Because life here would just be too perfect if it weren't for snakes...

It’s hard to believe the school year is almost over. Classes end this Friday, and most of the kids will go home soon thereafter, just in time for Thanksgiving.

We’re already celebrated with a few thanksgivings recently as God provided for our needs in the knick of time, again. At breakfast last Tuesday, the directors announced that we were down to our last meal and didn’t have the money to buy food for the week and asked the students to join us in prayer. A few hours later the needed money arrived. Another morning a few months ago the kitchen had served its last when the parents of one of the students showed up unexpectedly with a large donation of food. This week again, the money came just in time. I think God likes testing us. It’s times like these when you wish you were a quick study.

Just as I was getting ready to come to town this morning, Yerco, one of the primary school kids, arrived late to school on his bicycle, sweating and distraught. “Me picó una vibora” he announced, much calmer than one would expect for someone with that kind of news.

“Where? When?” My mind immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario were I imagined us making a bed in the back of the truck, tourniqueting and elevating his leg and force-feeding him charcoal while bouncing to town at full speed…

“Just now in the entrance”

“Where in the entrance?” (It is over a kilometer long)

“At the corner” (Just a few minutes out). “Let me see” I ordered. He lifted his pant leg and pointed to his ankle. “Here?” I asked, pointing to two small red dots that looked like they could be fang marks, although they didn’t seem particularly fresh. He shook his head. “Lower.” I didn’t see anything, but some snakes have very small fangs and their bite marks can be very hard to see, but I was encouraged to see that his ankle wasn’t red or swollen.

“What did the snake look like?”

“It was yellow, and not real big.”

His pulse was normal and he wasn’t abnormally warm or cold, but he was limping and seemed to be in pain. Miss Susie put a charcoal poultice on his ankle and we brought him to the clinic in town just to be on the safe side. After the 40 minutes ride, he still showed no further symptoms, leaving us relieved and praising the Lord for his protection. What a lesson for me too, I couldn't help but think. There are always snakes in the road, trying to bite me and make me fall to my death. But God is good, and if I get up and keep in the road, God will provide my salvation.

At the clinic Yerco’s story was a bit more detailed and colorful. He said the serpent had latched onto his leg and he had fallen over with his bike and kicked it off. It was hard to tell if the story was simply growing with the audience or if he had just recovered from the scare enough to finally give the full version. The doctor wanted to keep him 24 hours for observation, so we went to his family’s house in town to let them know and they took it from there.

My next stop this morning was the immigration office to pick up my passport and carnet (the international ID card that is the last step of becoming a legal Bolivian resident), only to find out that there is a new police chief in Trinidad, and he wants the foreigners to go there in person to pick up our carnets. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that my flight home is the 23^rd and if my passport doesn’t get back in time, I’ll have to change my flight again. (Sound familiar?) The lady at immigration said she would call and try to work something out, so I’m going back this afternoon to see what she found out. In the meantime, God is helping me not to worry. I know it’s all in His hands.

Soul Maintenance

Rainy season is here, wide-open and roaring wet. I wish I could send you a recording of the thunder. Sometimes you hear nothing coming, and then suddenly the sky cracks directly above you, so loud it sounds like its falling on your head.

It’s hard to dry anything. Clothes are still moist when you take them off the line, and sheets are damp and sticky when you crawl in bed at night. Leather shoes scum over with mildew, and books molder on the shelves. But the weather has been cooler and more comfortable to work in.

The jungle growth-rate has shifted into maximum acceleration, and it takes a small army of machete wielding alumnos to keep it from taking over the place. I fear that when the kids leave, the school will go as wild they will. One nightmare variety of grass turns into a shrub if you let it grow too long between cuts. It develops an enormous sobre-terranean root-ball that is impossible to cut lower than a foot off the ground. The “stump” that remains has to be dug out with a pick and shovel. It takes lawn care to a whole new level. I find myself longing for the commercial John Deere ride-mowers and self-propelled Honda push-mowers of the Walla Walla Grounds Department, although the tractor with the brush hog or at least the flail mower would be a lot more practical for our situation.

Speaking of mowers, I started working on our solitary push mower this week, the one we haven’t used once yet because no one has had time to fix it’s clogged carburetor and watered-down oil since it arrived in July. Fortunately the cylinder and piston seem to be okay, there was no sign of rust. I think it’s going to work once it’s all back together. Reassembly will have to wait however, because a student helper twisted the head off of one of the bolts that secures the torque converter. (We were going to bring it in to town today, but kind of forgot about it with all the snakebite excitement.)

Cutting the grass so often really makes me think of soul maintenance. I’ve uncovered all kinds of discarded ugliness and a few treasures that have been hidden by the overgrowth: old rotten clothes, mango pits, trash, bricks, tools, and even a couple of spoons, a nearly complete archaeological record of life here at UETIRG. I’ve been surprised at the abundance of the heart of the jungle. As popular as it may be, letting things go natural is not the greatest idea. The closer the jungle comes to your house, the closer come the critters. I found a snake in my house two days ago, and Paeter recently almost stepped on a porcupine on his way back from a late-night jaunt to the bathroom. As the hillbilly buddies would say, “there be things that live in them there woods!” So keeping the bush cut back is not just a matter of keeping up appearances. Please pray for the kids as they leave for vacation that they will remember what they have learned this year and not just default back to harmful lifestyles and habits.

We’ve been busy planning for next school year while we try to wrap up this one. Enrollment is already up to 70 students, making it a necessity that we finish the new girl’s dorm and classrooms over the vacation. A group is supposed to arrive the 20^th of November to help with that. Tara has been working on the new class schedule for next year. Several volunteers are not returning, and combined with the increase of students, that makes planning a workable class schedule difficult. Right now I’m leaning toward coming back for another year. I would probably teach two sections of chime choir as well as help with voice choir and teach third and fourth year literature. Tara wants me to write up a literature/language arts curriculum, so if you know someone who would be good at helping me think through that one, let me know!

I’m still working on the school website when I can. You can check my minimal progress here for stories on the international food fair, recent outreach projects, and other news. I’ve been slow about the updates… uploading pictures is a real hassle with the slow internet connection.)

I pray for God speed and thorough sanctification and the soon coming of our Lord and Savior. Blessings

A poem I wrote after doing laundry in the creek...

