Poza Verde Ladies Retreat

As I drove into Poza Verde on Friday I knew right away we were in for a treat. There were already ladies sitting on the ground in circles outside the church chatting and waiting for things to begin. Mirtha and I have been planning and praying for this ladies’ retreat for about 4 months.

On Friday my team leader, Toni, taught 2 different sessions covering the topics of “Security of our Salvation”, “The Christian Walk”, and “The Work of the Holy Spirit”. There were probably about 50 ladies from about 7 different communities. Toni is a great teacher and all of the ladies were very attentive. On Saturday my dear Bolivian friend, Elva, gave a great message on the armor of God and how to deal with spiritual warfare. It was great that an indigenous woman could speak to these other indigenous ladies about spiritual warfare since their culture and perspective is so different than that of North Americans. I think coming from Elva the lesson was so much more relevant.

Elva teaching the Armor of God

Saturday afternoon we set up our little makeshift clinic and saw patients. Toni along with 2 other doctors did all the work of seeing everyone. I worked as a pharmacy tech, finding and counting pills to hand out to the patients. We saw probably around 70 people. It was a long day, but a good one.

On Sunday morning Toni spoke again. She spoke of Deborah and how God used a woman to raise up her people to come back to God. Toni exhorted these ladies to be strong women of the faith, to speak out against the vices and problems that the youth are getting into and to be leaders in their communities. The women who came are the wives of leaders in the communities. Each woman could have a huge amount of influence if they wanted to exert it in their communities.

The whole thing ended with about 2 hours of women standing up and giving testimony to what God is doing in their lives. Unfortunately it was all in Ayore so I couldn’t understand what they were saying with their words, but with their voices and their actions I could tell that God had been speaking to them this weekend. Thank you to all who prayed for us!

Noah enjoying the kids

Some of our awesome helpers keeping the kids occupied so the moms could concentrate

What are you going to do this summer?

Go on a river trip in the Amazon basin! That's right, we have 3, ten day trips through the Beni region (Amazon Basin) of Bolivia and you're going!

Your transportation and lodging

Your sleeping quarters

Every year our mission hosts several boat trips into the Beni (Amazon Basin) region of Bolivia. We visit various villages along the river system providing basic medical care, hold little church services, childrens' ministries, and meeting needs as they come up.

We have been building a relationship with these communities over the years. Medical experience or ability to speak Spanish would be helpful but not necessary. Most of the medical care will be provided by medical missionaries and ministries lead by Bolivian believers. Basically we are looking for people who are very flexible and willing to fill in as needed, often in less than glamorous grunt work. Plans change rapidly from moment to moment as does climate and conditions so flexibility is ESSENTIAL! Conditions can be challenging on a crowded boat, food selection is... unique (often what we hunt, catch fishing, or trade with the villages for), weather changes from very hot to very cold and back again that time of year, it can be very wet or very dry. If you are willing to come down with an open heart, open mind, and willing to serve, this trip is for you! This is probably one of the most "pioneer" type short term mission trips you will find.

Eat your food before it eats you!

Onboard Laundry Service

These dates are first day on the boat to the last day on the boat so plan for travel days on either end:
Trip #1 (mostly full)
May 29th - June 8th (Arrive in Santa Cruz no later than May 27th and leave Bolivia at the earliest June 10th)

Trip #2
June 12th - June 22nd (Arrive in Santa Cruz no later than June 10th and leave Bolivia at the earliest June 24th)

Trip #3
June 24th - July 4th (Arrive in Santa Cruz no later than June 22nd and leave Bolivia at the earliest July 6th)

Let us know ASAP if you would like more information of prices, support raising, or anything else.

Read about last year's trip here

Photos from last year's trip:

Viaje del Rio 3 - de Jason Weigner

Painted

Walt and Sindi, a newer SAM missionary couple who run the SAM guest house in Santa Cruz, came out to the Pailon area these last two days.  Sindi came to bless our little church with her artistic skills.  She and Walt completed painting a mural on the church wall today.  The words on the wall above the Toborochi tree, as seen in the photo above, are the beginning of the 23 Psalm "The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not be in want."

