Episode 3: The Zombie Apodcalypse

La Paz: Latin Link Retreat

Prayer walk with the team.

Token team photo.

La Paz: Community Church & The Hunt Family

Up a big hill with Mark (you're always up a hill in La Paz).

Sam with Rebecca.

The ever-developing La Paz cable-car system never ceases to enthral us. This
new blue line takes you literally to the centre of town (think Buchanan Street
subway station, but for cable-cars).

Ben on the left, Meghan on the right, Sam too tired to pose.

The following images are taken from a walk up the Muela del Diablo, the
spectacular rock formation you can see on the right-hand side here.
Disclaimer no.1: this is not my photo.

Disclaimer no.2: we drove most of the way in a mighty Lada.

Sam's ubiquitous goldfish crackers. They taste even better
at altitude.

La Paz Community Church.

One of LPCC's attendees is our old friend Dave McColl, now working as
the Samaritan's Purse chief in Bolivia. Mark called this a Scottish sandwich,
so I suppose that makes him a lorne sausage.

The Hunts' dog, Chumita, more than made up for Napoleon's absence in Sam's eyes.

The Band

The poster.

All set!

Some footage from our sound-check:

And here's our playlist. All covers, of course! The U2 and Ben E. King numbers were 'mashed-up'. Craig sang lead on Change The World, These Days and I'm On My Way, which doubled both as our encore and as an excuse to change into a 1978 Scotland shirt.

There are plenty more photos and videos from the concert. Send us an email if you'd like to see more.

Prayer Points

• Give thanks for a great time in La Paz, both at the Latin Link retreat and with friends old and new.
• Give thanks for a terrific gig on Tuesday and the opportunity to bless the Novo rehabilitation programme in this way.
• Pray for Sam at school; his behaviour has taken a bit of a nosedive recently.
• Pray for Bolivia as the country goes to the polls for the presidential elections on the 20th.
• Pray for Joe Stoneham, a new Latin Link worker who will be staying with us for a few days next week.
• Pray for the first meeting of Craig's Langham escuelita, on the 23rd.
• Pray for the launch of the church's new midweek meeting, next Thursday (17th).
• Pray for our time with our house-guest this week, Yoselín.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam

Episode 2: Igor to Please

Amanda and her fellow teachers at the Sunday School launch party.

Sam giving his presentation at school.

Here's the poster for Craig's gig. It's official!

Igor in teaching mode at the Langham Level 1 workshop.

Here is Freddy, Igor's wingman for the four days, with an escuelita.

The obligatory end-of-event group photo.

Prayer Points

• Give thanks for Sam's improved behaviour on Sundays!
• Give thanks for a great Langham Level 1 workshop, and pray against eventitis -- i.e., for perseverance for all of the new participants.
• Pray for us as we head to the Latin Link team retreat in La Paz next week: Pray that we will be reinvigorated physically and spiritually. Pray for Sam's health at altitude. Pray that it will be a special time for us as a team.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Are you listening?

I was going to start this post with an apology for not having posted very much recently. Then I realised I’d be sounding like the proverbial broken record.

When first we came out to Bolivia nearly a decade ago, we were on the lookout for an easy way to keep our friends and supporters appraised as to our news. And so, we surfed the blogging wave, very much in vogue at that time. It was fresh. It was instant. And we had the self-discipline to ensure that it was regular.

That was certainly the case for the first five years or so. However, parenthood, as it is in the habit of doing, altered things somewhat. Looking at the blog archive (on the right-hand side here), I’m somewhat amazed to note that we managed 44 posts with a baby in tow in 2016: not far off a post per week. But that was to plummet to 18 in 2017, a mere ten last year (we had our reasons, mind) and an as-it-stands total for 2019 of…six!

Now given our experiences in recent years, we probably have a healthier outlook on time-management and supporter accountability; we know that supporters can cope if they don’t hear from us every week, and to be honest, if you look back at some of those earlier posts, they barely get beyond a functional list of accomplishments for the week. We can certainly live without that, and doubtless so can you.

Nevertheless, even given the new and more balanced status quo, our friends and supporters ought to be able to hear more from us than just the occasional email news update. And wasn’t this whole blogging thing supposed to be fun too?

Well, we think we might have just come upon a solution. And we’re not too proud to admit that it’s a total rip-off!

Something I (Craig) enjoy doing in my spare time, particularly in the car or when exercising, is listening to podcasts. For all my interest in these, it had never crossed my mind to start one myself; I assumed you needed a significant investment in gear, for one thing, and what on earth did I have to say anyway?

That was till a couple of months ago, when some missionary friends of ours launched their own podcast, primarily as a method to update their friends and supporters – just as we had set out to do with the blog all those years ago. They did so with the most basic of equipment and with minimal preparation and recording time – unlike those blog-posts, which were sometimes taking us up to half a day to produce.

Moreover, it was conversational in tone, as close to being ‘in the room’ with them as it was possible to be; hearing their voices rather than seeing their written words made a huge difference. And, yes, on occasion, it was fun too!

And so, for better or worse, we have decided to go down a similar path. We hope to upload new episodes about once every couple of weeks at least, at an appropriate length to give you a decent update without overstaying our welcome. At the same time, we’d like to use the new format to maintain something we always wished to achieve with the blog: namely, give people something of a backstage pass to the world of missions and its assorted quirks. 

We hope to keep the format of each episode fairly simple. We will open with a little bit of our personal and ministry news, and we will close with some relevant prayer points. 

In between these bookends, we hope in the longer-term to bring something different to the table each week; for example, something of our personal testimony, or an interview with some fellow worker, or a conversation about a particular aspect of missionary life (e.g., what is Christmas like when you’re so far from home all the time?). The possibilities seem endless, and we’d be particularly keen to receive any suggestions or questions for possible conversation topics.

So is this the end of the blog then? No way! We aim to use the blog to complement the content generated by the podcast, and vice-versa. We would still hope to post about once a month to that end.

Furthermore, we will upload each new podcast episode to this very website. And on that note, if you still want to get our news but have no interest in listening to yet another podcast, we will post a written bullet-pointed summary of our prayer points with each episode uploaded here.

