Pics from around Cocha

Our awesoeme teachers had a little lunch for us on our last day of class!




John, Jenny, Drew, Ann, Katie, Danelle, and us at Las Islas. An area in the middle of town with lots of food stalls and cheap street grills. It was actually really good! We had burritos, burgers, fried yucca, and cow heart.



Joe chowin' down on some anticuchos (cow heart)!!



Julie and I on a hill overlooking the city of Cochabamba. We were pretty blown away by how gorgeous this city is!



In the middle of the city, there is a 34-ft statue of Christ overlooking the city from atop a big hill. You can see it from pretty much anywhere in the city.



Happy Birthday Julie!!! We had a great day on Julie's bday. We woke up and had eggs for breakfast (a nice break from bread), went to a class, than had an awesome cookout with our friends John, Jenny, and all their roommates! Later we went out to celebrate, and our Bolivian madre even cooked Julie's favorite bolivian foods.

Irresistible Revolution

So maybe I am a few years behind the Christian literature (I think it was published in 2001) but gosh…I just finished reading Irrestistible Revolution and I simply can’t stop thinking about it and decided to share. It was hard and made me stop and think a lot about how I am living and where and how we will live once our Latin American journey is over. Shane Claiborne talks about our necessity, as Christians, for community and relates this to the old church. They lived together, amongst the poor, in one community. In the early church, people would fast until there was enough food for everyone to eat together. To save food or stuff yourself while other are hungry is like a silent murder. “A biological father builds a mansion while his kids go hungry-he would be institutionalized or jailed. How much more preposterous should this be in our family or rebirth in which we’ve been given new eyes to see others as brothers and sisters,” says Claiborne (refer to 2 Corinthians 5:16-21). Jesus, of course, was the prime example of living within the poor-Jesus was poor! He didn’t have a house or a place to lay his head every night. He didn’t have a 9-5 job with good benefits…so why do we worry so much about this? We were never promised to live comfortably or safely when living for the Lord in terms of materials-but living our lives for the Kingdom is worth it!

Why in the “God blessed America” ideal are we taught to save our money and be wise in which stock option we choose? Who knows what tomorrow might bring right-this is something I am struggling with big time as far as what to invest prayerfully verses giving everything away and completely trusting the Lord for my needs). Jesus clearly states in Matthew 6, “Therefore I tell you¸do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Why then am I so compelled to save? For my own comfort, indulgence, etc-to buy another pair of earrings because I am bored with the last ones I have? To be able to go out to that nice restaurant with my friends and have fellowship this weekend? Go on that nice vacation (we work hard right so we inheritanly deserve it)? To retire early and/or comfortably?

America in its prosperity and wealth is so lonely! We don’t know our neighbors, are too busy to serve in our communities, but think we have the “American dream.” I urge you to be CRAZY…have a neighborhood block party, start a community garden, serve meal at the homeless shelter, and if you have kids do it with them too! And please know, I am preaching to myself too when I say these things!

He also made me stop and think about war which I won’t go much into but…he traveled to Iraq in the midst of America bombing the country as a peace-making missionary. He went to hospitals and held babies with pieces of metal throughout their bodies from the bombs, went to birthday parties for Iraqi children while bombs were going off miles away, and went to Bible studies and church services to pray over the war. The parents of these children asked him, “What did we do to your country?” and stated, “If this is democracy we do not want it!” We are training people to fight and kill other people outside of our borders who cry, run, and smile the exact same way we do and then arrest murders while inside our border when they kill one of our citizens. Are we saying our lives as Americans are more important than our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world?

Anyways, I urge you to pick this book up. It’s a pretty easy read but definetly thought provoking and a search for the authentic church. Joe and I are struggling on how to incorportate this into our lives and community and what this will look like on a day-to-day basis. We’ve had the blessing to live among the poor but now have a responsibility from this knowledge. No actions would be a sin as well as denying what God has revealed to us here. This book has helped in identifying examples of how to this out and how to live in community, simply, and lovingly.

Even if you think some of Shane Claiborne's ideas are a little "out there" but WELL WORTH your thoughts and time.

Mother Teressa-“We can do not great things, only small things with great love.”

Miss you guys!
Julie (and Joe)

Lago Titicaca

Pics from La Paz

Hello friends andf family!

We are still here in Cochabamba and LOVING our classes! Well most of them…this is the first time that we both have switched teachers every hour which we were a bit nervous about just because teachers can be a bit chatty with surface things rather than teach which equals a lot of potential wasted time. We have each teacher for an hour at a time but the change has been great for most of the teachers. There are 2 teachers who ROCK!!! The best teachers ever seriously (besides Joe of course!). And then the others are not so great…good people just not the best teachers and challengers. But we have the good ones for half the day usually so its been wonderful! It’s also a Christian school so that has been incredible to talk about faith, ministry, etc with our teachers. We are going to a Communion Service tomorrow at one of our teacher’s house where Joe is leading a prayer and then Saturday, pastor Joe is preaching…in espanol! They love Joe and the fact that he sounds like he’s lived here all of his life!

For the past couple of days we have been hanging out with Johnny and Jennifer Kilmartin. “Johnny K” was Joe’s Young Life leader in high school and he and Jenny are down here for 2 years teaching at an American school. The kids actually graduate with an American and Bolivian diploma. They are an AWESOME couple!!! And…they are living with a couple, who also teaches at the school, from….CHATTANOOGA!!! Small world! It’s been fun to hang out with like-minded people, speak some good ole English, and have a bit of community with them. We have the next week or so planned with hiking, going to markets, having cookouts, and relating to each other on what the Lord has taught all of us on our journeys to Latin America.

