagueness re. a timeline; our hearing was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was cancelled at the last minute in order to give the judge’s office the afternoon off for International Women’s Day!). 
• We’ve had a really exciting past couple of weeks in the church. A week past on Monday, at the family’s request, we held a special evening service in the home of the boy who died so tragically a few weeks ago. They live in a village a few miles outside Trinidad, called Maná. The service was packed – it was standing-room only very early on – and many villagers who have no contact with our church turned up, as Elías, our pastor, delivered a gospel message and we sang hymns and prayed together.
• Meanwhile, the boy’s parents have been coming to church regularly, having previously turned up only for special events their children have been involved in (such as the Christmas service). Last Sunday, during a vibrant Communion service, both of them gave their lives to Christ. We were overjoyed.
• Finally, the launch of the new youth programme last Saturday went really well, with 30 young people in attendance. The meeting starts a little later than before, and lasts an extra half-hour, giving more time for games and small-group discussion. Though last week’s pizza was a one-off, alas.

Prayer

• In a few hours, our first visitors of 2016 will be boarding the first of four flights to Trinidad. We first met Bryan & Amanda Dove, from Ohio, way back in August 2007, and they are a special couple for us, being the first friends we got to know together, rather than one of us introducing them to the other and keeping our fingers crossed that they’d get along (a particular quirk of long-distance relationships). Despite spending most of the past decade on different continents, we’ve remained firm friends, and we can’t wait to see the Doves when they arrive, God-willing, tomorrow afternoon. Pray for their travels to and from Bolivia (they only have five days here), and for an encouraging week all round.
• Somewhat unexpectedly (not least for me), I’m teaching my English course again. The Foundation is needing a little help making ends meet, and after giving it some prayer, I’ve decided to run the course this year. In the past, students were always commenting on how cheap the course was (we were simply covering expenses for photocopying etc) so we’ve decided to increase the cost by, er, 500%! Yet still, people seem to consider it a bargain, and interest has been high, so I’m hoping it will prove an effective fundraiser. If you’ve been reading our blog for a few years, you’ll know that as we progress through the year, we begin reading the Bible together too. To that end, I’d really appreciate your prayers that God would bring together a group of students who are amiable, committed, and willing to learn.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda