Dean and Ruth's Diary

San Jose is a district of Sucre, about a 10 minute walk from our house. We have been working there one day every week since we got here. It is run by two ladies from our church named Dorihna and Desiree from Brazil. They opened the centre to provide a place for children to go and do their homework as many do not have a quiet place to work at home. They also have a program for teaching bible stories and “life skills”. They teach basic first aid for example how to clean a cut, protecting from the sun and they ensure that the children brush their teeth at the centre. They do exercises to improve the children’s co-ordination – a bit like drills at army camp and simulate the children using brightly coloured toys and games.

We go and do arts and crafts based on the bible story of the week. Each week the children make something which they are always delighted to be able to take away with them. This week we were talking about the story of Joseph – when he became the government official in Egypt for the Pharaoh. It gave us a chance to talk a bit about history and what it was like in Egypt and how we can learn from the artefacts they left behind. So we made Egyptian necklaces using paper beads – rolling strips of paper around a pencil and sticking them and then threading them… see photos. Doing craft gives us a chance to talk to the children about the story, to ask them what they think, to teach them to share and most importantly give them lots of praise and encouragement which is sadly often missing from their lives.

The children in San Jose are all very affectionate and delighted to see us every week. We walk in and get swamped by hugs and kisses and shouts of proffi Roooof and Diiinnnooooo. ( Proffi is the word for professor which is what they call their teachers).

Just a few extra photos we couldn’t fit on our newsletter…

Here is our newsletter for all we’ve been doing in February… you’ll need to open each page separately and click again to enlarge it.

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When we were at language school (which seems so long ago now) we had many opportunities to meet people from all over the world who had come to Bolivia to serve. It was great to hear their plans and ideas for their time here and even better that we have been able to keep in touch with many of them.

One such couple were Kathy and Rick Alseth and their 4 children. They were learning Spanish at the same time as us and had come to Bolivia from the states – originally for 6 months, but they are still here 18 months later.

They started off doing a project in the central plaza of Cochabamba where they would set up a tent-like marquee . With the help of a generator, to provide hot water, they would invite poor families from the city to come and wash themselves and their clothes. The Alseths would specifically do baby washing and basic medical checks whist the mothers washed clothes and sometimes had their hair trimmed. It was like a production line – the children would go in dirty and come out the other side fresh, washed with clean clothes.

Just about as they were going to go back to the states they were asked to become “house parents” at an orphanage called Casa de Amor 3 – the house of love. They didn’t have enough money to stay here, but prayed and amazingly God provided them with the support to serve in this project. The house is situated on the 11th Kilometer of Cochabamba – meaning quite a way from the centre. They have been given the use of a house with an enormous garden for a year whilst the owners are away on leave. They started with just a few children in their care… most who had serious behavioural problems brought on by horrific traumas. Their family then grew and grew until they now have 12 kids – 8 orphans and 4 of their own. The orphans range from just 8 months to about 6 or 7 years old. We went and had a look around and each child proudly showed us their bedroom and backpack of “special things”.

Rick and Kathy shared with us some of the stories. Some of which are too sad to include in this blog. There was one little girl whose mum was a glue sniffing addict. She was unable to cope with having a baby and used to force her baby to sniff glue when she cried to put her to sleep. This has effected her cognitive development. Another little boy lived high on the alti plano with just his grandfather, when he arrived at the home he had to have almost all his teeth removed as he had severe abscesses and infections in his gums. He underwent dental surgery and is making a good recovery, although his speech development will be affected until his adult teeth start growing through.

The amazing news is that all these children are “paper ready” for adoption here in Bolivia. The aim is to find homes for them all within a year. Whilst we were there in Cochabamba, we heard that two children from the Casa de Amor homes have been found families, including one beautiful little girl who was born with HIV. We really thank God for the outstanding work that is being done with the Alseths and their family and the love and security which they are able to provide.

We have been busy planning and preparing a creative camp for the teenagers in our church. They all have long holidays at this time of the year (10 – 12 weeks) which tend to get a bit boring towards the end. So we decided to organise a week of fun, creative activities…

We did drama workshops, games, glass painting, tie dying, sewing, making friendship bands, constructing elastic band cars, making photo frames and drawing.

On the last day of the week we went to a local “park” called the Glorieta to have a treasure hunt and outdoor games and finish with a picnic. It was really good fun getting to know some of the teenagers from the church.

Here is our latest newsletter for all we’ve been up to in January. You will need to open each page separately and click again to enlarge.

Please leave a message as we love to hear news from home.

Here is our newsletter for December 2008. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year. It is just one page this time. Thanks for keeping in touch.

Here is our newsletter for all we did in November. Hope you enjoy reading it… you’ll need to click each page separately to open it and click again to enlarge.

Please leave a message as we love hearing from family and friends.

Have you ever made up a Christmas box for the organisation Samaritans Purse… sometimes called operation Christmas child? I have many times both as a child and as a teacher over the years. And you think to yourself…. I wonder where this box will end up? who will be opening these presents near Christmas, what is their life like. But you never find out….

We went with Phil to a place called Huacareta (pronounced Wack-a-ret-a). It is in the jungle part of Bolivia, about 11 hours down dirt tracks and through rivers from Sucre. Phil often used to visit this place during his childhood with his parents and knows it well. We went to visit a small Christian community and to work at the school for a morning playing games, doing dramas and teaching bible stories. It was an amazing experience. The children were really excited to see us and to hear what were doing. We played with the parachute and did some team games. They loved it (and so did we).

But just as we finished a group of people arrived in a 4×4 with boxes from operation Christmas Child. They were distributing them all the way out in the jungle, miles and miles from anywhere. They gave a short talk about where the boxes had come from (Canada this time) and why the children had sent them. They sang some songs and then gave each child a box. It was amazing to actually see how it is done and to see how excited the children were to receive them.

Later I spoke to one little girl, called Lilly, about her box and she told me that she had lots of lovely things including a pink notebook, pencils and felt tip pens and proudly showed me her new toggles for her hair.

That day we travelled by horse back to different parts of the community. We also went to the little church that was built by Phil’s parents years ago. There was no electricity and no musical instruments…. just pick your own tune and sing it!!! We both shared our testimonies and presented a few dramas. The people are really shy and not used to seeing visitors. It felt like another world. But it was obvious that the church was a central part of their lives and that meeting together a few times a week was like a family. There were two little girls sat behind us on the benches and they both had little beetles in their hands. These beetles had glowing spots on their heads (like fire flies) and they were playing with them throughout the service.

We finished the trip with a visit to a small secondary school on the way home where we did a presentation of drama and a few games. We plan to take a small group of students from our church there in April to do some more mission work linking young people to a local pastor named William.

Here is our latest newsletter for all we’ve been up to in October. Hope you enjoy reading and looking at the photos. You need to click to open each page separately.