My Grandma

These have been a challenging past couple of weeks as my grandma unexpectedly passed away. I am told that it was peaceful and I´m thankful that she wasn´t in pain. She was a wonderful grandma and I will miss her tons. It has been tough to be away from family during this time but I´m doing okay. It just hurts not being able to say goodbye and not be able to attend her funeral or memorial.

Thankfully, we spent our last day in the States with my grandma and grandpa. We had breakfast with the whole Erickson side of the family. It was a wonderful morning and I am so thankful for such a great last memory with my grandma. Here is a picture from that day...


I know a lot of people have been praying for us and that we would have peace while being so far away. We just wanted to say thank you for that. It means a lot to us.

The Hacienda

We just found a house to rent (we´ll post pictures soon) but we wanted to show where we were staying in the meantime. We stayed in the Hacienda which normally houses the Interns on our team and short term teams that come to Bolivia. It is up in the woods a bit so it is very peaceful and surrounded by many chirping birds. I loved getting up in the mornings and taking some time to read in the hammocks before the day started. Very peaceful. We are happy to settle into a place of our own but we loved being at the Hacienda and getting to spend time with Michelle, Jaclyn, Kristin, Justin (the Interns) and the North Park team that was here last week.

Here are some pictures...

The front of the Hacienda

The downstairs porch.

The upstairs porch. I love the hammocks.

Matt and I on our first day in Bolivia

Our room. Yep, bunk beds.

Sorry about the delay in posts...(Dave)...it takes us a while to get them together. The other day I tried to upload some photos and waited about a half an hour but then it just failed anyway. It can be frustrating. We still do all our internetting (not a word?) from internet cafes. Once we get internet in our house it will be more frequent. I promise...we have a lot to share.

We made it!

So we´re here in Bolivia. Yea! It was a good trip here but a very long day. We flew from Chicago to Miami then onto La Paz. We had about a 10 hour lay-over in La Paz which has a very high altitude of about 12,000 feet. It was definitely hard to breathe up there. I would move my arm up or stand up and get very light headed and have to take a few extra breaths. It was pretty strange. Then it was onto Cochabamba which is the city where we are living. We were surprised by the beauty and lushesness of the city. It is more beautiful than we expected. I guess the green in the city will be short lived as rainy season is ending soon and with that everything turns to brown. We´ll just enjoy it for now then.

The empty seat next to us on the flight

from Miami to La Paz. Very nice.

Matt at the La Paz Airport.

Cactus and palm trees at La Paz Airport

Getting some good reading done on the way to Cochabamba

And we're off...

After all the planning we finally bought our plane tickets. We will be leaving for Bolivia on February 28th and we will get to Cochabamba about 24 hours later. It will be one long, exciting day and I'm sure filled with little reminders of how South America is not quite like North America. We know from our experiences in Ecuador to always expect the unexpected.

It has been amazing to see God work and provide for this ministry by forming our support team. Thank you for responding to Him. Your faithfulness has encouraged ours.

Congratulations Greta and Scott!

We are so happy that Greta and Scott got engaged this weekend! They are a wonderful couple and we are excited to welcome Scott into the family.

The happy couple

Me checking out the ring

Sharing the news with the cousins

Cheers to Scott and Greta

So close!

We are so excited today because we are close to being able to leave for Bolivia. We have about 96% of our total. We will likely be going at the end of February and we will buy our plane tickets soon. We will update as soon as we buy those plane tickets. Thank you everyone for your support and prayers!

Thank you God! He is faithful and it has been awesome to see Him work in such a real way.