There is no accounting for taste.

There is no accounting for taste.  Enrique and Carlos came to the house after the meeting this morning to use the computer.  I told them there was pie in the refrigerator if they wanted some.  There were three pies, mulberry, strawberry and lemon meringue.  Guess what they wanted.  “Can we have the leftover pancakes?”

Greeting to all of you, we thank the Lord for all who has stood with us during this past year in praying and giving.  Praise the Lord for His faithfulness.  As we look forward to another year we need your prayers for wisdom and strength.  The responsibilities continue but the energy is less.  The Lord has promised  "as thy days, so shall thy strength be."

Christmas Eve we spent with Marcos and family enjoying the traditional late supper.  Christmas morning we had breakfast with Oswaldo and family, then we took off for the country to have the noon meal with Fabian.  We took along all the fixing and had a cookout.  Praise the Lord for the progress we see in Fabian.

Oscar is in the Beni, another State of Bolivia spending some time with his father.  It has been a long time since Marion and I have had the house to ourselves.  It won’t be for long.  Helen and Miguel, the newlyweds are returning from Camiri in a couple of days.  They have a place lined up to move to, but for the time being they will be here until they can get settled.  


 After the New Year another couple will be in the house for a while.  Saul and Jenny are coming to work in the school next year.  They will be using our house as a base while they are looking for a place to live.  Saul and Jenny are graduates from the university in Sucre.  He will take over the job of teaching physics, math and chemistry.  Jenny teaches English and German.

Marion wonders how many grandmothers have the privilege of teaching their own grandchildren.  Here is a picture of Oswaldo with Oswaldo Enrique (Quique)  and Asiel, his two oldest.  Notice the green and white ribbon.  Those are the colors of the Santa Cruz flag.  It indicates that they are the best students in their class.  Quique is will be starting third grade in February and Asiel will be in first grade.  Marion was their kindergarten teacher.

Oswaldo with Quique and Asiel

Wedding Day One

The bride's family has been our personal friends for years.  They arrived (seven of them) at our house on Wednesday to help Helen with the preparations.  Praise the Lord for a house big enough to handle the crowd.  They are all willing workers so there are many hands to help with the work.

Tacos for lunch

On Friday afternoon the civil registrar arrived at our house to perform the civil wedding.  That is the only one that has any legal standing in Bolivia.  The immediate families and a few close friends were present for this ceremony.  Afterwards there was a snack and people stayed until late visiting and getting to know each other.

Helen and Miguel with their witnesses and the civil registrar

With the official document

Tonight the church wedding will be at the chapel in Montero.  I will be heading into the city later to pick up the cake and get it back to Montero.  

Along the way I pick up Fabian who will be spending the weekend with us.  This will be the first time since he went into rehab that he will be back in Portachuelo.

Beautiful wheels?

Motorcycles are the plague of the streets in Portachuelo.  There is no control, motorcycles don't need a license,  the drivers don't need a license, maintenance is kept to a bare minimum.   They come from all directions and there is no way of knowing which portion of the road they might want.  At night many of them are without lights.  It is like in the days of the judges, when every man did what was right in his own eyes.  It is the Lord's mercy that there aren't more accidents.  


How beautiful are the wheels......Each Sunday afternoon five motorcycles roar off down the road out of Portachuelo.  These five are all the motorcycles in the Portachuelo Christian Assembly.  Each one carries a special cargo.  They are a team from the  Assembly on their way to minister the Gospel to various small communities in the Province of Sara.   A province would be comparable to a county in the States and Portachuelo is the county seat. 

The team in Bañadito

Romans 10:15  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 

Bañadito, San Ignacio, San Juan, Torrentes, San Miguel, Caranda are some of the towns that have been visited recently.  Usually they are well received. Sometimes there are surprises, like this past Sunday only two kids showed up for the meeting in San Isidro.  The reason,  the town's soccer team was playing in a tournament in Buena Vista, 40 kilometers away, and almost everyone went to watch.

Luis and Aldo with the kids in Bañadito

Most of those who attend these meetings are kids.  But some adults come out,usually women once in awhile some men.  At our midweek prayer meeting Aldo shared the request of a mother from Bañadito whose husband had died a few days before.  She asked for strength and wisdom.

It wasn't even a surprise.

