Like a chicken with its head cut off

The dirty deed is done. We butchered the 120 chickens out in Poza Verde. After two days of butchering, everything smells like chicken. It may be a while before I can even look at anything made from chicken.

Paul and Bubba plucking Chickens. This was by far the longest part of the process.

The first day, three of use SAM missionaries went out to help. It took us 3 gringos along with Cesar and Mirta 5 hours to finish 40 chickens. It must have been amusing watching we three Gringos try to butcher chickens. I have only butchered a few at ECHO, Paul did it a few times in Peru many years ago, and Bubba had only researched chicken butchering online. We all had our "unique" ways of getting the job done. Finally Cesar showed us how it was done while a unified, drawn out "ohhhh" escaped our lips at the revelation of a simpler and more effective way. A few times over the course of the day, some of the Ayore children joined us to watch and snack on chicken blood and feet. Yes, you read correctly.

Gusto, one of the Ayore kids snacking on a chicken foot.

On day two, Bubba and I made our way our to Poza Verde dreading the 80 more chickens especially since we were down a man. To our relief, this time the community was involved and already a good portion of the way through. Not only did the increase in numbers speed up the process, but exchanging Gringos for Ayore women who are accustom to plucking and cleaning chickens increased our efficiency. We finished the last chicken around lunch time and all the Ayore who help were rewarded with the chicken innards. Now all that is left is to sell the chickens which has not been too hard, most are already spoken for. All the profits will go to Cesar and Mirta and their work in Poza Verde. I think we unanimously agree that we will be switching to raising chickens for eggs rather than for meat.

Gusto roasting his chicken foot

Election Day: Trapped!

So you have probably had school canceled, work canceled, maybe even had your city shut down, but how about your whole country? Today is election day, and for 24 hours, everything is shut down. Alcohol, meeting in groups (including church), and driving vehicles are all banned for the 24 hour period. There is nothing to do but hang out at home or go out and vote.

As you probably guessed, elections are a big deal here. The differences in political parties here make the Democrats and Republicans look like best friends. Whatever the outcome could mean large changes for the country. We personally do not know enough about the politics to presume to know what result would be best for the people of Bolivia. We can only pray for the best.

Little Weigner

Sorry it has been so long since out last post, there is a lot to catch up on. Today our baby had its second photo shoot, this time in 3-D! The baby was rather stuborn for a while (already taking after one of its parents), turning every way but the way we wanted it to, but eventually the baby turned and we got a few good shots. It was a lot of fun to see it moving around. Still hard to believe there is a little person growing inside Jenna. The baby still apears to be healthy and growing normally. We are very thankful that everything has been going so well. We also found out that we are going to have a... oh sorry, I almost forgot, we're not telling yet but if you care to guess, visit http://bebepool.com/jjweigner and take your best shot.

The finished coop with chickens

We finally have the chicken coop finished in Poza Verde (well, we have a few last little details to finish). I am excited the my rainwater, gravity fed watering system is working! Rainwater off the roof of the coop runs into a holding tank then in to water dishes that refill as the chickens drink. There are now 135 chickens enjoying their new home and they will enjoy it for a few more weeks before they become 135 Christmas dinners. All profits go to help the couple living out there and their ministry.

Cesar cleaning up after his chickens

On one of the trips back from Poza Verde, I was introduced to a new part of life in Bolivia, bloqueos or blockades. Some of the people in the country were feeling ignored by the government so the desided to hang out in the middle of the only highway back to Santa Cruz. They made a baracade of old tires and tree branches. Apparently this is how people strike here. It was not in any way violent (for those of your parents who may be concerned) and it eventually dispersed and we were able to make our way back home.

We have our own car now, a Hyundai Galloper. Never heard of it? Well that is because it does not really exist in the USA. We have been enjoying using an SUV for what it was made for, and that is not exactly cruzing down highways! The 4x4 has been handy lately as the rains have started and the roads around our house have been torn up for new sewage lines. Getting to and from our house has been interesting since each day we have no idea which road is going to be impassable. Last night we drove all over our neighborhood trying to find a route back to our house that did not have a large trench dug out of the middle. Always an adventure!

Jenna's Thanksgiving Pies

SAM Thanksgiving Dinner

We will be moving out of Santa Cruz between Christmas and New Years. This will be the thrid year in a row we will have moved during the holiday season. We decided to move out near a town call Pailon which is closer to Poza Verde, the comunity we spend most of our time working with. We found a wonderful house owned by some other missionaries from another organization.