And so, without further ado, please give the ‘Los Cunningham’ podcast a listen whether here or through your usual podcast provider. And if you can’t quite manage that right now, please keep in mind the points listed below for prayer in the coming days and weeks.

Here goes nothing! 

Prayer Points

• Give thanks for our three weeks in Canada. It was a little crazy, but we were encouraged to see friends and family, to visit churches, and that we didn't collapse in the process!
• Give thanks for how well Sam is doing at his new school, which is an English-language Christian school.
• Please pray for Sam (and by extension, for the two of us) on Sunday mornings at church, which he is finding challenging just now.
• Pray for the preparations for the Langham Preaching Level 1 workshop in Santa Cruz, which is taking place from the 21st till the 24th of September. Pray for Craig as he leads this effort.
• Pray for us as a family as we adjust to a slightly busier pace of life.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Cunningham

All You Need Is Love?

My (Amanda's) opinions on adoption started when I was really young, maybe ten or twelve. I had read a series of books by a Canadian author named Kit Pearson about children who were sent from Britain to Canada during the Second World War and were fostered with Canadian families for their safety. During the war some of these children's families died and their Canadian foster families decided to adopt them and they never went back to Britain. This was my first exposure to the concept of adoption and I remembered being so moved by the love these Canadian families gave to these orphaned children. I remember going to my Dad and asking him if he would ever consider adoption and receiving not quite the positive response I was expecting. I also remember thinking, "Well, you're clearly wrong," and deciding that adoption was the most Christian thing we could ever do. 

I remember when I started dating Craig, being on a bus in Northern Ireland on our way to Dublin to visit my family there. I brought up adoption and asked if he had ever thought about it. He was completely spooked by my question and stumbled some answer that I can't remember, but was probably thinking in his head that he had one of those overly-clingy girlfriends who was already planning the wedding and their 2.5 kids. He probably thought he should ditch me then and there. Thankfully, he didn't. 

I remember struggling with infertility and feeling like a failure as a woman. I was unable to do the one thing that biologically women are designed to do and just wallowing in these feelings of uselessness. I remember mentally screaming at God, "What is my purpose if I can't have kids???" God was so gracious during that period as he very gently brought me to the realisation that my self-worth comes from my identity in Him not in my ability to have children (if you read my blog post on my experience with burnout, you will have noticed that I forgot this lesson of identity in Christ and God needed to re-teach it to me once again). He also reaffirmed to me that I would one day be a mother and my thoughts then moved to adoption once again. I had no problems with the concept of adopting, mainly because of that book series I read in childhood, and the thought of loving something that was not mine biologically didn't phase me one bit. I felt I had so much love to give and someone somewhere needed it. Craig had a different path to embracing adoption from that bus in Northern Ireland to becoming an adoptive father, and that's his story to share, but he now feels very passionate about the role of the church in facilitating and supporting adoption. We are adopted by God, so why should we not adopt others? 

I remember doing some research into adoption ethics and being confronted, for the first time, with the fact that a child might be better with their birth family living in poverty in the middle of the jungle, than with me, who has so much love to give and more resources to share. I remember feeling that it was unfair to all the infertile mothers who could do such a better job than some other ones and provide such better opportunities to children to not give them the chance. I remember having to work through a lot internally to accept that family restoration is best and adoption should be second best; recognising that my previous attitude was driven by my own hurt and suffering and not what was actually best for anybody. 

I remember meeting a married, Christian man who was unable to have children as well. We had just adopted Sam, and he was very much still in the baby phase and I lived constantly between the emotional highs and lows of new motherhood, but was absolutely over-the-moon with my new son. This man explained how adoption in the States tended to lean towards accepting children with special needs, whether that be physical, emotional or mental, and that he and his wife decided that they did not want to do that. I remember holding my son and thinking, "Who wouldn't chose this?" And yes, I wrongfully, internally, judged him. I thought, "Aren't we called to take care of the orphans among us if we can?" I mean, even if one can have children biologically, you can't guarantee that they are born healthy or 'normal'. That's just life. 

I now look back at all these memories on our adoption journey and feel really conflicted. I would absolutely, 100% do it again. I would make the same choices and Sam would be exactly where he is; with us. However, I also look back and think about how naive I was. I had this idea of what adoption was and it's not that my idea or conception of adoption was wrong, it's that adoption is a lot more complex than I thought. And whenever an issue becomes complex, having dogmatic statements or beliefs about it doesn't really work any more. I naively thought that enough love would fix any problems. Well, Craig and I are watching a video series from Texas Christian University's Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development, which explicitly states that for children from hard places (adopted, fostered, institutionalised, etc.) love is most definitely not enough. I learnt about the psychological concept of the 'good enough' parent; no one is perfect but parents just have to be 'good enough' to raise children. I naively thought that this concept could apply to me. Well, this video series again says that when dealing with adopted, fostered, etc, children you can't just be 'good enough', you have to be better than 'good enough'... way to pile on the pressure. 

Children like Sam, simply put, live with trauma. For whatever reason, they didn't receive the necessary affection and security they needed in their early life to develop normally. They learnt how to survive on their own and their brain is literally wired differently because of this. They have control issues, they have self-regulating issues, they have emotional mood swings, they have trouble understanding cause and effect, and they do not respond to traditional parenting because they already live in fear. They constantly fear that the affection they are now receiving might not be there one day. Some of them develop sensory input issues, a lot express their fear through anger and aggression and would rather be angry than calm, because being calm means a loss of control of the situation or letting their guard down. This is my child and I am so thankful that we now know why.

The video series calls these children "children from hard places", and I love how the definition is so inclusive and most definitely includes Sam. Watching the video series makes me really emotional because I see other kids acting out and doing the exact same things that Sam does and I don't feel so alone, and I know he is also not alone. 

We are right now discovering all this and seeking to make the necessary changes in our parenting style. It is an extremely sanctifying process, because you now don't have room to deal with your own baggage/tiredness/stress in a way that affects your child at all. The amount of patience needed is extreme and we are realising that we have to pray AT ALL TIMES; every time he has a meltdown, gets frustrated and we need to deal with it in our 'new' way, we have to pray, because the 'new' way does not come naturally and it definitely was not how I was parented, so I have no model to relate to. 

