Day 2

Hola!

We left our hostel at 5 am and flew across the Andes Mountains to Cochabamba. What a GORGEOUS flight!! It looked like we could reach right out the windows and touch the mountains. To top it off, the sun was just coming up and that enhanced the experience even more. Most of us were dragging pretty hard this morning as the result of the short night, altitude, and all the traveling. We arrived at our hostel in Cochabamba around 8:30 this morning and have been going nonstop ever since (it is now around 9:30pm). We gathered all of our donation items, learned how to make balloon animals for the kids (thanks, Denise!), heard a presentation from one of the Compassion project directors, ate lunch, then headed out to one of the Compassion projects in Cochabamba. Several groups of children sang songs for us and we sang for them (in terrible Spanish, but give us points for enthusiasm!) and we were asked to go out to the playground to play basketball. That surprised me a lot b-c the number one sport in South America is soccer and they mentioned basketball first. Before basketball, however, we visited 2 homes in the area and that was just amazing. The home i went to was about 6´by 8´ with a concrete floor and only 2 beds for furniture. The woman who lived there had 4 children and seemed truly honored for us to be visiting. When we asked her what she would specifically like to pray for, she didn´t ask for a bigger house or more money...she wanted us to pray for the safety and health of her family and for her husband, who is a bricklayer, to have steady work rather than day jobs. We gave her a few dishtowels and socks and bubbles for the children and a pair of work gloves for her children and her face just lit up. She couldn´t believe that all of that was for her family. i couldn´t help but think as we stood there that she gave us a greater gift than any material goods we could´´ve brought to her. she was such a good example of being content in life and loving what you have been given. As we walked back to the Compassion Project, I felt so peaceful and blessed. I have been so bent out of shape the last few weeks over something that seems so trivial in the grand scheme of things. Today put things into perspective so powerfully. We went out to the playground, as promised, and, of course, the soccer ball did come out eventually, and those of us who couldn´t play the team sports got to hang out with the children and take pictures, give hugs, hand out stickers and gum (ask Art about that!), and try our best to communicate. It is amazing how quickly you can pìck up bits of language when you really need it. Sitting on a concrete wall surrounded by children in the warm sun in the poorest country in South America was the absolute best way I could´ve spent today. Thank you so much for you support and please keep up the prayers!


amy