Sanctification:

Hip deep in murk, in water over muck
I stretch my off-white, splotched-brown
pants across the scrub-board bridge
between the jungle bank and home.
Suds and soil mingle in the cleaning
toil of the bristle brush breaking
down cloth and widening
my underdrawers from waist to crotch.

After hours of wringing
sheets and towels and scrubbing
collars, I get out
like an old man
and leave the blue bar of jabon
to glue itself down...
The wrinkles of my dirty
shirt have gone inside my fingertips.
I am my own
sock: a little cleaner and longer,
yet left wrung and wrong-
side-out and hung up
to dry and fade stiff.

Oh, to be Christ's sock!
I can only wait the coming
take-down and the hard-
heeled foot that will break
my crust and make me
worn and fit again.

"The Best Days of My Life"

On my way to my house I passed Javier. “How’s it going?” I asked.

“Whew, teacher” he whistled through his teeth. “We’re supposed to be making tortillas in the kitchen, and Brayan and I don’t know how, and Ruth got there late, and there’s not enough firewood” (We gather and cut our own wood for the kitchen fires, and it’s amazing how much wood you burn to cook ten kilos of potatoes, fry 240 tortillas, and boil four gallons of aupi.)

“Oh wow,” I responded. “I’m no expert at making tortillas, but maybe I can come help you out in a little bit.” Why did I just say that? I immediately thought. I have too much to do! I don’t have time to go work in the kitchen all afternoon!

I went to my house and started working on my long list of things I wanted to get done, and promptly forgot about my promise—for about 15 minutes.

You should go up and help in the kitchen. The thought reoccurred to me.

Nah, they don’t need help. They’ll be fine. I need to prepare for class tomorrow.

-->

Dude, what did you come here for anyway? Do you think that your piddly translations of literary and linguistic knowledge are really going to make a difference and give these kids the edge on life? Leave it and go help in the kitchen why don’t you?

So, I left my work and went to the kitchen where I peeled and sliced the cucumbers and tomatoes to make the salad that the slacking morning crew was supposed to have prepared and served for lunch. I didn’t realize how dirty the cucumbers were until I went to wash my hands afterward and noticed what looked like dead skin peeling off of my fingers. “Wow,” I said “I’ve never peeled caustic cucumbers like this before! They ate the skin right off my hands!” The kids laughed at me and told me it was just dirt, and I felt stupid. Yet how many times have I been such an idiot, with sin such a part of me that I think I’m losing my skin when God starts to rub off my grunge?

The kids seemed really grateful for my help, and they seemed more friendly, talkative, and open to listen. Nothing huge, but sometimes small things like that can be really encouraging.

Speaking of encouraging, we just finished a fortnight-length marathon week of prayer and spiritual emphasis. I spoke twice for the evening meetings. I felt so unprepared and unorganized, as I didn’t have the time to really prepare everything ahead of time, but God helped me find the words somehow, although I’m pretty sure I didn’t put them in the right order. I felt so scattered.

At the end of the first week we had a communion service and on Sabbath the pastor came and spoke for church and baptized five of our students who have made a commitment to follow Christ: Barbara, Roly, Rodolpho, Rosalia, and Erika.

The third year students went to visit the nursing home and assisted in caring for the residents this last week for their outreach project. They’ve been learning some basic care skills in health class, and this week they’ve been practicing on each other and the staff, feeding each other, putting on socks and shoes, brushing teeth, shaving, and combing hair.

The kids were excited when they came back and shared their experiences. Alcides, one of our third-year boys and leaders on campus said “Let’s pray for the ancients.”One line from his prayer still sticks with me and makes me smile every time I remember it: “Thank you Lord for the opportunity to be here and for the gift of service, and for what has been, for my part, the best days of my life.”

May the Lord bless each one of you and may today be one of the best days of your life. :)

A Wimp's Wakeup Call

“Day off” usually means a two-kilometer walk to the end of our driveway followed by a wait for the flota or some form of mobilidad to stop and give us a lift into town where we make photocopies for classes and buy fruit, groceries, and other necessities including some internet time. On this particular day Kaila and I got a late start on our walk to the entrance and missed the 8:30 bus. Nothing else was passing, so we sat and waited, and I took the opportunity to continue reading the book of Jeremiah. About 9:20 the next bus came along. As I boarded, I noticed the following prayer plastered across the windshield:

“Guíame en el buen camino, oh Dios.” Guide me in the good path, oh Lord.”

Oh, isn’t that beautiful, I thought, appreciating especially the absence of the typical and inappropriate stickers and posters that usually cover public transits, where the scantily clad babes you see next to the Virgin Marys are not the Baby Jesus!

I sat down happily in an empty seat next to a young man and continued reading Jeremiah chapter three. After about half a chapter, I tired of trying to focus the blurred and vibrating words as we rattled down the washboard road. I put the book down and begin to look around me. The young man in the seat next to me with the dragon embroidered jean shorts…the plump young mother two rows up nursing her baby… the bent and withered man at the front, sitting on his canvas sack of yucca that he would later sell in the market… What were they all thinking about right now? How much pain and suffering was represented by the cross-section of humanity before me? I suddenly felt an overwhelming burden to share with them something better.

I started to fantasize about standing up and walking to the front of the bus where I would say in a strong voice that everyone could hear: “How many of you noticed the slogan on the windshield of this bus? How many of you know what God’s good path is?” And then I would teach them about the law of God and the importance of repentance and the miracle of a new heart enabled by the grace of God to walk in purity and obedience.

This is weird I thought. Why am I thinking like this? Is God trying to tell me something?

Why don’t you really do it? Why not? This could be the only chance some of these people will ever have, and here you sit, you who have been blessed with so much, and you sit here with your mouth shut, hoarding the goodness of God. What if this is the closest some of them will ever be to the truth and you did nothing?

But they’ll think I’m crazy! My self screamed at me.

Hey, the other voice said. Just last Sabbath you were telling your students how they should speak up when we go visit people in Yata! You should not be ashamed to share the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God until salvation! You hypocrite!

Ouch.

It’s just a feeling! How do I know this is not just some crazy fancy passing through my head? Four reasons immediately came to mind: First, it was uncomfortable. I typically don’t spontaneously invent uncomfortable. Second, it was perfectly in accordance with Scripture and with our Christian Commission. Third, I felt ashamed for not having the guts to do it. And finally, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.

Why don’t you just take control of me if you really want me to do it? I argued. Please just make me get up and start talking… If you really want me to do it, just take control of me and make me so I can’t help myself! Make me like Jeremiah with your word burning in my bones so I have to speak to keep from bursting into flames!

