So tonight our team devotional was about love. How does that play out in a cross cultural situation? How do I demonstrate love to people around me when I don´t know them or much about where they come from? One way, a very significant one, is to listen to their stories. And to remember, as I am listening, that God has created their story in a very specific and creative way, and he has great designs for their life. I love to hear how He is working in so many lives...
How is he working in mine? In so many ways, although I haven´t yet found specific words or stories to demonstrate the depth of what he is teaching me. I feel like a lot of it is subconscious this time. I feel very comfortable here, in this beautiful country of Bolivia. Other than missing people, especially my family, I really could go on living here indefinitely.
Being here in Cochabamba has been a marvelous experience. Praise Jesus that Josiah, the eldest Lindquist son, is rapidly improving after his surgery a week ago. Continue to pray for rapid recovery.
John, Emily, and I have been getting to know each other really well this past week, and have especially enjoyed our British team member: Ed. We have great fun laughing at one another´s idioms, and learning about Bolivian culture through his eyes. He is a wonderful man of God who was willing to leave his beloved wife and daughter for a week to fill in here as our supervisor due to the extra "excitement" within the Lindquist family. Other members of our research team include Chris Putnam, a Messiah alum, and Jose (or Pepe), our jefe (boss). He is wonderful- keeps us on track, does a great job of representing FH well within the community, and keeps us laughing at lunch. A random fact about him is that he likes to top his favorite bolivian dish of potatoes, meat, etc. with his special salsa- a concoction of ketchup, mayonaise, oil, salt, mustard, and... COCA COLA!!! That´s right... he didn´t ask Emily and I for a nutritional analysis of that one!
Every day this week we have collected between 42 and 62 boxes of 5 vials of water each from various sources in the periurban community of Uspha Uspha. These sources include 50 gallon drums outside of homes, from drinking water, and directly from the filter that we are studying. Each of these vials must be placed on a shelf where we wait anxiously to see if it changes color, indicating the presence of fecal bacteria. Let´s just say that when we empty these vials in preparation for the following day, we have a fan running and all possible windows and doors are open! We have been learning about doing chemistry outside the lab, in the real world.
Pray that we will continue to show love to those around us...
Thanks to every one of you who has taken time to read this. I'm heading off to bed now!
