pink toilet paper. hail storms in the middle of the afternoon. constant hints of a headache. getting out of breath walking up a flight of steps. getting hit by a water balloon while running through the plaza with Allie. random meat hanging out in the street for sale. toilet paper always in your pocket cause public bathrooms don’t supply it. slamming windows shut in our minibus because people are squirting us with cans of snow. wearing the same outfit 4 days in a row (and not caring). buying 20 cent sweaters. getting my nose pierced in the street….
…these are all things that make me smile when I notice them. because they mean I am actually doing this. this dream I’ve had for 6 years of world racing is happening. and we’re in month 3 of it…in Bolivia. I can’t say it’s gotten super hard yet, but I know it’s coming. I can see the irritations of living in community starting to pop up, I miss relationships at home, and I can see how nice it would be to sit in a coffee shop on wifi. but, I can also see these random, unique, crazy, fun experiences that happen so often and can’t help but feel so so so thankful that I am getting to do this.
we arrived in Bolivia early Friday morning after a lot of planes, bus rides and layovers. we were all exhausted and a few people were pretty sick. Bolivia’s airport (which we are 20 minutes from) is the second highest in the world and high elevation (13,600 feet!) is no friend to those who aren’t used to it. thankfully, it didn’t hit me like it did some others, but it definitely takes some adjusting. working out has gone from doing Insanity to going for a walk around the block or a two minute dance party with my team and taking a full 10 minutes to recover and catch my breath. we feel like we’re 90 years old.
we were given the weekend to acclimate to the altitude and we were all so thankful for it. we got to sleep in, hang out as a team and go downtown and experience carnival in La Paz. tomorrow we start ministry…while the details are still a little fuzzy of what exactly we’ll be doing, I wanted to share with you guys what I do know.
there are three different homes here for people who are in alcohol and drug rehabilitation – one home is for women, one for young guys and one for couples. it looks like we just get to live life with them – play sports with them, talk with them, eat with them and hang out. it’s more emotionally intense than our last two months and I’m excited to see what relationships are built and how the Lord wants to grow and use us.
we have a unique living experience…it’s sort of like a hostel, but just with us, sort of like an apartment, but three beds in a room, but mostly a place like nothing I’ve seen before. we live with another team of 6 girls and cook our food in our kitchen and share two bathrooms (with WARM SHOWERS!). it’s a blessing to have a place to ourselves, to be able to call home here.
so, if you want to pray with me…you can pray that we’ll be open to what He wants to do with us. that we can enforce hope, laughter and joy into these individual’s lives and that I stay focused on here, choose joy in hard circumstances, leave what’s in America in America and recognize that it will still be there when I get back…that God knew what would change while I was gone, and His plans are better than mine.
I can’t thank you all enough for doing this with me. knowing that there’s support at home, people praying, people that are going to still love me when I get back…makes it a billion times easier to live in the moment here.
