Navidad en Bolivia 2009

Christmas is just a couple months away and our friend and former co-worker Adrian Nickols has a special desire to see that children in Bolivia have a wonderful Christmas. His goal is to provide Bolivian children with individual Christmas gifts as well as provide Bolivian ministries with some practical needs. Last year he raised over $3000 for Christmas gifts and practical needs for various ministries in Bolivia. Well, he is doing it again and this year there are many more sponsorships and the project will attempt to raise over $8000 for practical needs and Christmas gifts for 7 God-focused ministries in Bolivia and our ministry is one of the sponsored ministries! The project is called "Navidad en Bolivia 2009" (Christmas in Bolivia) and Adrian has put together a great website explaining the purpose and goals of the project.

Check it out at...
www.navidadenbolivia.info

You can find our ministry sponsorships under "The List" category in the section "Group Gifts: El Centro de Amistad". There are various amounts you can choose to help provide for our Christmas party or to help provide for an internet connection at the Center. The party is expected to have around 100 children and 50 or 60 parents of the children. We hope to provide a gift for each child as well as food, decorations and costumes for a Christmas play. The internet connection will be primarily to help children with their homework in the library at the Center. There are many other sponsorships as well including the ministry we worked with last year called "Zona Frutillar" on the website. And the other ministries are also wonderful...sponsor them all!

If you want to contribute to this project and make a donation towards a gift you can either request the sponsorship you would like from the website or you can email us (mattandelsa@gmail.com). If you would like to do it from the website just put our names in the "referral" field. Since Adrian lives in Australia he has organized a US contact who lives in Texas named Kristen Polcyn, who is also a former co-worker of ours. Once you let us or Adrian (through the website) know what you want to sponsor then we will get Kristen's information to you to send her a check. Kristen is coming to Bolivia shortly and will bring what she has received up to that point and then there will be an alternative way of receiving money after she comes to Bolivia.

Some kids from the Center that would be receiving these gifts.

When my family was here visiting Linnea brought supplies to do the stained-glass cross project that she does with her kids at preschool. She brought enough supplies for all the kids at the Center do do it but the girls in my class loved it so much that we used up all the supplies ourselves. I could never have guessed how much fun the girls would have doing this project. Each girl made at least 3 or 4 up to 6 or 7 crosses each and we kept going til all the contact paper was gone. Most of them ended up going home with the girls but we also kept some at the Center and above are the finished products. Thanks for bring the supplies, Linnea!

We recently took the kids from the Center on a "paseo" to a water park. Except calling it a water park isn't really accurate as it is really just a park that also has a pool. But if there is one thing Bolivians know how to do it's making big, fun parks for kids, right Eric?

As it's getting colder in the States it's getting warmer here so it was the perfect time to go. The kids had tons of fun especially cause it was a very special activity that most of them would not have a chance to do otherwise.

Sunday was my favorite holiday in Cochabamba. There were no cars to be found as it was "pedestrian day"...well, there were a few rule-breakers. It's a day where no driving is allowed and everyone walks and bikes around. From my understanding it is actually an attempt to be environmentally friendly for a day and it's fun to see the city in a new light for this day. It is very strange to hear no car noises and so very odd to be walking down streets that are usually filled with traffic. Maybe Matt and I will spearhead a pedestrian day in Chicago...who's gonna join us?

This is usually one of the busiest streets...it's kinda like walking down Michigan Ave with no cars.

And this is one of the busier rotundas.

Last week was also our 3rd wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful day and we still can't believe it has already been three years. What's even weirder is that we have been in Bolivia for about half of that time...whoa, time flies.

Here we are on our anniversary right before we went to dinner...
this is the only picture we took that day.

And some of the beautiful flowers Matt gave me...

