Visit to Arancibia Family: Bolivia Part 2

We made it home safely! We would still be in Lima waiting for our flight if it wasn't  for the nice lady at security that allowed families with children to the front of the very long line! A day full of tight connections, but it all went well, we are so grateful for your prayers! Here is our last update:

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As I write we are sitting in Cochabamba airport with a two hour delay to get to Santa Cruz.

It was a hard goodbye to our dear friends, but we feel so blessed and very thankful for our visit! 

Here are some highlights of the rest of our time in Cochabamba:

-Our 3 days of Missions Conferences went very well at Logos Baptist Church! The congregation left encouraged and challenged to carry out Gods mission to the ends of earth. The conference theme was: Missions for our Generation. Pastor Antonio shared that the messages served as a good reminder of the true mission of the church. Many people shared that they were challenged and a few shared with us how God has stirred their hearts towards service locally and abroad.

Timara and I put together the conference for the children. The last day we ended with serving them Chai from India, dressed them up and marched in at the end of the church service to the old hymn  "América Será para Cristo." And then they sang,"Yo quiero ser un niño misionero". (I want to be a missionary kid) 

It was awesome to meet and fellowship with our Bolivian brothers and sisters.

  

-Camilo's birthday was on Sunday. The church (thanks to Facebook) figured out when his birthday was and surprised him with a cake. We drove up to Tunari National Park for a picnic lunch and later  Timara and Osvaldo surprised him with a special concert of traditional Andean music by a Christian band, Luz de Vida, and a taco dinner. It was a very special day!

-We also had the privilege to visit House of Love Children's home. This was a special time to meet and play with the children in the girls and babies home and meet the boys at their separate home. It was hard to see so many with out their parents and wish we could adopt them all. There is a sweet girl who is blind she got to know us by touching our feet as we sat on the floor to play. Camila said, "mommy she needs new eyes." A little one year old boy named Omar trying so hard to learn to walk became attached to me rather quickly. These children need so much love and attention. They have wonderful "Tias" that live with them and care for them. The director, Rosa and her staff are amazing! That night Lucas and Camila prayed for them. I sure hope we have a chance to return for a visit! 

-Us adults had a chance to get a babysitter and go out with another cross-cultural couple who will be married in August. We enjoyed getting to know Bridgette (Switzerland) and Jimmy (Bolivia). We were able to share some advice from our experiences in creating a family of two different cultures! Timara and Osvaldo meet with them once a week for a Bible study and pre marital counseling. 

-Camilo had a chance to help with some yard work, and I helped Timara start a new key chain project for the guest house rooms. 

Timara and Osvaldo have a lot of projects for the Guesthouse and the house is going to be busy with visitors for the remainder of the year. Timara is helping organize Bolivia's first Perspectives course. Osvaldo and Ramon try to stay on top of maintenance not only of the guesthouse but of all of SIM's missionary homes. They don't have any days off during the week but have the great help of Roxana and the possibility of hiring someone else part time. With the extra help this should allow the family to have some personal time and time to serve their church.  

Please pray for their ministry as they continue to bless many short and long term missionaries that come through!

We pray we have the opportunity to return soon!

Below are some more pics from our experience:

Cochabamba - Bolivia Pastoral Visit to the Arancibia Family with SIM

We have been in Cochabamba for 5 days! Travel went well, we made all of our connections, got through immigration and customs no problem! We had a chance to visit with Camilo's mom, brother and grandmother during our extra long layover in San Salvador.

So far:

- We have been able to set up a few of the Guesthouse rooms with the new duvet covers, Bibles and journals. Thank you TFBC family for your donations!

-On Sunday, we lead a Missions conference at Timara and Osvaldo's old church in a rural community. Timara and I lead the kids program and Camilo gave his testimony and encouraged the congregation. 

-The kids have had a wonderful time playing non stop. The guesthouse is an easy place for them to roam around!

-We have seen a few sites around the city including going up to one of the tallest statues of Christ that looks down on Cochabamba. 

-We have met a variety of missionaries and have learned about their amazing work in Cochabamba.