With Christmas coming up, I'm sure some of you will be doing your shopping online. If you are an online shopper, consider shopping through www.iGive.com. By going through this site, a percentage of your purchase will go toward our ministry. All you have to do is go to iGive.com, sign up for an account and specify South America Mission IRE Mercy Ministry as your charity, then shop your favorite sites like Amazon or Ebay though this site and any business you buy from will give a percentage to our ministry. Get your shopping done and help us out at the same time!

Night in Poza Verde

Working on the chicken coup with Cesar

This past Thursday and Friday we spent out in the Poza Verde Ayore community, about 1.5 to 2 hours from where we are currently living. This is the community we will probably spend the most time with. We spent the night with Cesar and Mirtha, a Bolivian couple who live with and minister to the Ayore. We had a great time getting to know them, although speaking only in Spanish for the whole time was tiring but good practice. I helped Cesar work on the chicken coup he is building to house 100 chickens. The goal of this project is for them to make a little income from the eggs since they do not get very much support to live off of. We will probably spend a lot of time doing whatever we can to help them so the can be more effective in their ministry since they have many more years of experience than we.

Our ministry team now has a website! Follow this link to learn more about our ministry with the Ayore: http://ayorebolivia.wordpress.com/

Meet Simon

Here is our new little buddy Simon. We got him last weekend. He is half Lab half German Shepherd and is growing and learning fast. At 8 weeks he already has "stay" and "come" down and is housebroken. We are hoping that one day he will make a good guard dog.

A look at our life overseas

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sunflower Harvest

This past weekend I spent out in Poza Verde, one of the Ayore settlements. The mission cultivates a field out there. In order to keep the land, a certain percentage has to be productive. Sunflowers were the crop of choice this round and were ready to harvest. We hired a group to harvest the field and we got 25 tons of seeds. Now we are praying the global price of sunflower seed will go up in the next few weeks.
The money made will go to the ministry with the Ayore. This has been a successful way to meet the productivity laws, but is dependent on the mission. Ideally we would like to come up with agricultural projects that the Ayore can sustain on their own. This will be one of the main goals of my work.

Ayore kids playing in the sunflower field

Hired harvesters
Ayore kids playing in the harvested seed

Mission Impossible: Bolivia

The next two years of our lives packed into 4 check bags and 2 carry-ons

Two years of preparation and now we are finally here in Bolivia, but it almost did not happen. At the end of our two weeks in the states, after a great last few days with family, we visited the SAM office where our passports and visas were supposed to meet us. Thanks to a series of delays, the passports did not make it to South Carolina in time. So we tried re-routing them to Baltimore to meet us at a friends house the day we were to leave.

Eating Breakfast on the sidewalk in Baltimore, waiting for UPS to deliver our passports.

Over breakfast, we got the call that our passports were still in South Carolina

Turns out our passports got stuck in South Carolina. We tried delaying our tickets a day or two only to find out the next flight with open seats was not until Sept. 22nd.

A couple long hours at the airport trying to come up with a new plan

Lunch at Natcho Mama's while waiting for Sue to fly in with our passports

Back at the airport waiting for the passports to arrive

In one last ditch effort, Sue, from our office, intercepted the package at the UPS warehouse in South Carolina, hopped on the next flight to Baltimore, handed the package off to our friend Matt who was waiting to run it to us at the American Air desk. He delivered it to us just in time to check in, with 10 minutes to spare! Once we were on the plane, the rest of the trip was smooth. We were so focused on just getting on the plane that it was not until I was in my seat buckling in that it hit me, WE'RE MOVING TO BOLIVIA!

Agent Matteo running 'the package" (our passports) through the airport

So now we are adjusting to life here. So far we really like it. Basically we've been spending our time in meetings, getting to know the people we'll be working with, and getting oriented to the area. We did take one trip out to Poza Verde, one of the villages I'll be spending a lot of my time. They have a large crop of sunflowers that our team has been helping them grow and will probably we ready for harvest this week. I have been brainstorming with the team on lots of interesting potential projects. It is exciting to see how many opportunities there are here to use my interests and training.

Changing Seasons

Today marks yet another point of change for us. Since 2001 I have been hopping from town to town, state to state, and country to country. It has been quite the adventure but the frequent packing up to go and all the "good-byes" have been challenging. Today we graduated from language school and are getting ready to head back to the states for a whirlwind 2 week trip before moving to Bolivia. We said our farewells yet again and are looking forward to actually setting up home and staying in one place for at least 2 years. Over the last 8 years or so, I've made a lot of friend around the world then had to leave them behind. At first it was really hard, then I hit a point of trying to stay uninvolved emotionally to avoid the pain of leaving, but now I have found it is worth the effort and investment to enjoy relationships while they last, even if I know they will be for only a short while. And so, I leave Costa Rica with more fond memories of friends I have made to add to the many other amazing people I have met on the journey, and looking forward to new friends and new adventures that lay ahead.