Wallgrens in Bolivia

My parents, Linnea and Eric were able to come for a visit to Bolivia and it was so fun having them...although we did miss Greta and Scott, Cam and the girls...you know, the rest of the family. Anyway, we were able to meet them in La Paz and go for a few days to Copacabana which is a town on Lake Titicaca. It was so beautiful there even though it was cold. We also spent one of the days there on Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) where there are some Incan ruins. This island was very important to the Incas because they believed it was where the sun was born.

After this little trip we all went back to Cochabamba together. We showed them our ministry and our city. I think we packed a lot into the time they were here but we also had some down time too. All in all, it was great not only being able to see family but to bring our two worlds together. Thanks for coming!!! We hope you had a good time!

Some pics from the week...

We had a little bit of time in La Paz. This is at a park there that has a
great view of the city and of the mountains.

Eric was attacked by a mosaic alligator.

We fed some pigeons and they kept landing on Linnea.

This was on the way to Copacabana. We took a bus and there was one part of the ride where we had to get off the bus to go across some water. The bus went on this ferry...

And we went on a smaller boat.

On the other side some guys were loading up these bulls and we were taking
pictures when they started yelling, "Move back!" Dad almost got mauled.

This was in Copacabana. This small city is a pilgrimage city for many Catholics. When they come they get everything blessed by the priests...including cars. The guy in the robe on the right was blessing this car with holy water, inside and out. There were so many people waiting to get their cars blessed that there was a traffic jam.

We hiked up a hill that gave us an awesome view of the city and the lake.
This is almost at the top...you can see the city behind us.

The way up was marked with the stations of the cross and there were a bunch at the top too.

At the top. I wanted it to look like I was about to fall which wasn't that far from the truth because if this rock fell then that was it...little nerve racking.

Copacabana from the top of the hill.

The next day we went to Isla del Sol in a boat just like this.

The boat ride was freezing...

but Mom was tough in her flip-flops next to everyone else that
looked like they were ready to climb Mt. Everest.

On the island in one of the museums. Linnea and I took this cause we just felt
like we had never been given the opportunity to be so close to an actual human skull.

Lake Titicaca on Isla del Sol

Hiking to the ruins

This was a spring that the Incas considered holy water. We all washed our faces with it which was apparently the thing to do with this Incan holy water. Our guide, Jaime, told us that we were supposed to think of our deepest wishes while doing it. Our collective deepest wish was to make the boat in time because it seemed like he lacked concern with how close we were getting to the only departure and the fact that everyone else was on their way back to the boat.
Our wish came true...we made it back in time.

These were some of the ruins called the Sunset gate, I think, because you can see the sun set through the last small hole. While we were standing in here Jaime told us about some of the concepts that were key to the Incan community like "half for me today and half for you tomorrow". It was interesting to learn more about the Incans and to realize how much they strove to work in harmony with nature and not destroy it. I think we can learn from some of their values of selflessness and respect of nature.

Sitting and waving

A girl with her llama. This was on the other side of the island.

The Incan gardens

When we got back we watched the sun set from our hotel.

This was in the Botanic gardens in Cochabamba.

View of the Cristo from the Botanic gardens.

The other day it was cold and rainy which was so odd cause its dry season right now and it hasn't rained in months. After it rained all the mountains surrounding us were covered in snow and it was beautiful...and I realized that we have a direct view of Mount Tunari from our backyard...don't know how I missed that all this time.

This is just a building close to our house and you can see some mountains in the background.

This is the view from our backyard. One of the two peaks there is Mount Tunari. Its the one on the right because its slighly higher...and we climbed to the top of it last year.

Closer-up

And these pictures are for you, Christine. They are of the girls making bracelets and necklaces with the beads you brought. They loved it! We used the beads for a week everyday because they kept going and going til they were all gone. And everyday they would fight about who got to use what and so I had to remind them that they were a gift from you and you would want them all the share.

Working hard

Brenda working and being a goofy as usual.

Leny with her finished necklace.

Isabel being a little camera shy...but look at those bracelets.

Me and Brenda