Eight Days

    I finished my time at the home nearly a week ago now, and I can still hardly believe that I've begun the transition from life in Bolivia to life at home. My last shift was Wednesday night of last week and since then I have been free to catch up on sleep, spend some time with friends, and do lots and lots of souvenir shopping! I have been back to the home twice- once for a despedida (goodbye) and then today I went back to just to spend a few hours hanging out with the kids. It was great to go back and see them but strange in a way. It's nice to be able to just hang out and not have all the responsibility, although I did everything I would normally have done anyway. It's beginning to hit me though just how much I am going to miss them! I will be very sad to have to tell them goodbye. But it has also been a good time of being away from the home and trying to prepare for being back at my home. I'm still not sure how I will handle everything (if I'll be able to remain pretty chill or if I'll do a little freaking out...) but I know, I know, I know that God will be with me regardless of how I react to all the changes, and for that I am incredibly thankful. I keep thinking about/remembering back to when I had eight months left and was impressed that I had already made it through nearly three months here. How bizarre to now only have eight days. And wow, what a packed eight days they should be! I feel like I should have started gearing up to leave about a month ago... maybe then I'd be more ready. But, I've still got a few slots of free time to squeeze people in that I haven't "penciled in" yet, and I have a couple chunks of time to spend with my babies, and I think more than anything that's what I'll end up having wanted to do. Oh how I will miss those sweet little bundles of joy! Or annoying little bundles of tears and screams... either way you put it, I'm going to miss them so much. Thanks so much all who continue to pray for me! You are greatly appreciated. I'm a little nervous about how these next two to three weeks play out, but I am excited that this time should involve getting to catch up with many of you that I haven't been able to keep up with very well in my time here. Excited to see you all soon! God Bless!

"Christmas" Cookies

We got out the fake Christmas tree today and were putting up some decorations so of course we had to make some Christmas cookies too!

 I got the cookies in the oven and frosting whipped up and started digging around for the food coloring.

That's when we ran into a little trouble. Well, I'm quick on my feet, so when I realized that we only had blue and yellow food coloring I (like any proud Wisconsinite)

 came up with the brilliant plan to make "Yay For Being 11-0" cookies instead of "Christmas" cookies : )

I mean what other options did I really have?

Happy Thanksgiving

Things I'm thankful for today-

     -A group of 60 fellow missionaries to have a Thanksgiving feast with
     -Three girls to go out for iced coffee with and enjoy a stroll around the plaza
     -Getting to watch the Packers continue their undefeated streak via a projector equaling a really nice sized screen
     -Having Skype and getting to call home to chat with friends and family
     -Running water (we for some reason ran out for a when we still had dishes left to wash! After a few hours it came back)
     -My babies! And getting the opportunity to watch them grow and experience new things and see new places
     -Christmas music
     -All of you who are supporting and praying for me!!
     -And more than all else I'm thankful for Christ's love, grace, and mercy towards me

...I am so blessed! May God bless you richly as you have been a blessing in my life! Happiest of Thanksgivings to you all.

With Love from Bolivia,
  Samantha

November News

Hello Everyone!

    Just wanted to send up a quick update and let you know how things are going down here in Bolivia! The biggest news is that Esperanza is back in the hospital. She came down with an infection last week and went in Saturday- she should be there for a total of about ten days. She is doing better though! They've got her on some strong antibiotics and she is responding well. It appears that she has pneumonia in one lung and possibly a bone infection. Hopefully things will be cleared up in the next week with the meds she's on- we miss having her at the home! Prayers are much appreciated. It's been a little crazy at the home lately as well. We have six kids there now and the schedule has been rearranged to have two people stay the night but now there are also usually only two people on during the day. So, with Esperanza in the hospital it means there is one person there with her and one person at the home with the other five- three two-year-olds and two that are four months or younger. So between taking care of them and cooking and cleaning and doing laundry- lets just say it gets to be a bit chaotic. We have been blessed to have several volunteers coming to help us out while we are short staffed, but what we really need is someone to fill the one remaining staff position that's open. Then I'm leaving in a month, and another worker is leaving in January, so we really are looking for three people to come pretty quickly, so prayers are appreciated for that as well! I know of a girl that is pretty seriously looking at coming down from the States, and another Bolivian friend here is beginning to think and pray about it, so that's exciting, but we'll see how it works out. Other than that things are going pretty well at the home. The other kids are healthy for the most part, and it's just a joy to work where I do. I would also ask for prayers for myself as I'm getting ready to come home in less than a month!! I have two more weeks of working at the home and then two-ish weeks of possibly doing some traveling, and then saying goodbyes and such. On some levels I'm ecstatic to finally be coming home, but at the same time I know there will be many sad goodbyes. It will be an interesting time of transition, so I'm both excited and nervous.
     Thanks so much for your prayers! I'm excited to be seeing you all soon! Enjoy the snow for me if you can : )