You fool, the other side of me seemed to say. How can you expect God to give you the strength you need when you won’t lift a finger, let alone your hind end from the seat in an effort to do what you know full well is your express duty as a servant of the King?

Still, I couldn’t make myself move. For 15 kilometers, the dialogue raged in my head. Why don’t you ask Kaila? She would be a lot better for the job. Spanish is her native tongue!

Do you think God doesn’t know that? If He wanted her to do it, He wouldn’t be asking you! ¡Debilucho que eres! Just do it!

I can’t! Lord, forgive me for my weakness and lack of faith, but please be patient! Couldn’t you give me a sign or something? I don’t have a fleece, but if you stop the bus I’ll know I’m supposed to say something. We’re getting close to town now, and there won’t be time otherwise. Besides, that wouldn’t be hard for you! (As if that justified my petition. It was more like blaming God by way of comparison!) Just flick a tire with your finger, evaporate the gas out of our tank, or drop a bead of your sweat in the policeman’s coffee at the tranca so he’ll be in a foul mood and detain the bus for awhile. Anything!

Nothing.

Lord, forgive me, but could I have some kind of sign? Jonah ran away from his calling, and you sent him back to his job in a whale’s belly. Have patience with me!

We passed the tranca.

I wish I could say I eventually gave in, that I stood up and gave a stirring discourse on how to get started going down God’s Good Road. Instead, I am the one who learned a lesson: I am a spiritual wimp in need of some serious spiritual workout. What makes me think I’ll have the courage to stand before the wrath of nations and defend the honor of my King when I can’t even stand up on a bus and tell a few travelers that my God is amazing, that He wants to guide them in His path, take away their sins, and lead them to glory? Where is my boldness and zeal to share the Word of God? What kind of soldier am I that I would choose to protect my own pride and ego over the interests of my King? Why is it so easy to be a whitewashed sepulcher, to lack Devine power, to have a gutless, Ford Mustang godliness?

At least now I know something more I need to pray for. And fortunately, our God is a God of patience and opportunities. After making my purchases in the market, I was walking to the internet café when a sidewalk clothes vendor called to me.

“Hey, where are you from?”

Usually I probably wouldn’t even have noticed, but this time I stopped and answered.

“I’m from the U.S., but right now I’m from the internado at kilometer 30. It’s a collegio with a Christian emphasis. Do you know the place?”

“There’s a school out there?” she was surprised. “I didn’t know that! What denomination runs it?”

“Well, that’s a little complicated to explain. All of the volunteers at the school are Adventists, but the church does not officially sponsor us. That doesn’t mean they don’t approve of what we’re doing, it’s just they don’t have the money or aren’t willing to help with this particular project, although the local church here really supports what we’re doing.”

“Oh, okay” she said. “That’s good. I’m familiar with the Adventists.”

“Are you a Christian?” I asked.

“Catholic. I know what you teach about the Sabbath, but there’s no way I could close my shop because that’s the day when I get the most business!”

Wow, here you go you wimp, I told myself. Here’s another chance to share what God has blessed you with!

“That must seem hard,” I said, “But you know God is always faithful to take care of us when we obey His commandments, I have so many stories…”

“Hey, you speak really good Spanish” she abruptly changed the subject, and I thought of the Samaritan woman at the well and wished I could be as good as Jesus at casually inserting another truth into the conversation.

We continued to chat until we were interrupted by the arrival of another customer, but not before she said: “Now that I know there’s a school there, I’ll have to stop by and visit it sometime. I have some daughters who are high-school age.”

I hope she makes good on that promise, and if not, I know where her shop is! Her name is Elsa, and I think she is another one of the many people out there longing for something better.

May the Lord grow and strengthen us more every day to be His fearless ambassadors to a world withering under the curse of the Enemy.

Lighting, Lightning, and Sharing the Light of the World

I’m currently at my desk in the two-room hut, typing this up so I won’t have to waste two hour’s of internet funds on work that I can do right now to the tune of the blessed mosquitoes singing lustily in my ears despite the wisping smoke from two flanking Baygon coils. I even paperclipped one coil to my John Deer hat. I feel as fearsome as Captain Blackbeard himself, but the mosquitoes remain unimpressed, except for the three that made the mistake of backlighting themselves in front of my computer screen—they’ve been thoroughly impressed — into print on my palms! Touché.

Actually, the fact that I still have light at this hour, as well as power for my consumadora and its half-an-hour battery, is thanks to a recent upgrade to our electrical system. Last week, Clint and Ruan hooked up four massive 700 amp, twelve-volt batteries, the type that are used to back up cell phone service providers. They come in six, two-volt cells inside a metal box, and we have them connected in pairs. It takes the generator four to six hours to charge them completely when they are dead. Fully charged, the batteries supply our power needs for two to three days.

To save on generator fuel, Clint asked Noel, Max, Joaquín and me to move the solar panels from the old system and hook them up to the new batteries. The solar panels were all wired together on top of several four-meter posts. Rather than unwire all of them and take them down one at a time, I borrowed Ruan’s climbing rope, tied the panels in three loops, and passed the rope over the peak of a nearby roof. One of the boys held the rope while the rest of us cut the support posts and lowered the whole shebang in one “fell swoop.” Getting them up to their new home atop a fragile fiberglass roof was not so easy, however. We had them hoisted halfway up when we almost lost them due to a miscommunication with the rope handler on the other side of the building. Thankfully, we regained control of our expensive burden, and now everything is hooked up and functioning for the time being.

Speaking of all things electrical, last week I witnessed the most intense thunderless lightning storm that I have ever seen, according to my following journal entry dated 9/18:

Every three seconds all horizons flash, 360 degrees of electric sky, and the buzzing insects provide the only sound effects… 40 minutes, and no sign of letting up. If I didn’t know better, I’d say God has opened a discothèque! Instead, I’d say He’s just playing with the light switches, or having an all-night photo shoot so He can archive a face-book directory of all the angels.

At any rate, the bugs are really getting into it. I can see the fireflies and luciernagas, the moths like roadside reflectors of passing trucks, insects going berserk, as if there has been some emergency. The crickets all have their sirens on. The big lights say there’s been a traffic accident on Saturn, but all units are already out on a high-speed chase just south of the Milky Way.