It also makes me miss my family a lot. We have made friends here who have been really supportive, and even introduced us to the resources we are using now. But I am struggling with feelings of guilt as I deprive my child of further unconditional love and support by living so far away from our family. I know that if Sam were playing with his cousin and had an outburst, that he and I would be safe from stares and judgement in the person of my sister. That she loves him regardless of his struggles and how that manifests in his life. I am struggling to let go of the desire to justify my son to everyone and say, "This is why he's like this!" I mean, this whole blog post could be construed as me continuing to justify my son to the world (though I think it's more than that). I want to get to the point where I am free from the fear of the people looking on and wondering, "Why?" as they observe him. Maybe I'll get there one day. Because I do also know that my kid is awesome! He has such a big heart. Yesterday, I was lying in bed having a rest and he brought his blankets from his room so I could be more comfortable. He constantly lists all the things that he loves and is always wanting to help. 

Overall, my opinion on adoption is generally the same, though a lot more complex as well. I am no longer naive in this process, but down in the trenches and I am happy to be there. I can say I still believe and am passionate about adoption, I believe in family restoration first and adoption second, and I believe in the importance of the role of the church in cultivating an atmosphere where adoption is encouraging and facilitated. However, I would now say that adoption is not for everyone and you should have a good long look at your life and character before considering it, and that everyone has the right to make that decision. And I most definitely agree with my Dad when he said all those years ago that he wouldn't adopt; probably a good call there. But thank you for raising me to be someone who could.

Here is Sam in traditional cochabambino dress at a recent
school event.

Prayer Points

• Last month we mentioned the impending visit of Joel Likins, from Ohio. We had a great time with Joel, getting to know him a lot better, and taking him to one of our favourite places in this area: Refugio Los Volcanes. He was a happy man.
• We were also visited by a former colleague of Craig's from Scotland, Steve Begarnie. Steve taught Biology at West Calder High School, Craig's last teaching stint before we came to Bolivia. He was here to visit a local school as well as tour this great country.
• Last month, Amanda also wrote in detail about the very sad recent passing of Edwin Fernández. Langham HQ were determined that the initial plans in Santa Cruz be realised, and we were blessed last weekend by the visit of Latin American director Igor Améstegui and national worker Freddy Huanca. They led a training course for future escuelita leaders here in Santa Cruz. From nothing, there are now up to 12 new preaching groups in the pipeline! There will be a 'Level 1' three-day workshop for all of the new groups in mid-September. Pray for the preparations for that event, in which Craig will be involved, and particularly for prayerful selection of new participants.
• We continue to see great blessing in the church. At the end of May we held a big churrasco (essentially an industrial-strength Bolivian barbecue) and it was great to see most of the church stay around for it after the service. In terms of preaching, Craig has recently begun a series in the Ten Commandments, which has been well received so far. And Amanda is part of a team looking to relaunch the children's ministry. Lots of exciting things to give thanks for.
• Pray for guidance from the Lord as we weigh up Sam's future educational options. He loves the nursery he attends now, which provides him with a full-scale pre-kindergarten programme, and we are delighted with the teaching and care he gets there. However, we have some big decisions to make as to his longer-term future.
• Finally, we are just a month away now from the arrival of a team from Mount Albert Bible Chapel in Ontario, who will be accompanying us as we travel back to...Trinidad! This was a longstanding engagement with a church we know well, planned some time before Craig got the nod for the Trinity pastorate. The church have very kindly allowed us to honour this commitment. Please pray for the visit of this team, who will be involved in children's ministry and other tasks around Fundación Totaí and the church.

Finally, some illustrative pictures:

The view from the top of an amazing climb with Joel Likins, at Refugio.

Saying cheerio to Steve Begarnie at the airport. 

Igor in action at the Santa Cruz escuelita coordinators' workshop.

Craig with Igor. The toppermost of top blokes.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

The Absence of Something Beautiful

On the third Sunday of every month, my (Amanda's) youth group at my home church in Canada, would visit two seniors' homes between the morning and evening services and sing hymns for the residents. When I was eleven years-old I remember being so excited about turning twelve because it meant that I would be in youth group and get to go to the seniors' homes too. My excitement was not borne out of a calling to the geriatric community, nor do I feel I have a musical gifting. The excitement was that the youth got to stay in the church building between services, as there was not a lot of time to go home after singing and then come back for evening service. In reality the singing at the seniors' homes was just something you had to do to be able to hang out with your friends afterwards. I am sure some of the youth might have had stronger feelings towards the singing than I did, but the truth was that I was there for the social aspect, not the ministry one. 

Despite my shallower motivations, I have fond memories of those Sunday visits. I can still see some of the residents' faces and how much the visit meant to some of them. And the truth is that I learned some very important life lessons over the years visiting the same two seniors' homes. One important lesson was about pushing myself outside my comfort zone; you see, after the singing we were encouraged to walk around and shake hands with the seniors and try and chat. When I started I was twelve and none of the residents were my own grandparents. I definitely felt awkward trying to talk to strangers; I mean, what does one say to old people? But over time I was able to see what the effort meant to some of the residents, and I learned that, while my comfort zone might be comfortable, it wasn't helping anyone but me. I learned that we are supposed to live outside our comfort zones, which is a lesson that has stood me in good stead on the mission field. 

However, I would like to focus on the second lesson I took away from these monthly field trips: true beauty. We visited two seniors' homes; one was a private Christian seniors' home and one was a state-run seniors' home. Firstly, I am not saying the Christian nursing home was full of Christians and the secular one full of atheists, because that's not statistically probable. But I will say that the Christian home had a higher percentage of people who held to the Christian faith as residents.  When I started as a twelve-year-old, I probably wasn't able to put my finger on why one home was easier to visit than the other, or why one home had a brighter atmosphere. The two homes were probably filled with residents fighting the same chronic conditions, who grew up in the same city, if not the same neighbourhoods, with very similar cultural experiences, and while a little bit of the difference could be attributed to private vs. public healthcare, the difference wasn't really on the walls or in the medical equipment: it was in the people. I spent years observing the difference and not being able to put my finger on it, until one day I had a conversation with my one of my youth leaders afterwards. I can't repeat the enlightening conversation verbatim, because I don't remember it. I only remember the lesson, but maybe it went something like this: 

Youth Leader: Did you have a nice conversation with 'little old lady x'?