Since we have not posted in a little while, here is a quick recap of our last month here in Costa Rica. Jenna's parents came down to visit us and we had a great time back at Arenal Volcano and showing them around the San Jose area. Unfortunately it was cloudy most of the time so we only heard the volcano. The teachers and some of the students at ILE put on a great show of whirly-twirly cultural dances to celebrate the Anexion of Guanacaste. We took our final Spanish exams; Jenna did great, I choked. Then last weekend we took an amazing boat ride to Tortuguero National Park filled with all kinds of wildlife. I wish I had discovered this place sooner! We saw crocs, sloths, monkeys, toucans, an Eyelash viper, and a Green Sea Turtle laying eggs.

It has been a great 8 months. I am sad to leave Costa Rica and our friends here, but I can't say I'm sorry to be done with school. Onward to Bolivia!

A Future Home

A Street View of Our Future *Temporary* Home in Bolivia!

Well God certainly does provide, and when He does so, he does it lavishly~!

Our team in Bolivia jumped on an opportunity for us to sub-rent a home in Santa Cruz while a missionary family is on a four month leave back to the United States. Although this does mean that we will have to move (again) to our own place in January, it gives us an incredibly beautiful and comfortable home in which to stay while we get orientated to the field. We will move in as soon as we arrive on September 3rd, and will be able to take our time finding our own place to live for the rest of our term. We will be moving into a fully furnished and equipped home, complete with a large back yard (Jason's estatic), a gardener, a guard at night, an empleada (maid) to help around the house on 3 mornings a week, internet set up, phone set up, and best of all- much to our delight- a dog and a tortoise to keep us company! Yes, we will have to pay rent and salaries for all of these luxuries, but it is such a blessing to be able to make our transition a little smoother, to give us time to check out the best places for us to stay afterwards, to set up our home, to wait for our things to arrive by mail, to look for the best deals. I am excited. We are excited! Things are coming together and starting to feel more real- especially after almost 3 years of preparation time!

Check out the photos of our future, temporary, home:

This is Roger- their pet (red foot?) tortoise- We will be taking very good care of him. Tortoises are my favorite.

This is Beethoven (yellow) and Jerry (black). We will just be taking care of Beethoven and I believe the missionaries are working on finding someone to take care of Jerry- the Rotweiler. If they can't, I'm sure we'll take him under our wing as well, always nice to have good guard dogs. :-)


A view of the living room/ front door?

Kitchen with lots of counter space!! Yay!!

Dining room- very pretty


I'm sure Jason will have lots of fun planting all sorts of random, but yummy things in this yard. I'm sure he will also include a compost pile :-)

Office area- I can't wait to read some of those books!

As you can very well see, this place is huge and so far above and beyond any expectations we had! Not to mention the perks that come with it! Who else would be so happy to take on a tortoise? (Let alone know how to take care of it!) Like I said, God is very good. :-)

Arenal Volcano

Jason & Jenna in front of the smoking Arenal Volcano

Last weekend we made our long anticipated trip to Arenal Volcano along with Jenna's brother Kyle and a bunch of people from our school. It was a welcome 3 night getaway from the stresses of language learning. We enjoyed hot and cold pools along with a few water slides all fed by natural springs at the foot of the very active Arenal volcano. Whenever the clouds parted we had an excellent view of the volcano from our hotel and the constant stream of smoke from the top. Occasionally we would hear a rumble from deep within its belly. One night we took a van to the other side of the volcano where the lava is currently spewing. It put on a nice little firework display for us while we fought off mosquitoes.

Arenal Volcano at Night

This week was also a little bit of a breather from the routine. It was spiritual emphasis week. This week the teachers were not permitted to give us homework so that we could feel free to go to the two chapels a day and focus on spiritual health. Last weekend and this week was a nice break, next week it is back to full steam ahead. Classes continue to go well as I learn to speak Spanish poco a poco. My one class has been especially good for me since it requires me to get out in the community and build a relationship with 8 people with whom I talk to on a weekly basis. It continues to be a stretch for me but it is great practice. !Vale la pena!

Green Basilisk (Basiliscus plumifrons) at Arenal

Harlequin Long-Horned Beetle (Acrocinus longimanus) at Arenal