-We had the opportunity to visit the SIM headquarters and visit the MK school that Jaran is attending.

-We have also been having very much needed prayer time together with both families. We already feel refreshed and blessed by this visit!

What's planned:

-Missions Conferences on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

-A visit to Hogares de Amor, children's home

-a visit to Mosoj Yan center for young women

-Misc. projects around the guest house. 

Osvaldo and Timara have a lot on their plate running the guesthouse and managing maintenance work on the SIM properties! They seem to be on call 24/7.

They are doing an awesome job making guests feel at home and providing an oasis of rest and retreat for missionaries.

More to come...

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Transitions

Lucas loves kissing "his baby"

It's hard to believe that we are already in the month of April.  Well, I suppose my very pregnant  belly makes it believable! Many people have asked us how we all have been adapting being here. Well, it has been quite the culture shock for us (reverse culture shock in my case).  After Christmas and New Years passed, 'vacation' time over, it was time to really think about settling for the long term.  The Lord provided us a home to rent fairly close to downtown and we are walking distance from Tulare First Baptist Church (also where Lucas goes to Day Care), from the very nice library, the trail that runs through town on the old railroad, a RiteAid Pharmacy, a small grocery store, and more. So I can't complain about location (especially since we can walk). We would also like to thank many of you who have donated furniture, things for our home, clothes, and everything we need for the new baby! What a blessing!

Taking the shortcut to preschool, 

the alley behind the house,

 Lucas likes to pretend 

he's Buzz Lightyear

         
There are things we miss of course in El Salvador, the friends, and our little place in the mountains.  Lucas frequently asks to go back and see his friends, and it has been interesting observing how he has processed this drastic change.  For example, one day it dawned on him, "mommy we live here now, and El Salvador is far away."  We've taken a few trips to L.A. and every time we go, he asks to go to the airport so we can fly back.  

          I never imagined that I would be moving back to my hometown, but God is always full of surprises and knows best!  So, I am looking at Tulare in a different light, as a mission field focusing on the growing Hispanic community. 

Pastor Daniel Elias translating for

Camilo's "launch message" at

Growing Healthy Churches Discovery Center.

          In January we attended Growing Healthy Churches Network Discovery Center. It was a Church planting assessment process that was a four day intensive program in Elk Grove.  Well, we were approved as Church Planters and we had to go through this process if there was going to be a possibility to church plant within the American Baptist Denomination.  In seeking God's will for this process we began investigating planting a Hispanic Church with different denominations and were seriously talking with two when Tulare First Baptist expressed interest in having us work with them. After proposals and meetings, we are excited to share that Tulare First Baptist Church has officially approved starting a Hispanic Church and has hired Camilo as Pastor as of this month. This is an exciting time for the church as it seeks to reach out to its local community with the gospel!

            Here’s a little update about what has been going on with our family and we appreciate your prayers for us…

• Starting in February, we began the 40 Days in the Word Bible Study (a study that the whole church was doing). 

  

  Members of our Spanish Bible Study

  Ours was in Spanish and the people have now formed our core group that we will begin the church with!
• April 12- scheduled C-section, time to welcome Camila! (in our next blog, we hope to share photos!)
• April 15- Lucas will be 4 years old. His English has improved so much since we arrived. He continues to attend Wee Care Day Care and loves walking to the library on Fridays for story time.
• Camilo continues taking ESL classes at the Adult School. Through his contacts there, we have a new member of our church, Maria 

  

  Members of our Spanish Bible Study

  Cortez. He is also teaching guitar lessons to a few guys from the class and sharing God’s word with them.
• On Wednesday nights Camilo travels to Tipton to teach music lessons (keyboard, guitar, bass and drums) to members of a local Hispanic church to help them form their praise band.
• We are grateful to Dan Olson for allowing Camilo to work a few days out in the walnut nursery, it was a good experience for him and he enjoyed the hard work!