Me: Yeah, I did. She's really nice and I like talking to her.

Youth Leader: She's not nice, she's beautiful. 

Me (really looking at the elderly lady): Yeah, you're right. She is beautiful. 

Youth Leader: It's because you can see Jesus in her. When I'm her age, I want to be beautiful like her too. 

Me: [mind blown!]

What teenage girl doesn't struggle with their own appearance and the concept of beauty? What teenage girl is not exposed to society telling them to be thinner, have a smaller nose, larger breasts, wear make-up, etc? Until that moment, beauty was physical for me, and then suddenly it wasn't. Or, better said, until that moment physical beauty was dependent on something we did to our physical bodies, but then I realised that true beauty (all of it... physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) was dependent on how much of Christ people could see shining out. It was like an equation in my mind; as Christ grew and I diminished, I would be more beautiful. And, as we know, this is the act of sanctification in our lives. That is why a seniors' home is a great place to go to see true beauty; there are people there who have spent more years than I can even fathom letting Christ grow and becoming more and more beautiful! 

The reason I have written all of this is because of Edwin. If you are supporters of ours, or on our email list, you will have received an email from Craig this week about the passing of Edwin Fernandez, and this post is about him, because he was truly beautiful. I can't think about him without thinking about those seniors' homes and learning the meaning of beauty. And I can't stop crying every time I think about him, because someone who was truly beautiful is just not here any more, and it feels like something is missing.

The truth is, I kind of feel like I don't have the right to have such strong feelings about Edwin because I didn't even know him that well. Edwin was the Bolivian national coordinator for the Langham Preaching programme. He traveled all over Bolivia running the training sessions for the 'escuelitas' and I first met him in 2015 when Craig helped organise the 'escuelita' in Trinidad. I wasn't involved in Langham, I never went to one of the weekend training sessions and I never worked with him. But most times he passed through Trinidad he stayed in our house for a night and I had the privilege of hosting him. He first came before we adopted Sam, and every time he came back after Sam's adoption  he got to see how big he had grown.

He was also the first person to challenge me about my struggles. He saw the problem before I recognised there was one. Near the beginning he would ask Craig if I was OK and if everything was alright. He would comment to Craig that I didn't seem like myself and ask if anything was wrong, and once I admitted I had a problem, Craig would share with him what we were struggling with. And one month ago, I was sitting next to him in a restaurant in Santa Cruz and he told me that I seemed so much better, with more life in me and more joy. He was so happy for me and in a way, even before he passed on, I felt he had walked with us through our burnout experience. He was a truly beautiful person. With very limited contact, he impacted my life in an indescribable way, so much so that I am really struggling to process his death. 

I bet we could all close our eyes right now and picture that person or those people who are truly beautiful in our lives, because we see Christ shining out of them so clearly that the beauty is blinding. Praise God for these people in our lives, and thank God that we get to witness real beauty. 

Prayer Points

• We are expecting a visit next week from Joel Likins from Lexington Church of Christ in Ohio. We are looking forward to spending time with him and showing him around Santa Cruz. Please pray that God would bless our time together.
• Last week we were in La Paz for our Latin Link Bolivia Conference for five days. We had a great time, but please pray that we settle back into our life and routine quickly, especially for Sam. 
• We lost Small Tiggy. This was Sam's special stuffed animal since he came to live with us. We think Tiggy got left on the plane on the way to La Paz. While Sam is consciously dealing with his loss well, we think he has lost an avenue of comfort and this is affecting his behaviour. Please pray for him in this.
• For our time in the Latin Link Bolivia Conference. We feel blessed to have such great support in-country and enjoyed this time with our 'family' (pictured, above).
• Sam had his English assessment for the English Christian school that we would like him to attend; he cooperated and there was no behavioural meltdown. Praise God. 
• For the friendships we are developing and enjoying in Santa Cruz. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam

Where did I go?

Craig has promised something of a series on life in Santa Cruz and all the differences we are encountering. However, he then asked me to write the blog this week and I (Amanda) thought, "Ya, I don't really want to do that...", so let's do something else. Actually, I have been meaning to sit down and write this blog post for some time; I've been actively thinking about it for about two months now, so it is high time I put on my big girl pants and try and explain where I've been. And I mean that in every way possible: physically, mentally and emotionally.

The keen observers among you will have noticed that I have not written a blog in a very, very, very long time, like maybe 18 months, and that is because I have been 'burnt out' or 'compassion fatigued', or as my therapist in Scotland liked to call it 'whatever you want to call it'. For those of you who are supporters of ours, you will know that in January, 2018 I was diagnosed with burnout and we went home as a family to Scotland for six months on medical leave. I am sure Craig wrote some blogs about it or at least he explained the practicalities of why were going home and how we wouldn't be posting for six months, but I didn't feel I was in a place where I could sit down and explain to you what I was feeling or experiencing. And the truth is I am still not entirely sure what I am going to say. We will have to see how this post unfolds as it goes, because the last 18 months have been too intense and immense to communicate accurately.