Fortunately we have had a little rain and cooler weather along with all the lightning, and the air is a bit cleaner now. The neighbors have all been burning their chacos, the trees and brush that they cut in order to plant rice and yucca, and the air is so full of smoke at times that it makes your throat go sore, the sun set red and deep, and the moon rise bright as a tangerine.

We’re still cutting our own chaco. I like to think I am gaining some modest skill with the machete, though my accuracy is still lacking. For some reason it is very satisfying to fell a two-inch tree with a single stroke.

It is incredible how much you sweat out there. You know you’ve sweat a lot when your clothes cling to your body and insects drown in your runoff. The worst is that the flies and hornets love the salty syrup of sweat. I’ve learned to look before I swat.

Despite all that drama, things have settled down here you might say, making room for new problems! But the beautiful thing about problems is they keep you busy praying and trusting in God.

There has been a lot of sickness lately. Right now there are six students down with aches and fever. The good news is that the malaria tests all came back negative this time. We’ve had no new cases since the last outbreak I mentioned. Only, Mamerto Zapani, one of our staff members, contracted malaria shortly after leaving to visit his deathly ill father. He returned yesterday, and though weak, seems to be recovering.

Other than that, Alcides, one of our third year boys had what we think was dengue, or broke-back fever, another mosquito-bourn nicety. I had it when I was here in 2006 and I can vouch for the appropriateness of the nickname. The good news is that you can only get it once. The bad news is, you only have one back, and there are four different kinds of dengue. Also, the antibodies from one type sometimes react with those from another, causing more mayhem.

Last week, Barbara, one of our freshmen, was having terrible stomach pain that did not respond to medicine. The initial diagnosis was gallstones, and the doctors wanted to operate. We were reticent to let them do the operation, however, because of their limited resources and experience. (When Kaila Valenzuela Flores, one of our volunteers, injured her knees in a motorcycle accident this last spring, (you can read the story in the July archives of Ruan and Tara's blog) they sewed her up without cleaning her wounds sufficiently and she got a terrible infection.) The pain got so bad however, that we went ahead and let the doctors operate. They ended up taking out her appendix. She is back at the school now, and already able to walk without assistance, gracias a Dios.

This last week was week of mission emphasis. Every night we shared slide shows, videos, and stories from missionaries around the world. Some of the stories made our problems here look like nothing. I realized how little I have really sacrificed to the cause of God. The students were encouraged and inspired as well. Limbert, one of our sophomore boys, really wants to go to the Philippines.

Speaking of mission service, every Sabbath afternoon we visit the people in Yata and sing, pray, and study the Bible with them. It’s really a neat experience for the kids, as well as a great way to reach out to the community. During the week, the students also do clinicals and other community service projects.

This week, Juan and Juana, the couple that my group usually studies with, wasn’t home, so we went wandering to see who else we could visit. First we stopped at the neighbors, a house the kids have never gone to. The inhabitants weren’t too excited about our company, and took about five minutes to drag themselves out of the house, and then only the señor would sit and visit. But in the end he let us sing him a song and have a prayer with him, and I have a suspicion he liked it more than he had expected, because he told us we could come back any time.

The next person we visited was an older gentleman named Humberto. He was thrilled to have the company, mainly, it seemed, to have someone to talk to, although when we sang to him I was afraid he was going to break his face smiling. We shared a few Bible texts, and then asked him if he had any prayer requests, or anything we could help him with. He told us that all his family has passed away and he only has one friend who comes to visit him. Also, his house burned down recently, and he’s been having stomach problems that left him incapacitated for weeks. “This guy’s worse off than Job,” I thought.

“More than anything, I’m lonely” he said. “I’ve seen your groups visiting other houses, and every week I’m like a dog trailing along behind, hoping to be noticed, but it seems like they never want to come.”

The kids were visibly affected by this revelation, and promised to return every week.

“There was a missionary girl from Columbia from your school who used to visit me, a very nice young lady, but she stopped coming and I didn’t know what happened. She promised to bring me a Bible, but she never did.” Humberto continued.

I recently bought a Spanish Bible here, and I don’t know why I didn’t think to give it to him on the spot, but I’m going to give him one next week for sure, along with a copy of the Great Controversy.

Classes are keeping me busy. The kids are making progress in chime choir. I think we’ll be ready to play a hymn for church in another week or two. Voice choir is fun, too, although many of the kids haven’t had much musical background, and some still cannot match a pitch to save their lives, let alone read music.

I’m also teaching my first piano lesson ever. Max Miro, one of the third year boys was asking for lessons long before I arrived, and before the school even had a piano. He’s learning fast. Amazing what a little desire can accomplish. For my part, I’m reviewing some of the theory that I never learned as well as trying to memorize the music terminology in Spanish. Pointing with some basic descriptors works pretty well in a pinch, however: that black thing there with the tail on it gets one beat. :) (Incidently, quarter notes are called negras or “black notes,” which tells you nothing about the time it receives.) Despite such challenges, my literature classes are the most difficult for me, mainly because it’s just plain hard to teach literature in your second language! Fortunately, most of the principles of good reading and writing still apply, and even many of the grammar and punctuation rules carry over. We’ve been reading The Voice in Speech and Song, and I’m making the kids read aloud and evaluate each other on volume, clarity, posture, pacing, and expression.

What I really struggle to teach them more than anything is how to think critically. I’m not sure what more to do for them, other than to keep pushing them, asking questions, and trying to model my thinking process. Today we talked about the importance of reading for understanding and not just “barking at print.” I introduced the strategies of paying attention, (only half kidding) reading in context, and breaking down unfamiliar words to help guess their meaning. (Curiously, one of the examples I stumbled upon is that ostentación (ostentation, showiness) contains the word tentación (temptation). Thinking of Matthew chapter four, it’s easy to see why! Satan either tempts you with some big show, or he tempts you to make a big show of yourself!)

I had all my students write me a personal essay so I could get to know them better and diagnose their writing abilities at the same time. The first part was fun—the latter, not so much. Many of them really struggle. I had one-on-one conferences with them and then they rewrote their essays, some of them exactly the same as before. A few of them really improved, however, and I plan to eventually post some of their stories on the website in both English and Spanish.

