HE IS RISEN!!!

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As usual I’m a little bit behind with keeping our blog up to date. There has been so much going on in our lives since getting to Bolivia. The first few days here we “hit the ground running” as our field director, Gordon Elliott, promised we would. Gordon was a great help to us in running us all over the city to different offices for everything from blood tests to finger printing and all the seemingly endless paperwork involved with moving to another country. We had to get everything in process right away and Gordon wanted to help us while he could because he took a visit to the states just a few days after Easter to attend his son’s college graduation and will return May 19 or 20th. You can read all of Gordon’s updates at his blog “Ch’airo for the Soul”. The link is in our “Blogs to Check Out” section in the right hand margin.

Aside from paperwork and unpacking/settling into our house, we also joined our fellow missionaries in La Paz for the Bolivian Easter Junta (celebration). You can read accounts on both Gordon’s page and The Guerrero Clan blog (also linked in the right hand margin). One main highlight for Molly this year was that she did NOT get food poisoning. It was a few years ago when she made the trip up to La Paz and unknowingly ate some tainted rice for lunch one day. Luckily this year we had only good food, but both had some trouble adjusting to the altitude change and found that neither one of us slept super great while there. We are back in Santa Cruz now and sleeping much better. Just to give you the perspective, La Paz is roughly about 13,000 ft. while Santa Cruz is only about 1,300 ft. above sea level.



My highlight of the trip came on Easter Sunday morning before any of the services actually started. The Bolivians have an amazing tradition of marching the streets in celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Some even start marching as early as 5 am and march for 4 hours. Some of the missionaries wanted to be involved in at least part of the march and so I joined in. We didn’t march at 5 am, but just got in on about the last ¼ mile. I have to confess that my attitude was totally not in the right place when we started the march, but about two blocks into it God got a hold of my heart. There was a band marching behind us playing “Where He leads me I will follow” and I just started to think of those words. I had been acting like it was some huge sacrifice to get up a little early and walk just a short distance. Then I thought about Christ marching up the hill to His own death and the huge sacrifice that He made for all mankind. I started to get a knot in my throat and by the time we reached the tabernacle I had tears streaming down my face because I was so overtaken with the joy of my salvation. 

Molly & Bryan at Lake Titicaca

Disney Family Fun magazine gave us a
great tip for dying eggs with grated crayons.
The eggs have to be hot so be careful.
The results were pretty cool.
And a good alternative to dyes
because you can mainly get only
brown eggs in Bolivia.

just a portion of the crowd that was gathered on
Easter Sunday morning



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