Firstly, I really struggled with accepting that I had a problem. I like to think of myself as a very open person. I will share pretty much anything about my life with others. You want to hear about our infertility experience, adoption experience, my depression-and-anxiety-during-university experience, growing up in suburban Ontario experience? Sure, no problem. But for some reason, despite knowing and believing what I do about mental health, I couldn't bring myself to ask for help. I couldn't bring myself to admit to myself that there was a problem. I believed that I could just push through the increased fatigue, lack of patience with others, irritation with everything, poor work quality, etc. And then one day I just couldn't any more, and I got into bed and I barely left it for six weeks. I stuck the label 'depression' on the situation because it was the only thing it could be, and I just hid. And I didn't want anybody to know. Craig pushed hard to get professional help and after a while I gave in and we had a interview over Skype with psychologists with the Missionary Health Institute in Toronto and at the end I was diagnosed with burnout/compassion fatigue, which caused me to go into a spiral of denial. This can't be! Not me! Because in my mind burnout was the thing that failed missionaries got. I was not, and never was going to be, a failure! They advised us to leave the field for a minimum of six months; Craig's reaction was, "OK, let's get flights booked," and my reaction was, "No way. You can't make me go." Inside I was thinking, "There is no way I am letting the entire world know I've failed like this." Obviously, I lost and we went home, and thus started the process of 'getting better'.

I don't even know what to say now, as a play-by-play of our six months in Scotland would be thoroughly boring and depressing. 'I stayed in bed all day and I cried a lot' would sum those six months up well. I understand that burnout is probably experienced differently by different people and the symptoms people have vary in both type and severity. I think the best way to describe burnout for me is a complete loss of self. I went from being a very 'A' type person to being someone else entirely; someone who has trouble getting out of bed, or looking after their own child. And, for me, this came with a lot of self-recrimination. I actually shouted at Craig lots of times, "I hate myself!" And 18 months later, sometimes I still do.

My main problem was that I was trained to see value only in tangible achievement, so when I was achieving nothing, I saw myself as having no value. I also realised that this mentality had infiltrated my spiritual life, which caused me to be unable to understand and accept God's unconditional love. I was working for everything: God's love, people's love, self respect, unrealistic, imagined expectations, and I worked myself so hard, I broke myself... permanently.

You might think that saying 'permanent' is being drastic, but it's true. Something I had to learn very quickly, with the help of my wonderful therapist, is that there is no going back. I was not on a six month journey of 'getting better', where I would reach this imagined milestone where I could suddenly do everything I could do before. There was no 'getting better'; there was learning to accept me the way I was. Craig and I started calling it our 'new normal'; learning to live in the 'new normal'. And it was hard, because I did not like the new normal at all. I didn't like my new limitations that caused me to be resting in bed a lot. I could make dinner, but only if I spent the afternoon in bed resting in anticipation of the future travails of cooking in the kitchen. I could go to church on Sunday, but I would be bed bound on Monday. And under no circumstances was I in a position to watch my own child by myself for extended periods of time. You can only guess how that made me feel as a mother.

I now know that I am never going to see the old me again. That might sound like an exaggeration, but it's not. My energy levels are continuing to increase, slowly but surely, and I am doing way more now then I was doing 18 months ago, or six months ago, and being in Santa Cruz, where I have access to things that help me recharge, has been such a blessing, but I am never going to be Amanda pre-burnout again. Why? 1) I don't think my energy levels will ever get back there; they are getting better, but I don't think they will peak that high again. 2) The experience was so traumatising that I think I have an innate fear-response to pushing myself that hard again, which some might called learned wisdom. I can't even call myself 'Amanda post-burnout' as I am still navigating those waters. Sometimes I have glimpses of the Amanda I used to be, but those glimpses cost me in recovery time in bed and my life is this constant balance of being able to do and not being able to do.

And I am working on the self-loathing. My new internal mantra is 'Be kind to myself." And I have people in my life who are trying to keep me accountable with that. I would say the self loathing is down to periodic episodes of self dislike, because I know now my value does not come from what I do, but who I am in Christ. However, sometimes there is a voice in my ear whispering about how pathetic it is that I can't do something and I have to remember, "Be kind to myself, be kind to myself, be kind to myself," over and over.  Most of the time I am happy to just be able to be doing what I am doing now, remembering last year when I couldn't even do that, and praising God that He has brought us so far in the last year. But the struggle is real.

And the truth is, I know that Amanda post-burnout, whenever she arrives, is going to be a better version of me. And while, sometimes, I find this hard to believe, I know the truth is that I am and will be a wiser person because of this experience. I have learnt about the wisdom and importance of self-care. I have learnt that real love is sacrifice, but we cannot sacrifice for others if we cannot get out of bed. Investing in myself is not selfish, it is a way that I can invest in others for the long term. And so many missionaries need to hear this message, because the weight of the expectations we are putting on ourselves is intense. Being told by others and being encouraged to self-care has to be a fundamental component of any type of ministry/service; this includes missionaries, but any type of service requires self-care, such as pastoring a church, volunteering, teaching, parenthood, etc. The truth is I am quite passionate about the subject now, I always talk about it to people. I want to know if others are taking care of themselves, practicing self-care, because I want to prevent everyone and their brother from experiencing what I went through/am going through. Any health care provider will tell you that good health care focuses on prevention, not just curing illnesses and healing injuries. That is way vaccines and yearly check ups are so important. The same principle applies in ministry; let us know and practice member-care to those who serve in ministry in a preventative way, not just managing one crisis after the other.

And for those of you who are panicking now about how bad of a state I am in, and what are we doing on the field... you can relax. I could go on about all the things that I am doing once again, but I feel that would go against my trying not to derive value from my achievements. You just have to believe that when I say I am fine, I really am... not like 18 months ago, when I said I was fine and I was lying through my teeth. 😊

Here's some pictures of Sam to make everyone feel better after the drama:

Prayer:

• Craig is preparing for his first Easter Service with Trinity International Church. Please pray for him as he prepares for both the Good Friday service and the Easter Sunday service. 
• We have an interview in two days (this Monday) with Santa Cruz Christian Learning Centre for  Sam's hopeful admission in September. Pray that he feels open enough to communicate during this interview as they need to know he can speak English, but sometimes he has performance anxiety. 
• Amanda has to travel to Trinidad for Foundation Totai's General Assembly this week and then come straight back for Sam's birthday party. Pray for safety in travel and for energy for all these things happening so close together. 