       Please pray as we seek His will in starting this church.  The people that come to our home Bible study have the same need in common, a solid Biblically based Hispanic church that reach out to its community.   Many share frustrating experiences with Hispanic churches.   They have shared that they are not the only ones, and many people they know are not attending churches because of problems. The same story is repeated in the case of many, and this has just been even more of a confirmation of the need to plant a church starting here in Tulare with a vision to reach out to our surrounding communities as the Lord leads.

  We'd like to thank so many of you who have helped us in this transition time.  Every prayer, offering, encouraging word, and helpful hand has been what has sustained us during this time of change and adjustment. 



A few more photos...

We walk to the library every Friday for story time.

In December, it was still fall here!

Lucas likes to go to the 
"Jugueteria de Lowes"
 (Lowe's toy store)
 to build things on Sat. mornings!

One of Camilo's few days
working on a walnut farm.

Grandma bought Lucas a bicycle!



Coming to (and from) America...

Once being a Geography teacher, I have always had a hard time when people refer to the U.S. as just America, when America includes North and South and the region of Central America. In El Salvador, to not use the term, 'Gringa' too much, they would call me the 'Americana', but they too are 'Americanos'!  I couldn't say that I was from North America, because Central America is also included in the continent, because sometimes they would call me the 'Norteamericana'.  So in the end I was 'estadounidense'  which there is not a literal translation in English it would be like saying, United Statesian.

 

Lucas was the only one on the whole
plane studying the safety card!

 
Well after all the stress, sadness and anxiety of leaving our home in Ojos de Agua, we made it safely to the USA. We are thankful to all of you who prayed for us as we traveled...our prayers were answered! We had spent the last couple weeks weighing our luggage to not exceed the 50 lb weight limit. On American Airlines one has to pay an extra $30 for the second checked bag and $150 for the third. We had two pieces of luggage for each of us which included Lucas' car seat. I had one extra piece that I had resigned to pay the $150.  Upon arriving at the airport, we didn't have to wait in any lines, walked right up to the counter, and nice woman working there did not charge me extra for the car seat, so we were still able to make it within our travel budget! The flight was not full, and Lucas was the best behaved child one could ask for. He has been so excited for months to travel in an airplane! Our first stop was Dallas where we had to go through immigration and customs. Since we had a nice long layover, we took our time getting off the plane and again didn't have any lines to wait in at immigration. They went through Camilo's paperwork and we all got through no problem!  To go through customs we had to gather up all of our checked luggage and then re-check it to LA.  We got to the luggage carrousel and there was all of our stuff in a pile, there was no one else waiting for luggage! A very nice man helped us load it all onto one push cart and, still thinking in  Spanish, I told him, 'Gracias'.  

ready to go!



Arriving in LA, oddly, there was no one else picking up their luggage, and all of ours was going round and round on the belt... another answer to prayer, that all of our luggage made it, no problem!
We had to wait a bit for Camilo's dad to pick us up, when he arrived he took us to Jose and Isabel Melgar's home in North Hills where we would stay the night. These are our dear friends from Ojos de Agua that have supported our missionary work and the building project.  They recently helped raise funds with their church (Iglesia de Dios Reseda, CA) to purchase the remaining windows and the doors!!

As we entered their home we were greeted with many smiling faces and a welcome song! They had planned a Welcome Surprise Party for us with the members of their church!  Even though we were tired from traveling, this was just what we needed as we had just had a very sad goodbye.  We are so grateful to the Lord for our brothers and sisters in Reseda.



Arrived into Tulare on December 3rd with the Melgar Family
and Camilo´s father

The next morning, Jose and his family drove us all the way to Tulare, to my mom's home where we will be for a little while. We had a nice time of fellowship with them.

Now that we are here, we have been seeking opportunities to plant a Hispanic church in the area.  Please keep this process in your prayers. We also ask that you would pray for God's provision.

We are happy to be here, especially to spend Christmas with mom, my brother and his family. We will get to meet our niece, Avery for the first time!

Thank you for your support and we also wish you a Merry Christmas!

Here´s Lucas adjusting...

He helped Grandma decorate the tree and quickly invented a violin!

He has his own room at Grandma´s.
Here he´s enjoying a good read!

our luggage made it safely!