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.