Tomorrow is student day, a national holiday here in Bolivia. The staff is getting up at five in the morning to sing to the kids—the same treatment they dole out to birthday boys and girls, minus the trip to the arroyo for an early morning dip. (Really gives one a lot of ganas to get older.) We couldn’t do anything else special for the kids tomorrow, but on Thursday we’re going to Nueva Canaan, a Christian retreat center just outside of Guayaramerín. As long as we don’t have to march around Jerico, I’ll be happy… although I could stand for a few walls to come down… my visa situation is still in the works. I have accumulated a month’s worth of fines while waiting for my Interpol to come through, only to find out that they will no longer send us the document from Santa Cruz and we will instead have to go in person to Trinidad. At this rate, I’ll probably get my residency just in time for the end of the school year. Ruan and Tara say it must mean I’m supposed to come back here next year. Who knows? Anyway, it's late, and I have class at eight tomorrow morning. ¡Gracia y paz a cada uno de vosotros!

Problemas

This is my fourth week of round two here at U.E.T.I.R.G. (pronounced “way-teer,” its an acronym for Unidad Educativa Technical Industrial de Richard Gates) the little school with a big name and a bigger purpose out here in the medio-selva of northeastern Bolivia. So much has happened since I wrote last: a building has gone up, another has almost gone up—in smoke — a lot of trees have come down, to cut into lumber to sell and to use here in construction.* Six students have been kicked out, I spent 36 hours riding the bus to Rurrenebaque and back to take another student home, trimester grades were due last Friday, we started a pathfinder club, one of the school’s motor bikes was stolen, we’ve had an outbreak of malaria at the school, and my visa has expired! I’m still working on all the paperwork to get legal again.

In my last post I mentioned the students who were kicked out. Well, one of the girls named Luzmar (Light-Sea in English) was afraid to face her mother after being expelled, and jumped from the truck while she was being taken home. Thankfully the truck wasn’t going very fast and she was not hurt, but she had to be restrained by two teachers for the rest of the ride to town as she kept screaming “I don’t want to go home, I want to be with Jesús” (I’m pretty sure she was referring to the boy named Jesús who she had been sneaking out with, but who knows, as she seemed intent on throwing herself out of the truck again.) Now we’re beginning to understand why she did not want to go home. Her mother was irate when she found out her daughter was expelled, and immediately threatened that we would be sorry. Since then, she has begun a campaign to shut down the school, coming up with all kinds of wild accusations, saying that we pushed her daughter out of the truck and that she was badly injured and had to go to Cochabamba for medical attention. She also claims that we mistreat the students here, even airing an advertisement on TV warning against our school. And all of this even though she is an Adventist sister who was previously very supportive, assisting with student accounts and paperwork, and helping to acquire documents for the students, many of whom came here from the primary/school orphanage Familia Feliz in Rurrenebaque. It wasn’t until recently we discovered that she was obtaining these documents in an illegal and fraudulent manner, but that is another story. At any rate, she promises not to rest until she has done everything she can to bring us down.

As a result of her complaints, the district officials for the department of education came to visit last week and interrogated us extensively on the nature of our school, what the program is like, are our teachers certified, how do we treat the students, how do we practice our religion… they also interviewed individual students, and toured the whole school. None of the administrative team was here that day, but Kaila and Lyli (two of our volunteer teachers from Mexico) did a good job answering their questions. To tell the truth, it was a great opportunity to glorify God to these men who were visibly shocked by the singular nature and purpose of the school. By the time they left, it seemed they were satisfied that the accusations against us are false. Even so, this is just the beginning.

The first court hearing was this last Tuesday. The Bolivian equivalent of Child Protective Services is kind of siding with the mother. There is a Bolivian law that says a student cannot be expelled for being pregnant, and they are construing it to mean that we cannot expel students for being out together at night, even though this was not the first offense, and the staff has been working with these kids for a long time to get them to change and follow the rules. Fortunately, God has blessed us with a good lawyer who has been very kind and helpful, promising to do everything in her power to help us — so far, without cost!

With all the rumors flying around about the school, we thought it would be good to clear the air a little bit, so on Sunday we had a general assembly with all the students’ parents as well as the local pastor and any church members who wanted to come. After a small musical program where the students performed some numbers and shared their testimonies about what the school has done for them, we had a question and answer session in which staff and students shared their side of the story. Noel, one of our third year boys, explained that he has seen Luzmar in town shopping after her jump from the truck. He talked to her and she said her mom was sending her away to the school in Cochabama. She showed no sign of injury whatsoever.

The meeting went well, and the parents and church members were all very supportive. Many of them shared what a blessing the school has been to them and their children. One non-Adventist mother was especially adamant in her support. That is another blessing: strengthened relationships with student’s parents and the local Adventist churches. So am I worried? No, not at all. This is God’s school. I’m just privileged to serve here and to see what great things the Lord is doing and to be a small part of it. We have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, right in the middle of all this we had another crisis to deal with… To save time, I’ll tell the story here in present tense, as I wrote it while sitting up half the night. The first part has to do with the wood we’ve been cutting in the jungle, but it leads into the other story:

* 8/24/09 Mr. Dion, Ruan’s dad who comes here every few months to help out, cuts the lumber on a portable milling saw, and we’ve been carrying the boards out of the jungle on our backs. They’re wet and solid hardwood and my shoulder is still sore from two days ago when I helped carry out a load of 12 foot 2x6’s to sell in town. As the board cut into my shoulder, I thought of Christ and wondered how he ever bore the cross at all after being scourged nearly to death, not to mention staying up the entire night before, sweating drops of blood, carrying “the weight of the world on His shoulders” as we like to say, the salvation of the human race, the risk of eternal loss, and the pain of complete separation from His other 2/3^rds. Wow. And I, with nothing but the weight of half a cross, stooped and stumbled, and the in the end needed help bearing my burden the last half of the 500 meter-or-so trek between the fallen and milled tree and the lumber cart waiting on our unfinished runway. From there, we wrestled the over-laden cart another few-hundred meters to the school and the waiting truck.

(Here followed an explanation of the problems with Luzmar.)