Miguel Mendoza came to be the fourth grade teacher in the Portachuelo Christian School last year.  This year Helen Galvez came from Camiri to work in the school as the fifth grade teacher.  It didn't take long before everyone realized there was an attraction there.  Helen lives in our home, Miguel lives in Montero, 12 miles away.  Marion and I have been chaperons as the relationship matured.  Sunday they announced in the morning meeting that they were planning to marry on December 18.  We praise the Lord for this young couple.  The both love the Lord and are much involved in various ministries. 

Our house has become the strategy center as they make plans.  The civil ceremony will be in our house the night before the church wedding.  We have had a number of civil ceremonies here.

Pray for them as they begin their life together.  They plan to continue at the school next year.

Helen and Miguel

Things I learned doing a blog.

I got more feedback from this then I ever got from an email News Letter.  More than 20 people responded. 

• I was told to keep it short
• Send often with lots of pictures (What did we do before we had digital cameras?).  We didn’t have blogs then did we?
• Someone else said to send an email teaser each time with a link to the blog.
• Another said they couldn’t download the blog and requested the email version.  (easy to do)

Schools almost out!

Marion had the graduation for her kindergarten last Friday.  This coming Friday is the closing program for the rest of the school.

The kindergarten graduation

Sergio gets a good bye hug from his kindergarten teacher

As soon as school is out next week the builders will start their work.  We have 12000 bricks, a ton of steel and 100 bags of cement ready to go.  I won't be doing much traveling this vacation.  I'll be here overseeing the building.

Building supplies

We have heard rumors that the government is shutting down the other two private schools in Portachuelo.  The reason is that they do not have their own property.  They are renting the property and they do not have the required space and facilities. We praise the Lord for His provision for our school.  Who knew twenty years ago when we bought the big lot that it would be exactly what was needed now.  I expect there will be a number of new students wanting to enroll in our school next year.  Pray for wisdom.  We don't want to take in more new students than we can handle and ruin the spirit of the school.


Thank you for standing with us in prayer and giving.

Two weeks ago the assembly here in Portachuelo celebrated its 26^th anniversary.  Praise the Lord for 26 years of blessing.  We had two days of special activities that were well attended by friends, neighbors and parents of students in the school. 

 We have made some changes to our school building project.  There are not enough funds on hand to begin with the original plan.  We decided we could rearrange the location a bit and start building with the funds available and have two more classrooms ready in February when school starts.  This will allow us to continue building in the future as more funds become available.  The roof over the gymnasium will have to wait.

Einar is one of the young men from our assembly.  Most of his family are in fellowship here in Portachuelo.  Einar moved into the city earlier this year to work.  He is involved in an assembly in one of the suburbs of Santa Cruz.  There was a romantic attraction with a young lady in that meeting.  They were involved in the youth work and children’s work together.  About a month ago an ex-boyfriend from before she knew the Lord, stabbed and killed her in a fit of jealousy.  Einar and another young man were injured in the attack but are doing okay.  As you can imagine this has been very difficult for Einar.  He needs prayer as he deals with anger.  He is coming along but it is a hard road for him.

Einar at his graduation party earlier this year

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for Fabian.  We have seen a lot of improvement in the five months he has been at the rehab center.  I had a good visit with him last Sunday.  He asks for prayer concerning anger.  When he gets angry everyone knows it.  He has a hard time controlling his reactions.  He will probably be at the center for another three months and then move on to another phase of the program in the city.

Fabian with his guitar

Marion is getting ready for the kindergarten graduation on October 29.  Praise the Lord for strength throughout the year.  One more week and she can have a well-earned vacation. She has 21 in her kinder.  Some of them have been a handful.  For a time she thought that nine of them would not pass kindergarten, but now only two still aren’t reading.  The word has gone out that Marion can work with difficult students and desperate parents come looking for her. 

Marion with Magdalena and the Kindergarten at the beginning of the year

Max is one of the 10^th graders.  He is from an unsaved family.  Had we known the problems he had in his previous school we probably would not have received him as a student.  The Lord knows what He is doing.  The other day Max told Bismar, the school director, that he was impressed with his testimony.  He lived what he preached and was fair with the students.  Max said, “I think I want to be an evangelical.”  May the good seed find good soil in the heart of the hearer.