Praise:

• Sam had academic testing this week in his Bolivian pre-K class and we think he did well. At least he got a good report for the language portion as he definitely knows his Spanish vowels. As to what they tested for during the social sciences section I have no idea, but he got through the whole week. 
• We have our car back after three weeks in the garage. Praise God for the provision of a loaner vehicle during this time. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Circular Motions

New blog-post, same old excuses. In the busyness of this initial spell here in Santa Cruz, we aren't quite managing to reach that one-post-a-week target. More broken promises. We really should go into politics.

Be assured it's not the worst busyness. If we don't have as much time for writing, we're at least lining our stomachs, as the oh-so-generous hospitality afforded us by church members and others here shows no sign of abating. We really could not have felt more welcomed. Just wait till they find out what we're really like!

But we wouldn't want you to go thinking that we're too good for you, our old friends. And so, without any further ado, here is the first of what we hope will be a fairly frequent series of blog posts about adjusting to Santa Cruz life, with some prayer points to close. We will begin in an area where the differences between the two cities could not be starker: driving.

Driving was just no fun in Trinidad. The roads were abysmal, so every journey took our poor car one step closer to the next inconvenient visit to our mechanic - at least once every couple of months. Both access to easy credit and the city's population had grown so quickly in the last decade or so, but the infrastructure had not come close to catching up. So the town's already narrow and liberally-potholed arteries were becoming increasingly clogged up with motocicletas. 

All of which meant we rather looked forward to our occasional journeys both to and in Santa Cruz over the years. For a decent part of the road between the two cities, you could really gie it laldy (Scots, verb: give a hunner percent effort), not passing another vehicle for miles. You could finally enjoy music on the road the way its makers intended (the epic Hamilton became something of a favourite). And when you got to Santa Cruz itself, you could drive on relatively developed road networks, several lanes wide in places. The longer cross-town journeys were fun because they were so novel.

Well, I (Craig) can report that the day-to-day reality is a little more gruelling! In Trinidad, we lived on the outskirts of the city, and yet it never took us much more than 15 minutes to get anywhere else in the city. Here, true to our personalities, we also live on the edge, on the southwest of the city, where both Sam's school and my workplace are located, and these alone from our house are a 15-minute journey. Getting into the centre, meanwhile - or, say, the north or east of the city - will take at least 30 minutes. 

Being a more urban environment, things are of course more spread out in their own districts. But even, say, our 'local' supermarket is still a 20-minute drive. The reality of this hit home in our first week or two, when we had impromptu visitors from the church for lunch, and I decided to pop out and get a tub of ice-cream, a ten-to-fifteen-minute inconvenience in Trinidad. It took the best part of an hour to pick up that single solitary tub. Not worth it!

The 'bicycle wheel' from above. We live to the south-west of the city.

Now, Santa Cruz is a city of around 2 million people; quite a step up from Trinidad's 130,000. And the size of the city obviously reflects this. Yet, it's surprisingly straightforward to make your way around…quite literally, in fact! Because the city is built around a ring system, with up to eight ring-roads depending on where you are. If you think of a bicycle wheel, the main thoroughfares are like spokes. I like that, if you are in the centre, you can get to the 'spoke' you want quickly and make your way out from there easily, if not always speedily.

Long-time readers may remember that Amanda spent an extended period here in Santa Cruz in 2012 when we had infertility treatment. During that time I remained in Trinidad for work purposes, but came through to the city at various points to visit. Amanda was on strict bed-rest, of course, but I needed my exercise. So I spent many hours simply walking. And that helped me get to grips with the city's layout, which has been most helpful as we have settled in.

So while navigation here is something of an art, with a little bit of practice it can be learned fairly quickly. Driving norms also require a little getting used to. The junctions for the spokes and thoroughfares mostly take the form of roundabouts. So far, so British. However, there the similarities end - and not just because they drive on the wrong side of the road. Insofar as the rules are observed, it is those in the roundabout who are expected to give way to those approaching it. But as you probably had already worked out, this being Bolivia, the application is somewhat elastic, and essentially the same 'road safety' rule applies here as anywhere else: drive to the same maniacal extent as everyone else, and you'll probably be OK.

We recently enjoyed an overnight stay at the spectacular Refugio Los Volcanes, 
just 90 minutes' drive from our home.

Prayer Points

• Amanda and I are both still having some niggling health issues, particularly of the gastric variety! Probably a byproduct of moving to another city, but a real pain (quite literally) nonetheless when they arise. We are hoping to see a doctor soon. Pray for some answers.
• Continue to pray for the sale of our house in Trinidad. We are thankful that with the help of the tenant, we have been able to address some of the security issues there (see our last prayer points).
• In addition to my pastoral work, I am hoping to do a little work with Langham Preaching again here in Santa Cruz, which remains a real untapped market for what has been a very successful ministry in most of Bolivia. There will be an information meeting this morning to gauge interest, chaired by Langham staff from Cochabamba. Please pray for this.
• Amanda has been keeping busy with her new short-term coordinator role with the Latin Link Bolivia team. We had a new volunteer -- Regina, from Germany -- at the house to stay with us in the last week as Amanda oversaw here orientation. Give thanks for the opportunity for Amanda to serve again, and pray for wisdom.
• Sam continues to excel at school, but we are in the process of applying for a place for him at an English-language Christian school with which our church has an affiliation. He will likely be called for an aural exam at some point next month. Pray that God would be in this. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam

The Moving Story (Part II)

Welcome to Santa Cruz. We also do sunsets.

Now where was I?

We woke up bright and early the next morning in a dormitory in the Foundation. In the nine years that we had spent in Trinidad, in various accommodations, incredibly this was the first night we had spent on the FT premises. For me, sleep never really being my strong suit, and with a long day's journey ahead, it was a typically fitful night. Not that I had much to be worried about in terms of the logistics of the move.

Right?

Not wishing to waste time, we and the minimal possessions we had on our person were packed up and ready to go by 7am, saying cheerio to the few people who could be bothered to get up at that time. And then off we went.