On the other side of my hut is a young man lying on the top bunk, feeling a weight of guilt and despair that he cannot carry as easily as he carried the 2x6’s out of the jungle. His name is Marki (Changed for privacy), and I am here to watch him and make sure he does not try to harm himself like Luzmar did. It is going to be a long night. I’m watching my Manutata velas (candles) burn themselves down one at a time until the last centimeters of wick have nothing solid left under them and begin to tilt and finally fall, extinguishing themselves in the plastered mess of their own melted bodies. But it does not happen all at once. Each candle starts out tall, with a strong blaze, each one’s melt drips slowly down the sides, hardens, and is overrun by new streams of displaced wax. Sometimes the sloughing sides seem to rise on themselves, the fresh drips building upward on each other, on the backs of congealed burrs that jut out just enough to hold them up and let them rise like liquid elevators, like barges in dam locks, until the overpowering volume of cascading wax spills over the ascending drops, engulfs them, and carries them back down to help bury the remains of the fallen: four black wicks, soon to be joined by another, their charred carcasses held fast in a molten lake that ices over from the outside, entombing them alongside two moths and a score of scorched gnats that lost their wings for a joyride through the flames. Even as I write, one comes winging in too close, and lights up like a match-head, with a poof, more like a miniature Hidenburg, and spirals against the base of the wick where he looks like a martyr, pegged to the stake, his burning abdomen snaps and crackles like popcorn. But he is no saint, or hero, he is a suicide: a moth worthy of the proverb that tritely symbolizes the self’s attraction to the wicked lights of destruction. How many must die? Is it really so fun to fly by fire? Don’t they see their floundering comrades below, squirming vainly to free themselves from the gel that thickens about their treading legs, sets their wings still as concrete?

I hear Marki turning in the bed across the room, and I know he must feel absolutely mortified. He told us he felt like this was the end for him. It was his flip-flops we found behind teacher Kaila’s house… I was over at Ruan and Tara’s when we heard her scream “someone is behind my house!” Ruan, Paeter, and I grabbed our lights and rushed out to see if we could catch the culprit. This was not the first time the girls thought they saw someone spying on them. This time it was unmistakable. Lyli was showering when she looked up and saw the silhouetted of someone standing on the top of the wall under the thatch roof. When she looked up, the head ducked back into the shadows. “Kaila, come here!” she called, and the shadow immediately leaped down behind the house and took off running. That was when Kaila called us. While we searched behind the house, someone else checked the dorm. Two boys were missing (one was just overlooked under his mosquito net.) Marki was already suspect, but when he showed up unexpectedly and without reason and hermano Mamerto’s house, he appeared barefoot and very serious. Meanwhile, Juaquin, Max, and I found his chanelas behind Kaila’s house, and that was the clincher.

We had another fire today. Ruan was burning the chaco just up the driveway, and the blaze started to get away from him. Mamerto, Gabriel, the boys and I came to the rescue, cut and wetted a line through the chest-high grass, and steered the fire away from Enrique’s house toward the creek. It burned quite a large area, but we saved the nearby banana trees and pineapple patch. With the fire out, we all went back to what we were doing before, only to see smoke billowing up a few minutes later. Some smoldering logs along our firebreak had burned like fuses, bridging the line to ignite the grass and call us back to the fight. Why is it that destructive fires are so tenacious, but the light of a candle is so easily snuffed out?

8-25. After class this morning, Ruan and I had a talk with Marki. Usually it would be the whold Ad. Committee that would talk to him, but most of them are gone today. Ruan is feeling bad because he’s spent the whole morning dealing with Rodolfo and Paulina’s parents who arrived last night to visit their kids and ask for a mountain of things including rice and a guitar (the latter which we could not give them, of course. But I guess they figured, “you have not because you ask not”). Ruan finally got them taken care of, only to have the Marki situation to deal with, and no ad-council members to support him. Kaila would be a good one to talk to him if not for the fact that she was one of his victims and he couldn’t bear to face her. So I told Ruan I would be happy to try to help him. Kaila, Ruan, Helen, and I had a prayer together, asked God for wisdom and the right words to say, and reminded ourselves that this is God’s school and Marki is God’s child. Then we went down to have the talk…

“What do you think we should do?” Ruan asked him.

“I want to leave,” he said. “I want to start over new.”

“What do you mean when you say ‘I want to start over new’” I asked.

“Go somewhere else” he said.

“And what happens next time you have the same problem? Will you go somewhere else again? Run away from your problems? You know that’s not the way to start new. The only way to truly have a new start is to realize what you did was wrong, feel sorry you did it, and ask for forgiveness, first of those you have wronged, and then from God. That is the first step in starting new.”

The anguish on his face was evident as I talked. I could see his pride fighting the conviction. “Lord, please give him the desire and the courage to make things right!” I prayed silently.

“Of course, it has to be your choice” I continued. “We can’t, nor do we want to force you, but you do need to know that whether you go or stay, that first step to start anew is the same.”

“Just know that we care about you, and we want to help you work through this” Ruan said.

I know God gave us the words to say, just as we had prayed.

Still, Marki remained intent on going home, and he could not bring himself to make things right before he left. With the whole ongoing Luzmar fiasco, we knew we couldn’t just let Marki go home by himself, especially since he is still a minor. Ruan asked me if I would make the 20 hour bus ride to Rurrenebaque where Marki’s father Carlos lives. I didn’t particularly want to, but someone had to do it, so I said “why not?” Besides, I’d get to see more of the country and have a chance to catch up on my writing. My trip there and back is another whole story, but I’ll just say that God really blessed and worked everything out. We missed our bus when it went past the school Tuesday morning, but after waiting about ten minutes at the end of the school driveway we got a free ride on a pickup truck to Riberalta where the bus stops again, and from there we booked passage to Rurre. Ruan had given me money for the bus fare, and said it should cost 120 b each, but they ended up charging us 140 ($20). Marki said it was “Gringo tax.” On my return trip when I was by myself, however, I got my ticket for the normal rate, so apparently the original rip-off was thanks to Marki con su cara tan de gringo.

Right after getting on the bus, another passenger who was arranging his luggage handed a notebook to Marki to hold onto for him. I glanced down to see that the front cover was plastered with a scantily clad woman. Marki quickly turned it over, looking embarrassed. “Tentación” he said. It made for a good segue into a conversation about the importance of guarding our thoughts.

