Our growing little Luka

Luka is at least twice as big as when we got her. She's already a good guard dog barking at everything outside our gate and every dog and person we pass on our walks...she may be a bit of an aggressive dog but she also likes to cuddle up. Anyway, here are some cute pictures of her as of now...

She likes to play with the hoola-hoop we bought for the kids from
the orphanage to play with when they come over.

But her favorite thing to do remains chewing her bones to bits.

Colorado

We just had the privilege of having a wonderful group of four from Colorado. They were college students who signed up for missions not knowing where they would serve and they ended up here in Bolivia. They spent the first month in the jungle helping to finish up one of our homes there with Remberto, one of the builders on our team. Then they spent their last three weeks with us in Cochabamba doing many things. They were wonderful to have around, got a lot of work done and had such great attitudes towards serving. It was great to have them on our team while we did. Thanks guys! All of your work and each of you wonderfully unique personalties were appreciated! And maybe we'll see you again in Bolivia some day...

Matt and I with Sage, Adam, Lauren and Hallie from Colorado.

All of the interns as of right now,
Kristen, Jen, Katie T., Katie S., and Adrian,
with the four from Colorado

And Matt enjoyed having a fellow sports fanatic in Adam.

Our week

We haven't been the healthiest pair lately. Matt has been sick for about three weeks. And my (Elsa's) week in terms of health has been so ridiculous that I had to write a blog about it.

Let me tell you about it. I started off the week by going to the dentist because one of my fillings fell out. I left her office after finding out that I had six other cavities that need to be filled...yep, seven fillings. And two of these cavities required a "minor surgery" to cut a bit of my gums off for better access to the cavities. That was for you Jaime, Luke and Molly. So there is one part of the week...three dentist appointments, two fillings and more appointments and fillings to look forward to.

Then the day after the first dentist appointment I was walking to get some X-rays of my teeth (because you have to go to a different place to do that) when I fell and I fell bad. There was a part of the sidewalk where an uprooted tree buckled the concrete to about a 45 degree angle and it was also slippery for some reason and I fell hard...ending up downhill and barely able to walk at first. So that gave me a limp for a couple days. Plus it's hard to drive a stick when your knee is killing you.

Then about three days ago I caught this awful cold. And the day after that I was stomach sick with extreme pain in my stomach as well as other unpleasant symptoms. After two sleepless nights and great pain, I went to the clinic today and it turns out that this cold is so bad that it is putting bacteria in my stomach as well...at least the two are related, right? Now I've got some medicine and Matt is doing better and better. But I realized that I have had 7 different shots this week, some Novocaine and some not, and about the same amount of doctors/dentists and nurses checking me out. So that's what we've been up to this week...except for the fact that we were working too. At least we are sick this week and not next...when Jeff, Matt's brother, comes.

Our two newest little ones...

We welcomed two new little boys in our Villa Israel orphanage last week. They are brothers who are 6 and 2 1/2 and their names are Elian and Franz. Their mother died in an epileptic episode and their father drinks too much to take care of them. Right now they are fighting some sickness because Franz came into the home with a bad infection on his arm and stomach, a respiratory problem and both boys are malnourished. All of their health problems are being treated and they will hopefully be healthy soon. I imagine their bodies are also maybe reacting to this big adjustment. Another interesting thing is that both of them grew up learning the language Quechua so they don't speak Spanish just yet but are already learning. I didn't really take very good pictures of them yet but here are a few...

Here is Adrian helping out Elian on a drawing.

Here is Anita holding her new little brother Franz.

And here is little Franz again.

It has been interesting to see the process of new children coming to one of our homes. The first day they were there Elian was really resistant to the other kids and tended to walk off by himself. And Franz was crying a lot the first day and would get really sad when he was set down to be by himself. But each day we see them they seem a little happier and a little more adjusted. Our hope is that they will soon feel like they are at home.

VBS...Bolivian style

Right now in Bolivia it is winter and the kids are just ending their winter break. Everyone here is always talking about how "cold" it is here. This funny for us because we're not sure you can really call a place cold when you have your windows down driving on the coldest days of the year. Anyway, we decided to do something fun for the kids while they had some school off. So last week we had vacation bible school for the kids in one of the homes. The theme of the week was obedience to God and your parents. We told the stories of Noah and Jonah to help with showing how obedience makes God happy. The VBS went very well and we think the kids had a lot of fun. Everyone on our team participated and it was great to have everyone involved.

We played games...

some more games...

and more...

we had some snacks...

had puppet shows to tell bible stories...

helped them to memorize bible verses...

Who wants to do a craft?

did some crafts...

On this day we had the kids make a book for their parents. On each page there was one thing that each would do to help their parents at home. This is Roberto's and it says that he will help wash the plates and give food to the dog. And he drew pictures of cleaning dishes and of him feeding the dog. I thought it was very sweet.

Erland at the beginning of one afternoon...

and then at the end. I think we effectively wore him out.

Fourth of July

Happy 4th everyone! Meanwhile, it's just another day in Bolivia which makes me realize that celebrating the 4th is only fun if your blasting that one 4th of July song down at the breakfast club and waving those little American flags. And of course Land'O'Lakes! Oh well.