Now, before bidding the removal guys farewell the night before, the boss had double-checked the plan for the next day. We had originally arranged to meet them around the time we hoped to arrive in Santa Cruz, in the late afternoon or early evening. "Oh no!" he told me, as if he'd heard this plan for the first time, "I have to be in Sucre by tomorrow night! Noon at the latest." There was no chance of us getting to Santa Cruz by then. "Very well," I said, "There are plenty of people in the church willing to help us out, and so we'll ask one of them to meet you there, and leave their number with you." And helpfully enough, our new friend Jackie was happy to do just that.

"Oh, and by the way," he had said to me, "You know we weren't anticipating your house having stairs, or that wardrobe being so big." (The words of a man who couldn't be bothered getting the ropes out of the truck for said item.) "I'll be expecting you to pay me a bit more than what we agreed on when we get to Santa Cruz." I kept my mouth shut.

Everything, then, was in place for a smooth move. And the drive was going well. The road was as atrocious as ever, but the car was behaving itself, and our early departure meant we hit our usual lunch stop in good time. It was around now that I thought it would be best to give the removal company a quick call to check that they too were on schedule. True to form, there was no answer, but I reckoned a couple of hours' leeway could reasonably be expected.

Lunch. Not the best road, but some nice scenery along the way.

But as we set off for the second leg, Jackie got in touch to say that she too had heard nothing from the movers. And she would repeat this message every 30 minutes or so. As the bright lights of Santa Cruz loomed closer, we increasingly resigned ourselves to a very late night in our new home. But at least we'd have our stuff. That was the main thing.

However, soon even that was looking like a vain hope. By the time we reached the city limits, it was the same old story. All the company's advertised numbers were again going straight to voicemail. And because it was a local holiday, the office was closed too. Come 5pm, Jackie -- who, to be fair to her, has a life -- rightly abandoned ship. Our last hope was that they'd made it to our house just before our own arrival, just after 6pm. But when we pulled into our new driveway, there was nobody awaiting us. And so, after a quick peek around the new place, we called a nearby friend, who very kindly put up with us put us all up for the night.

Given the fact that for all we knew, our entire earthly possessions could have been halfway to Montevideo, a surprisingly good night's sleep ensued. But as morning broke, it was time to hit the phones again. Straight to voicemail every time. Nothing had changed.

Then out of nowhere, at 9am, a text message appeared on my phone, telling me that the number of the boss was now available to call (i.e., he'd finally decided to turn it on after two days). This I duly did. "Ah, tranquilo!" ("Chill out") he said -- empathy was a real selling-point here -- "We'll be at your house in half an hour. We just had a breakdown leaving Trinidad and couldn't find anyone to fix it because of the holiday. So that's what the delay was. Don't worry about it." And this from a man who had been so agitated to get to Santa Cruz pretty much a full 24 hours earlier.

It is fair to say that by the time we met the Jenga Truck at our new place, with not an item out of place, we were too relieved to be angry. And so, knowing well how prickly Bolivian 'service providers' can become at the merest hint of impropriety, no matter how well-founded (there was genuinely potential in this moment for them to dump our stuff on the pavement without getting it in place in the house) I opted to keep my powder dry until the move was complete a few hours later.

With everything in place, all that remained was to settle the remaining balance, agreed some weeks earlier. But of course, someone was in the mood for dessert.

"Thanks for this," he said, "Now, about the extr--"

I was always raised not to interrupt people, but I could no longer contain myself. I proceeded to spend the best part of three minutes introducing my hitherto unenlightened friend to the basics of customer service. That it entails keeping the lines of communication open at all times. That it entails keeping the client appraised as to developments -- for I could have waited forever and a day for our stuff, so long as I had an inkling as to when it was going to arrive. That it entails arriving for a job when you said you would, or as near as possible. That it entails empathy with clients who may have a justifiable grievance. That it entails honesty with the client from the outset as to the quality of the materials involved. That -- and this is game-changing stuff -- doing all of the above will probably make your business significantly more successful than it is right now. And that, above all, YOU DON'T WIN MANY FRIENDS BY DEMANDING BONUSES FOR TRANSPORTING AN ITEM OF FURNITURE I TOLD YOU ABOUT WEEKS AGO, AND WHICH YOU COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO MOVE PROPERLY AND THUS ENDED UP SCRATCHING UP TILL IT RESEMBLED ONE OF THOSE TREES IN THE PARK NEXT TO MY OLD HIGH SCHOOL, WHICH USED TO HAVE ENGRAVINGS LIKE 'BIG DAVEY + CHANTAL 4EVA', IN THE PROCESS!!!

OK, I may not have referenced said amoureux, but you get the point.

And, mercifully, so did he.

*            *            *

Well, thank goodness we don't have to do that for a while. Nearly five weeks on, we are settling in nicely to Santa Cruz, and I will share more on that next week.

Prayer Points

• Give thanks that our stuff did manage to get here in the end.
• Pray for Amanda, who has come down with a bad stomach upset in the last day or so. We seem to be getting a lot of these just now, so pray that we might receive sound medical help on this.
• I am afraid to report that our house in Trinidad (which is on the market) was robbed last week. Mercifully, our tenant, a woman called Romina, was not harmed. However, she has lost some important items, and we have had to take care of some overdue repairs there as a result in the past week. Pray for protection over that house, and over Romina in particular.
• Staying with that house, please pray that we might be able to sell it soon, and thus be able to release some capital for perhaps buying or building here in Santa Cruz in the coming years.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam

The Moving Story (Part I)

The wardrobe of doom.

Two months have passed since we last updated our blog. That's probably the longest we've gone between posts while being based on the field. However, it's also a reflection of the busyness of our lives since we last posted. Between confirmation of my new role and our moving date, we had five weeks to prepare to leave our home base for a near-decade.

To make up for lost time, we will endeavour to write a short(ish) post once a week for the next few weeks, with the aim of gradually painting a picture of our move to Santa Cruz and the settling-in process. Here, I will touch specifically on leaving Trinidad.

Now given our nine years there as a couple (and almost 19 years since I first set foot in the Beni region), you may at this juncture be expecting something along the lines of a dewy-eyed BBC Sport montage. But the reality will be rather different, for two reasons. Firstly, we had so little time to get everything in place for the move that there was simply no real opportunity to properly digest leaving Trinidad and the many friends we left behind there. Secondly, if you've read our previous post, and if you've had any contact with us of late, you will be aware that we've not really felt 'at home' in Trinidad for some time; if anything, the process of saying goodbye has been an extended one, over the last year or two.