Last weekend, we took off to La Paz for one night and Copacabana for 2. We were warned of the altitiude of La Paz (elevation >12,000ish ft) and one of our fellow students puked the whole weekend because he had altitude sickness but we didn’t have much effect from it. We did have some whacked out dreams which we later found out was in response to the alitutude…that made us feel better! We shopped in the artesians market a bit Saturday morning in La Paz and ate a good lunch and then hopped on a bus to Copa. The trip there was beautiful! The Andes mountains were in the background the entirety and small mud house villages in the foreground. The indigenious women wear a different outfit than other places we have been (I will post pics) with a funny looking hat that sits straight on top of their head. In Copa, we had some great trout (although fresh, we definitely saw the tiny hatcheries where they were farmed) and took a trip to a few of the nearby islands. We took a ton of pics with the new camera (thanks mom!!!) and think we finally figured it out-it’s been really fun to act like a real photographer! Joe and I both got kinda obessed with the alpaca souvenirs and ended up buying alpaca wool sweaters for $8! They are AWESOME!!!
Anyways, that is our story for now! Our hearts and prayers are with the people of Hiati and for those of you who have worked among and befriended them. Please let us know if we can do anything besides pray for God’s glory to be shown through this catasrophy.
We love you!
The Kidds

Cocha, Cocha, Cochabamba

Well we arrived safe and sound last weekend after a long haul...4 countries, 2 days, and not a lot of food! We spent the night in the Lima airport which actually was quite nice. We slept till 8:30ish on the chairs in one of the gates. At one point, I heard the announcements for a plane boarding from the gate we were in and saw a bunch of people and then fell right back to sleep. I'm sure those people thought we were crazy Gringo's sleeping on the chairs in the airport. We arrived in Santa Cruz where the Masseys picked us up and took us to the mission base. They are AWESOME!!! They have 3 kids Ty, Sam, and Georgia who are great! We stayed at the base Friday night and Saturday they had organized a little welcome party for us with all the SAM (South America Missions) missionaries. The team is great and quite large! It was wonderful to meet them all but right after the party we packed our bags and took a 10 hour bus to Cochabamba for 3 weeks of language school. Joe's Young Life leader, Johnny Kilmartin and his wife Jennifer, live in Cochabamba teaching English in a school here and recommended a language school to us. We have been here in Cochabama for 5 days and it's great! The climate is PERFECT and we love our school! We are living with a lady named Carmen (Dona Carmen) who was a biochemist but now is retired. She is super nice and the house is pretty cozy. We quickly learned a hard custom of Bolivia and have had to adjust our schedules. Typically, Bolivians eat breakfast (with instant coffee) as we do, then eat a HUGE lunch around 2pm, and then only eat bread and drink tea for dinner. We have been a bit hungry at night but have found places to get light snacks before going home to eat bread and tea with our family! We visited a hosptial yesterday and both were astonished at how NICE and CLEAN it was! There were no stray dogs or cats anywhere...a little different than the hospital in Granada! We might be volunteering a few days a week there or another clinic while here in Cochabamba.

Johnny and Jennifer have been in the States for the Holidays so we have not seen them yet but they arrive here this weekend. We are pumped to hang out with them and see what their lives look like here in Cochabama. We are surrounded by gorgeous, gigantic mountains so hope to explore the many parks with the Kilmartins when they return. The city itself is a mile higher than Charlottesville and we have seen a few affects...we went running the first day here and after 5 minutes, Joe said he heard my heart beating is was working so hard! I was DYING!!! Day by day we have increased our minutes of running-we are up to 20 minutes!!! A big goal I know! We are headed to La Paz this weekend and a lot of people get altitude sickness pretty badly so we are hoping for no vomit! Anyways, we are alive and safe and will update you soon!
Love you and miss you all!
Julie and Joe

Off again!

Well we are sitting at the airport in DC (we did get the right airport this time) waiting for our 24 hour journey over to Bolivia. We have had a wonderful time in Chattanooga, Birmingham, Broadway, and Charlottesville visiting friends and family. From night skiing in about 18 degrees one night, to watching Brandon and Nicole canoe down the river with 2 ft of snow on the ground, to Christmas parties, playing with neices and nephews, homemade food and Christmas treats, caroling with our traditionally pots and pans, to having a variety of clean clothes to choice from everyday, clean beds without bed bugs, it was awesome to be at home!It was honestly a bit hard coming from Nicaragua where the people did not know where their food was going to come from each day to hopping right into the middle of Christmas here in the States. At first I was repulsed but sad to say, I quickly turned back to the materialistic side of Christmas and was out shopping and buying gifts without thinking twice. I have to admit it scares me how quickly I forgot about what we saw down south, as far as materials, or lack there of, and jumped back into life in America at Christmas. All that to say, we are pumped to be able to go back down and serve and are really excited about being stationary for the entirity of the trip. Our home base will be Santa Cruz, Bolivia but the first 3 weeks we will travel to Cochabamba for language school where we'll live with a Bolivian family and volunteer in a clinic. The remainder of the time will be spent in Santa Cruz with the team from South America Missions. The Masseys are the family from Trinity that we are hooking up with. They have been so encouraging to Joe and I via email and we can't wait to get to know them and serve with them. Please pray for our long travels today and that we can easily transition back in life in Latin America...and for my Spanish skills! We love you and it was great to see you all!