~Samantha

Immigration

     Immigration. This is a place where I have "wasted" more than a few hours of my life when I don't want to be there and seem to accomplish nothing, but alas, every now and again I have a decent time there. Let me explain- I turned in papers in March to get my visa, they said it should be ready by the end of the month, and I still don't have it back. Need I say more? I feel like they're playing games, making up new requirements and searching for ridiculous things to make me do to have me waste more time and money. It's not my favorite place, and frankly, the people there can be down right annoying. But if I can get past all that, I actually have a decent time waiting in line/waiting for my name to be called.
     This is the place where everyone trying to come to or leave the country for any chunk of time has to go to file paperwork. This means for tons of people of all sorts of nationalities to wind up there- obviously Bolivians, Brazilians, Argentinians, Koreans, Americans, Chileans- you name it. You know what? God made people BEAUTIFUL! I love seeing all the different shapes of faces, colors of hair/skin/eyes, hearing the different languages and different Spanish or English accents of people from different areas. I am already a fan of "people watching" and you could hardly find a better place to do it. I'm so amused at people's inability to wait/listen to directions. I feel bad for the lady at the desk- what part of "Sientese" (take a seat) do you people not understand?? I know you want to figure out your paperwork- dude, that's why we're ALL freaking sitting here. You pestering the lady is just slowing it down for all of us, INCLUDING yourself. If you didn't want to wait so long, get here earlier! Learned that lesson today- yeah, wash laundry AFTER your trip to immigration. Ahh well, I didn't have anything else on my schedule for the day.
      On a side note, they told me to come back next wednesday or thursday to see if what I had turned in was acceptable. So I guess the trips will continue another week or two.... Immigration, what a love hate relationship we have.

Noncommittal

  Simply put, I'm a fairly noncommittal person. Looking back, I can hardly believe I came to Bolivia for a year. I think I've had a job once that I stayed at for a year, before coming here in 2007, but other than that I've never stuck with anything for that long. During school, I had nine months of work and three months of break/play. Any job I had (other than that one) I've always had for up to nine months, then went to Arrowhead for the summer to work, and then returned. So, really, in some ways I've never really made much of a committment to anything. I think it's for this reason that I'm so nervous about making decisions concerning college in January. I had a friend advise me that due to the competition in Nursing Programs in general, and the different classes that each school is going to list as requirements, the best way to go is to pick a school and stick with it for the entire program. Wow. I don't know exactly how long it will take me to study, but I'm guessing it won't be anything less than four year. FOUR YEARS! of my life, committed to one place. Granted, I'll have my summers free again to do what I want, but if I'm thinking about returning to the missions field (which I am) I'm going to want to graduate with as little debt as possible so I'm not stuck, in a sense. So I'll be working during my summers. Ugh. Yeah, noncommittal indeed. I know four years is not that long in the whole scheme of things, but, from where I'm standing right now, it's a good chunk of time! I know that God is calling me back to school, but that still doesn't make me very excited to go.

My New Baby

Internet is down at my house, so I'm not able to upload pictures, but I wish I could so you could all see my beautiful new baby Mariana! She is a year and a half old and arrived at the home Wednesday afternoon. It's been a couple of interesting days for her, that's for sure. My heart breaks for her, as she spends a fair amount of crying, staring and pointing at the gate, longing to go home, I'm sure. However, in her moments of distractedness she brings me much joy- her smile and laugh are so incredibly adorable!! I can never understand how on earth these parents can just give their kids away. She is slowly adjusting to life at the home. My other little girl, Abigail, loves having another little girl to play with. She's getting used to the schedule and is getting to know each of us workers little by little, but it's still easy to tell it's all a little (or very, really) foreign to her. I'm trying to imagine the thought process a child like that goes through being taken from a family setting, no matter how awful, and being thrown into a completely new environment where she nothing and no one is familiar to him/her. But it does make me happy to know that she is now in a place where she will have people taking good care of her and loving her and playing with her like a little girl her age needs. She is such a sweetheart. We need to take her to the doctor to find out how her health is, but as far as we can tell she doesn't have any outstanding health issues, but is just in need of a home and a little love. I'll have to get a picture up of her soon- she's such a little princess. Please pray for her and us through the adjusting process. It's different for every child, of course, but it reminds me a little bit of Diego's first week, and I know it was pretty rough- some moments were happy, some sad, some screaming wanting to leave, and just hard over all. It's hard to watch a child have to go through.