All that said, we have one last item of official business to fulfil in Trinidad: a longstanding commitment to oversee a team arriving from Canada in July. We will be back there with the team for around ten days, and our hope is that conditions then will be much more relaxed, and therefore much more conducive, to bid the place a proper farewell.

The focus for the remainder of this post, then, will be on the practicalities of the move itself -- a far from uneventful procedure!

The road between Trinidad and Santa Cruz is only about 350km in length, but the quality of its surface varies considerably; we used to be able to drive it in eight or nine hours in our car including breaks, but worsening conditions have lengthened the journey to around eleven hours. Bearing in mind this, as well as the much longer time a haulage vehicle was going to need, we knew there was no chance of completing the move in a single day. So, we arranged for the movers to come to Trinidad on the morning of the 22nd of January (a Monday). We would then stay in accommodation at Foundation Totaí that night, setting off early the next day, with the goal of rendezvousing with the movers here in Santa Cruz that evening.

What, indeed, could possibly go wrong?

Having made contact with the Santa Cruz-based removal company some weeks before, I wired a deposit to their account a few days before the move. Confirming receipt of said monies, the head of the company (also the main driver) told me we could expect them in Trinidad early on Monday morning.

9am on Monday and still no sign of them. No big deal. This is Bolivia, after all. But still nothing at 9:30. Nor 10. So I began to make some calls. Except that all of the company's advertised numbers went straight to voicemail (ie, their phones weren't even switched on). At this point, we were beginning to worry. Had we been victims of an elaborate scam? So we made contact with some friends in Santa Cruz, who helpfully paid a visit to the company's headquarters ('office' would seemingly be too generous a term). The woman there assured them that the moving team had left Santa Cruz on Saturday, and we should expect to hear from them soon. And sure enough, at around 11am, I finally heard from the boss, telling me they had arrived in Trinidad, and we could expect to see them soon. Quite frankly, I was too relieved to complain.

But this, too, proved something of a fib. The hours passed again with no sign of the movers. I called at half-hour intervals to be informed that "Estamos llegando" ("We are arriving"), a more cryptic statement than meets the eye: we learned long ago that in this culture, it can equally be rendered, "Stop bothering me! You'll see me when you see me!"

Still, we reckoned it would be worth the wait. If the company's professional-looking website was anything to go by, we could expect a modern, gleaming-white lorry, with more than enough space for our earthly possessions.

Compare...

And so, imagine our surprise when, finally, at 3pm, this contraption shambled up our street:

...and contrast.

As a motorised vehicle, it looked about as reliable as a Venezuelan election result. But that didn't phase us too much; there's practically no mechanical fault your average Bolivian road-user can't fix. What did concern us more was the size, and I made my concerns known to the boss upon arrival. To which he responded with a considered analysis of all the factors involved: "Nah, it'll be fine, don't worry about it." And to be fair, we weren't exactly in the mood to wait another few days for a bigger vehicle.

Before we knew it, the seven-strong team were making up for lost time, working furiously to get everything packed up. Having no experience of moving within Bolivia, the whole experience was an eye-opener. The first thing they did was come in with a great quantity of woolen blankets. Having arrived this late, were they now planning on staying the night?! Actually, no. They proceeded to wrap every single large item of furniture (including our eight-seater dining room table), and all of our large domestic appliances, in said blankets, before generously applying several layers of industrial-strength cling-film. This process in itself took around 90 minutes.

It was then time to start loading the truck, the goal being to pack the large furnishings as tightly as possible, while packing smaller items -- such as our many boxes -- around them. The biggest challenge here was a large and very heavy wardrobe which we had bought second-hand from a friend a few years ago, an item so cumbersome that back then, we hired a small team with ropes to haul it upstairs via one of the balconies (it was too wide to go up the stairs). Well, our friends in January came to the studied conclusion of: "Ropes? Nah!") and thus, they endeavoured to lower it from one of the balconies on to the bed of the truck among themselves. This was the result.

Apologies for turning away at the crucial moment. This is why I never went into war photography. Anyway, this being Bolivia, they all just chuckled about it and got on with the job. Remarkable.

Remarkably, by around 7pm, most items were now loaded, but a good hour or so more of rearrangement was in store, as they tried their best to fit some final things. By this point, the truck resembled a Jenga tower on wheels. They admitted defeat on a few things, which we decided to either leave behind or squeeze into our car for the next day's journey. 

And so, for all the frustration of the perennial delays, and our concerns over size, you had to hand it over them: in five hours or so, they more or less had our entire earthly possessions squeezed into a vehicle surely designed for far smaller loads. We were impressed, and make no mistake. 

Which made what happened next all the more galling.

[Note to self: Insert "dum-dum-DUMMM!" audio-clip here.]

To be continued...

A typically Trinidad sunset ends a typically Trinidad day!

At this point, we usually share some items for prayer. Please excuse any vagueness at this juncture, so as to spoiler-proof future posts about the move!

Prayer Points

• Give thanks that pretty much all our goods made the cut for the move to Santa Cruz.
• We have settled into our new rhythms and roles here fairly well. Sam is greatly enjoying his new school, while Craig has made a solid start as pastor. Meanwhile, Amanda has taken on a new, small role with Latin Link, as the interim coordinator for short-term volunteers in Bolivia.
• The latter point is especially apt, as a new volunteer -- Simon Howling -- has just arrived from England. He will be staying with us for a few days, before heading to...Trinidad! That's right. He will be working there alongside some of our old cohorts for the next couple of years. Give thanks for his safe arrival, and give thanks for Laura Szejnmann, also from England, who is here in Santa Cruz for a few months as part of Latin Link. We enjoyed meeting her a couple of weeks ago.
• And staying with Latin Link, Craig attended his first executive board meeting since being elected to serve on the board last September. Give thanks for a productive meeting for Craig and his fellow board members Graham Frith and Julie Noble.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam