Our New House

Lots of Lines

This week we did a lot of waiting in lines and none of it unfortunately had to do with mission work.

On Friday we went to an office to continue our visa papers. We waited in line to pay a fee, waited in line to have our papers evaluated, got scolded for trying to help Braeden with his spanish at the desk next to me. We were then asked to draw a picture of where we were living. By now Braeden was a little frustrated with the difficult lady he was working with. But my dad fixed it by asking if they needed a fingerprint of his nose when she brought the ink over for fingerprints. She apparently thought that was funny because everyone went smoothly from there.

Wednesday we spent two hours working on finishing our visas for the year. We stood line to get in to the immigration office, stood in line to sit down at desk number three to be told we need to go upstairs to a private office. We held our breaths, hoping that he wouldn't notice that my last name on my passport(Timmer) was not the same as my last name on my bank statement(Ellis), made it through, stood in line to be handed a blank bill, stood in the next line so the bill could be filled out, stood in the next one to hand the bill over, waited in a waiting room to be called to pay the bill, went back to the waiting room to wait to be called to hand everything over and show that we had paid the bill. We were a little nervous when our passports were slipped into a manilla folder and piled on a shaky stack of folders but by then we were allowed to leave so we didn't care. i was rewarded by lunch at Burger King, which some people would say doesn't taste the same as the states but to my pregnant stomach, it was just fine.

For those of you who think traffic in downtown Holland at Tulip Time is bad, you've never taken a taxi into the middle of the cancha at lunchtime. The cancha is a huge market in Bolivia that sells everything from tires and shoelaces to Barbies and raw meat. Convenient to shop in, inconvenient to get to. we spent twenty minutes in a line of cars crammed onto a one lane street in the market, on our way to our doctor's appointment whose office sits in the center of the market. The line was worth it though, i got a massage and a promise of an ultrasound in a week to tell us what the baby is.

On a positive note, Braeden and i did the message at our church's youth group last night. We used the parable of the donuts. if anyone is interested in the story go to http://www.skywriting.net/inspirational/stories/the_parable_of_the_push-ups.html

Tonight is going to be a busy night with Emily's birthday party and baby washing, which we need to be getting ready for right now.

Love, Braeden and Tiffany

Our First Post!

Hi Everyone!

To all our friends and family who haven't heard from us yet . . . we are still alive. We have been busy since the day we got off the plane and this has been our first chance to sit down and write about what has been going on for the past two months.

We had a team from New Hampshire two days after we arrived and were busy from morning to night visiting nutrition centers, the first orphanage, doing baby washing and shopping in the Cancha. it was a good group though, they helped break us in to the life of hosting teams.

Apart from the New Hampshire team and the Beechwood women's team that just left, we have been working on getting settled here. Our house was finished a few weeks ago. We now have a bedroom, living room bathroom and kitchen. and most importantly, a door. We have also been working on our permanent visas, which is always a huge hassle. Braeden is doing great with spanish. He's already picked up on a lot and isn't shy at all about speaking and trying to communicate. He has already been to an Aurora soccer game all by himself, though he doesn't stick out as much as i do in the crowd. Everyone thinks he is Brazilian. He has also made great friends with the snow cone maker at the Grocery store.

The baby is doing great and in a little less than a month we will be able to call it a boy or a girl and not an it. We had our first ultrasound a few weeks ago and got to see the baby flailing around everywhere. Besides the fact that i have to pee every five minutes and weird smells like deodorant and cologne make me nautious, i am feeling fine. Although i don't see how my stomach can stretch any more than it already has.

in between teams and day to day we have taken on the task of being in charge of the interns(college age students who come down for a couple of months to help). They are pretty self sufficient though so we basically make sure they have enough to do every day, get them water and check up on how they are feeling. My parents have also taken on baby washing as part of our ministry and Braeden and i are helping out with that. it has actually been one of the harder things we have had to do here so far. Before when we just volunteered, we didn't really realize how much work went into every Saturday, from the water to the food to the clothes. Now that we have to monitor who much clothes we have left or how much hot water to bring for baths, we can't believe Micky did it on his own for eight years. i have a really hard time with passing out the bread. Every week we buy bags of bread to pass out and every week we always run out. Last Saturday we bought a hundred pieces and that wasn't even enough. For the past month they have been asking for milk as well and we haven't had any. When someone donated powdered milk i was so excited and we made some for this Saturday. We had plenty of milk and gave out two or three cups each. i thought i would feel better after giving them milk and bread for once, but its just so hard when you see that that is their whole meal and you know that you are going home and having something warm and more filling than powdered milk.

Braeden and i are having a hard time now with all of the mothers at baby washing too, especially now that we are having our own baby. its hard to have so many ask for bottles and diapers and formula for babies that go diaperless and sometimes only drink water, knowing that we can't possibly provide everyone everything they need for their children, yet know that we will want the same for our own baby.

So obviously our prayer needs are strength to do baby washing every week. Prayer for strength during teams would be great too. Patience as we wait to find out what the baby is. Prayer for homesickness as we begin to miss the states, our family, and for me specifically, my job at September's Bride. (Braeden doesn't miss Meijers.) Another growing prayer request is more monthly support. if you or anyone you know feels called to support missions, we could use all the support we can get now that there is a baby on the way. it can either be done through international teams or through Laura Cramer at Beechwood Church. Well, thats all for now!

Love, Braeden and Tiffany