We arrived at 11:40 pm in Rurrenebaque. Ruan was never able to contact Carlos and let him know his son was coming home, but he seemed to take it all in stride. Fortunately, Ruan was able to talk to Jerry, one of the volunteers at Rurre, and when I called Familia Feliz to let them know I was in town, Jerry was already on his way to pick me up. Originally, I had thought I would stay at Familia Feliz for a day or two, since the kids had off this last weekend and there were no classes anyway. Also, the bus for Guayara leaves Rurre early in the morning, and since I hadn’t gotten to bed until after 1:00 the night before, I wanted to sleep in a little. But when Jerry called from Rurre and said there was another bus that was leaving in half an hour, for some reason I felt like I should go. At the time, I thought it was because I needed to get back and work on the paperwork for my residency. It is 13 km of rough, muddy road between Familia Feliz and Rurre, and about halfway there I realized that there was no way I’d make it there in time. “Oh well, I guess I’ll stay here another day like I originally planned” I thought. But as we rolled into town, there was the bus, stopped on the side of the road as if it were waiting for me. Twenty-two hours of mud-holes and washboard later, I made it back to the school, just in time to come to town and work on getting my papers. Now here I am, still “working” on my papers. The first step was to get some pictures taken and send them along with a copy of my passport to Santa Cruz to get an Interpol background-check from the international police. I’ve sent for it twice already, and still no luck. Until I get that, I can’t really do anything else except pay the $2/day fine for my expired visa. It’s not just me that is having visa problems either. There are four or five of us right now who are all having the same problem.

Anyway, there is still more I have to share, but I’m running out of time. I just want to ask for your continued prayers. I’ve already seen God at work, using these trials to bring the staff and students closer together and closer to Him. I know that as we continue to seek Him, God will use all these trials to strengthen our faith and to bring honor and glory to His name.

Que Dios nestro Padre y el Señor Jesucrsito les concedan gracia y paz.

Water, Smoke and Fire

The highway out to the school cuts through the jungle like the Israelites’ path through the red sea. Passing traffic paints the trees a brownish-orange that makes them look dead, but in a growing death that closes in over the road to block out the sun and hinder the passing traffic.

How easy to be like one of those trees, planted just outside of the way, pretending to be dead to the world while underneath the self is all alive. Fortunately, there are other trees I saw, stripped of foliage, standing straight as arrows toward the sky, at the top of each a knot like a fist, from which protrudes a single branch, like a finger pointing to heaven.

Last week we were having a problem with the water system, so I climbed the water tower to look in the tank and watch the water level as Mr. Clint tested the different valves. At the top of the tower he boosted me up onto the tank where I removed the cover and looked down into 5000 liters that rippled behind my reflection, oscillating between concave and convex distortions of myself. And I thought, that same substance sloshes in my heart and head, so how can I avoid such instability? That shifting aqua-map of me is perhaps more accurate in its uncertainties than any glass mirror that shows me clear, steady, and better looking. But the most accurate picture of me is the one that God presents in His Holy Scriptures. I am created in His image and bought with His blood. I am worth the existence of worlds, galaxies, the very life of the Creator who sustains everything. And all of this despite the fact that I am a sinner, a transgressor of the Holy Law with a stone-hard heart and a head that’s thick between the ears, a dirty-dog of a wretch who deserves to die and be lost in the dust of the eternal ages.

But here I am, gracias a Dios. I wish I could share everything with you. A lot has happened in the last week and a half.

All the walls on the girls dorm are up, all 24,000 bricks of them. The construction was well organized, everyone had their appointed duty. The students and the volunteer group from Texas all worked hard, and we did in five days what we had projected would take seven.

As I was mixing mortar for the bricklayers on Tuesday, I heard the crackle of burning foliage and looked behind the dorm to see a large column of smoke rising. Whoever had been assigned to burn trash had let the fire get away from them. Someone shouted to bring water and shovels. The fire was moving away from the dorm and toward our water tower that supplies the entire campus. It had already melted a hole in part of the two-inch main line, right next to an uncovered valve, and water was shooting out in a wasted geyser that was of no help to us, as the fire had already moved on to some thick grass and small trees. I thanked God we weren’t in California as we beat down the fire with our shovels. Ruan brought a hose, and we were able to extinguish the fire right before it reached the water tower.

After work in the evenings, we held a short series of meetings in the nearby village of Yata. One of the volunteers from the group is a young doctor from Mexico, and she preached from the book of Daniel. On Sabbath we had church in the campus chapel. There are several families that come from Yata. Every Sabbath afternoon we go there with the students and go door to door visiting families, singing hymns, and sharing the Word.

The missionary group is gone now, and classes have resumed. My teaching schedule is actually not too heavy, but I am also a work supervisor, pathfinder counselor (for our new club) and half-time boy’s dean. A good share of time also has to be devoted to activities that take a matter of minutes back stateside. For example, after my morning class yesterday, I carried in a couple 20-liter jugs of drinking water from our natural spring about half a kilometer behind the school. Washing laundry in the creek followed, and later I went to help cut lumber in the jungle. Remind me to tell you more about that later. I’ll just say, I thought of David Livingston and other missionary pioneers who hauled their stuff for thousands of kilometers over jungle trails, and I wondered how in the world they ever did it.

I worked with the voice choir for the first time yesterday. Many of them are having trouble matching a pitch, and so I worked with them one at a time at the keyboard, singing along with them until they could match my note. I saw a little progress, which was encouraging. It’s going to be a lot of work, but I think it will be fun. We also talked about proper breathing technique, and I had them practice inhaling and exhaling using their diaphragms.

On Sunday we suffered an unexpected and painful blow. We had to expel four students (two couples) for sneaking out of the dorm and meeting down by the creek. Apparently it wasn’t the first time they’ve done this. Worst of all, two of them were our only 4^th year students, leaders in the school who have been here since they were freshmen. (They were the only students left at the school who I knew from last time I was down here.) The whole process took most of Sunday. It has been very difficult for the school, but God is good, and I think everything will turn out to His honor and glory. Please pray for the students who had to leave, that they can learn from the experience and won’t turn their backs on everything they’ve learned.

Waiting...and more waiting

I’m still waiting in Santa Cruz. Patience and longsuffering are usually the first fruits to get plucked when one is a missionary. Last night a sur blew in, one of these storms that sweep up from the south, bringing wind, rain, and colder weather, and complicating life in general, including the movements of small aircraft. The plane that was supposed to take me to the school is stuck in Rurrenabaque to the northwest, waiting for the storm to pass, so it looks like the soonest I’ll be able to fly out will probably be Tuesday morning early. My other option is to take a bus to Trinidad and get a commercial flight from there, but I have no guarantee that they are flying right now either. So here I am waiting and asking God to grow me some more patience. I hope that the current slug-like operation of my computer is not supposed to be the answer to that prayer.*

On Friday I rode with Jeff Sutton, the aviation director, out to the property for the new TV station and sanitarium. It is a beautiful and sizable plot of pastureland just south of Santa Cruz toward La Guardia. They had just gotten the pump going on the well, using a diesel generator. The only structure they’ve started building so far is the guardhouse, but they are beginning to collect materials for the station facilities. I was able to see and visit with Luis Alfredo, Victor, Elizabeth, and Carina, some of my students from the last time I was here. They are now graduated and either working or studying here in Santa Cruz.

