More Sucre Adventures by Jess

Bolivia Team newletter #7
Jessica Dening
February 1, 2007
The last time you all heard from us we had just arrived in Sucre and our time there hadn't become too eventful yet, but as the days wore on we were able to add more and more to our list of things to write about. After our day of rest, the Pastor of the church met us at the hotel around noon and we packed all of our stuff in a taxi to head to the church. The thing about Sucre though is that it is very hilly, and when I say hilly I mean steap hills, and finding a flat street may be impossible, now that we have established just how hilly Sucre is I will continue on to say that there were a few times when I wondered if the five person taxi would make it up some of the hills with the six of us and all of our luggage. Each time to my amazement it did, and then we reached the steep downhill leading to the church. As each of us looked down the hill and realized that the taxi driver was acctually going to try and attempt this we all began to silently pray and God answered our prayers and we did make it safely. As we drug our bags into the church and home of the pastor and his family we were unsure of where we would be sleeping or what we would be sleeping on. To our relief there was a small room with two single beds and a straw mattress on the floor. So Bethany and our SASS leader Kenia shared on bed, Rachel and I the other and Alli recieved the floor since she tends to kick and none of us wanted to wake up injured. Not very long after we decided that we needed to use the bathroom, but there was no door, there was one propped up against the wall but we were unaware that you needed to pull the door shut behind you until we observed how the family there did it. The next question was how to flush the toilet, we thought we had determined that you can't until like the door ordeal we saw one of the daughters take a watering can and fill it with water then dump it down the toilet. Then had lunch and decided to rest, it didn't take us long to realize that the beds were a bit like a slab of stone in terms of comfort but we were just thankful that we had beds instead of the concrete floor of the church. That night we recieved our first taste of Qechua, the language of the indigenous people of the region, the words are extremely large, it sounds nothing like spanish, and I'm still trying to figure out what sound a j and k make together and q and an h. We then realized we would not be singing the worship songs that we learned in the campamento during the church service.
After that first day we began to settle in and get used to our very busy schedule which involved leading youth group, giving testemonies, making home visits to church members, conducting bible school for local children and preaching, all of this in spanish, with some upset stomachs due to new food and climate. Things were going well and our first sunday it was an all day event at the church to celebrate the church's birthday. We then experienced just how spicy many in Sucre eat their food as we down glass upon glass of juice and even ask for more rice to prevent our mouths from burning off, but we knew that we had cake to look forward to later so as we waited for cake we chatted with some of the youth who were very welcoming and friendly. Then we had the second service of the day as we gazed at the ten cakes on the table in front of us. Then at the end of the service we finally recieved a piece of one of the beautiful cakes. Little did we know that we were also going to having cake for dinner and again at night, and these were big pieces of cake, Bethany and I have determined that we may never eat cake again until our weddings.
As the week wore on we were able to tour the beautiful and white city of Sucre and get to know the people of the church better and better since there was a service almost every night. This was truely a blessing since we had such a limited amount of time there. We did discover that there is a little trouble within the church since many of the older people don't speak spanish and have the sermon translated for them into qechua in about five minutes so they don't hear everything and the pastor is having some difficulty understanding all of those in the church so if we could keep them in our prayers that would be great. We felt very blessed though that God was using us to speak to the church and give the pastor a break. At times we felt the stress of having to write everything out in spanish before speaking to the congregation but it was all worth it seeing how grateful all the people in the church were. This past Monday was when we were supposed to leave but my stomach decided otherwise. I woke up in the night feeling terrible and as the other girls went downtown to use the internet I stayed in the room feeling terrible. They came back and decided that I needed to see a doctor but unfortunately that meant dragging me around the city to find out that I needed to have a blood test when I got back to Santa Cruz, even though we were pretty sure that it was ghiardia. This meant that I couldn't take the bus the 14 hours it took to go home and that Rachel and I would have to fly the next day. Luckly the medicine the doctor gave me calmed my stomach I was able to fly the next day feeling fairly well and the flight was only about 25 minutes. Chuck and Alex picked us up at the airport and took us to get our blood tested, Rachel found out she doesn't have the bacteria that causes gastritis, but unfornately I didn't find out anything, so I have to have a few more tests and if they can't find anything Elaine Kehler, who is our neighbor, knows of a pill that will take care of parisites and ameobas so hopefully that we will find out something very soon. Also, we are all moved into our new beautiful house and are beginning work at the guarderia tomorrow, so we are all pretty content now and just trying to get and stay healthy.
Pray requests:
1. The church Luz y Vida in Sucre
2. My health issues
3. Work at the guaderia (daycare)
Praises:
1. We made it back from Sucre safely
2. We in our new house with great missionary neighbors from Canada that look out for us (the Kehler family)
3. Rachel doesn't have the bacteria that causes gastritis, so she can each chocolate