Christmas in Bolivia

With 90-100 degree weather, lack of Christmas decorations and traditions, it did not feel much like the Christmas season this year.  With only a few days until Christmas we decided to find ourselves a tree.

After searching through palm and fig trees, we finally found the perfect tree!

I chopped it down.  Apparently artificial pine trees grow in Bolivia, who knew?

We lugged it home through the snow... uh... I mean sand.

Okay, so actually we found the tree abandoned in the mission mail room.  Due to our lack of ornaments, we had to go Little House on the Prairie on it and strung popcorn.  It didn't look half bad!

Noah sure enjoyed his first Christmas.

Especially eating the paper

"Okay so the dog is nice, but what did you do with the wrapping paper? I wasn't finished eating it!"

We may not have had snow, but I bet none of you went out back to pick the Christmas Watermelon!

Our family grew a little this Christmas.  Jenna got me a Blue Winged Parotlet!

It was a wonderful, quiet Christmas with our little family.  The only problem we had was a small plumbing issue in the bathroom

2 for 1 Christmas Shopping Ideas

As you all are running around trying to find the best Christmas deals, I thought I would pass on 2 different ways you can get your shopping done AND help us out at the same time.

1. Shop through iGive.com and help our ministry out
You can shop all your favorite stores, just do it though iGive.com and a percentage will be donated to our ministry by the company you purchase from. This past year you all raised $67 for our ministry by using iGive! Here is how to do it:
1. Go to http://www.iGive.com/SAM70493

2.  Register for an account* (its quick, easy, & free) and make sure "South America Mission IRE Mercy Ministries" is the charity selected (should be automatic if you follow the above link). 

3. Login to iGive.com to do your online shopping.  You can select stores like Amazon.com or eBay through the site or search for merchandise through iGive.com. A percentage of the purchase price will then be donated to the IRE ministry by the store you make your purchase through. Make sure to do the shopping through iGive to make sure the donation is made to SAM.  Right now, anyone who makes a purchase through iGive within 45 day of setting up an account will get an extra $5 towards our ministry. 

*When you register for an account, they give you an option to download the "iGive toolbar".  If you are comfortable using this, this helps track you online purchases at eligible stores to make sure the donations are made. Also, if you use the toolbar, $0.02 will be donated for every search made through the toolbar. If you don't want to use the toolbar, you can search through this site: http://www.iSearchiGive.com/SAM70493 and earn $0.01 for our mission for every search.

2. Help us out by purchasing Christmas gifts on RedBubble.com

You can purchase some of my photos from Bolivia and various other travels at: http://jganjay.redbubble.com/

You can order my photos as cards, prints, or calendars.  Calendars can be customized with any of my photos on RedBubble.

Hombres de Valor

This past Saturday I was able to help with a conference for about 40 boys ages 10-13 from around Santa Cruz (someday Noah will be that age.. what have I gotten myself into?!). They day was full of talks from various speakers, skits, shield making, devouring food without utensils, jousting, sword fighting, and various other "manly" activities.  It was a high energy day fun of fun but the main purpose of the day was to help this guys understand what it mean to be a man of valor and a man of God.

Blowout!

This past Tuesday I took a trip out toward San Jose and Robore again. It was a great, even though short, trip especially since this time I had no significant incidents with my car. Now you are probably wondering how I can say such a thing especially with a blog post titled "Blowout" and the above photo. Yes the front right tire exploded at 90-100 km/hr, but I do not consider this "significant" since no head gaskets were blown, there were no overheating issues, the cam shaft did not snap in half, and no jumps, tows, or serious maintenance was needed. All we had to do was change the tire and hit the road again! It was also a great trip since the road was much better this time and took 3 hours less than the last time I went out.

The purpose of the trip was to visit various Ayore communities and set up a time for a retreat, similar to the one we did in Poza Verde, only this time for communities in a different part of Bolivia. This is all part of the push toward a more unified Ayore church. It has been very exciting to see the process of the church coming together this past year.