En sabado we went to church in Barrio Lindo, which means beautiful neighborhood, and the garden in front with its cypress and lilies and pristine shrubberies seemed to validate the name. As is typical, however, the compound walls are topped with razor wire and broken glass, which I hope is not symbolically significant.

Sometimes one can learn from the simplest things. On our way to church yesterday I noticed a number of people working in the street. Some washed the windshields of the taxis, some sold oranges, crackers, picolé, or newspapers, while others rode unicycles and juggled batons in front of stopped traffic at an intersection. They don’t wait around for some grand work, something that seems important. They take what they have, go out in the street, and make the most of it. Jeff told me they can actually make decent money that way.

In the afternoon we went to visit a grandma from the church named Fructuosa. She is dying of cancer, yet she was happy to have a house full of visitors. Her daughter was there, and she showed us a beautiful tablecloth her mother had just finished making. “When she is hurting she just sews faster,” she explained, going on to share that when the pain is the greatest is when she sings the loudest. Grandma shrugged and said simply, “the hymns are a great comfort.” And so we sang. I played their little electronic keyboard with no pedal that sounds like a kid’s toy in the aisle at Walmart, and she was thrilled.

In the back was a beautiful patio and fruit trees that she had planted, but she mentioned nothing of this to us. She was much more happy about Veronica, the young woman sitting by her side who she met in the park and brought to the Lord.

When we left, she asked if I would come back. “I hope so,” I said. “That’s a good answer” she replied.

This morning I helped Jeff and his wife Fawna and their two little girls move from their apartment next to the TV station here in town to a house outside of the city. It took two trips in the van, and Jeff and Fawna both commented on how annoyingly easy it is to accumulate stuff.

On my way to help them, about a block from their house, I was hailed by what looked like a taxi, and I thought, this is backwards. There was a driver and an old man in the back wearing glasses. “We are with the national police” the driver said, and leaned across to show me his ID. “Here, look at it” he seemed proud, though to me it seemed hecho en casa. “We just have some questions for you because there a lot of people carrying false passports and papers around here lately” he said. Yeah, and you’re one to talk I thought. “Do you have your passport?” he asked.

“No, I don’t carry it because it’s not safe. A lot of people get robbed,” I said, thinking of all the stories I’ve already heard from the Suttons and the other volunteers, most of whom had been accosted at least once during their stay here, one even as close to the station as the front gate.

“That’s okay,” he said “where are you staying? What hotel?”

“Ninguno” I said. “Me quedo con amigos no más.”

“Where?” he wanted to know. I made a vague motion with my hand. “Can you show us?”

“Mejor que no” I told him. “If there is a problem, give me a telephone number where I can call you.” I kept waiting for him to pull out an arma and tell me to get in the car, or at least to give them everything I had, which was only 14 bolivianos (not even $3.00) but he just smiled.

“No, that’s okay.” He said. “We’re just asking,” and he motioned for me to go.

That’s about all the adventure I’ve had so far. It’s so much more fun this time around to be able to communicate more with the people. I’ve also been able to visit with Victor, Luis Alfredo, Carina, and Elizabeth, four of my students from 2006 when I was here last. I asked the Lord to give me an opportunity to be a blessing here and not just be sitting around waiting, and so I’ve kept busy enough. Today I helped one of the brothers with some maintenance projects at another volunteer’s apartment. And the good news is that they just told me not to buy a bus ticket because I’ll have a flight out tomorrow!

*P.S. 8/3 My computer was so bad I couldn’t even finish this or send it yesterday. I couldn’t do anything. I would click on an application and have to wait five minutes for a response. I tried restarting the computer a few times, among other things, but nothing worked. I told Eliazer, one of the volunteer technicians here, that my computer was slower than a tortoise with its legs cut off, and he was kind enough to help me clean up my hard drive and my computer is doing MUCH better now.

Bound for Bolivia... Again!

As many of you already know, I have been asked to return as a volunteer to teach Bible literature, chime choir, write for the school website, and play the piano (yamaha keyboard) for the choir at the same school near Guayaramarin, in northeastern Bolivia, where I volunteered in 2005 and 2006 . Unfortunately, travel to Bolivia these days is not as easy as it was four years ago. I had to apply for and purchase a visa in order to enter the country, and to apply for a visa, I had to have a confirmed flight itinerary as well as signed letters from the school stating my purpose for travel. I purchased my flight after I got home from graduation, scheduling to leave today (the 14th) in order to get there in time for the start of the second semester on the 20th. After a few more days, I was finally able to get the signed letters from the school and send for my visa by the 29th of June. The Bolivian consulate assured me that my application would be processed within three days, so providing a few days for shipping, I hoped to have my passport back with the visa by July 10. No such luck. Maybe it would come on Sabbath? Nope. Monday. Nothing. I called the consulate and they confirmed that they had sent everything on Friday the 10th. "It should be there" they said.Today was the last chance for it to get here before I was scheduled to fly out. I went to the post office as soon as the mail was in. It wasn't there. "It's like you're already in Bolivia!" was the comment from the principal, Tara Swanepoel, when I told her the trouble I was having. So today has been hectic with everything up in the air ("except for you" as my friend John kindly pointed out :). The soonest I was able to rebook for a reasonable price was Tuesday the 28th. I am disappointed at the delay, but maybe there will still be some good that comes of all this, even if it is only me learning the expensive lesson to apply for visas much longer before my departure date! So I am home awhile longer, which is not a bad thing. I will have more time to try to work on improving the school website before I get to the land-of-almost-no-internet. (The school has recieved a donation toward obtaining internet service, but is still working on finding a feasible way to get it set up, 30 km out from the nearest internet connection.) If any of you know anything about building websites, I'd love to talk to you! (Click here to see the existing school website.) The delay also gives me more time to fund-raise as well as get set up with insurance. And who knows, there could be more to this story yet. I'll keep you posted. Blessings!

If you would like to support this mission endeavor, you can send tax-deductible donations to the Office of Student Missions, Walla Walla University, 204 S College Ave, College Place, WA 99324.