Bath Time, times thirty

This blog entry is about the weekly Saturday baths down at the main plaza. Minus the bubbles. Minus the full tub and running faucet. Minus the rubber ducks, toy boats and mermaid Barbies. Minus the wrinkled fingers. These baths are more about necessity than about little fingers and toes splashing in the water and spraying shaving cream all over the tub. These baths are about scrubbing little feet coated in grime, rinsing off a week's worth of sweat and dust and cleaning out tangled, matted hair. Some cry out wildly at having to get washed and thrash around in the tub until its finally over. Some are surprised that the water is actually warm and not cool like the river water they are used to. Some thoroughly enjoy it, splashing the water all over the place and grabbing for the soap to help wash themselves, laughing when cups of water are dumped over their heads.

Seven years ago a man named Micky Camacho, a Bolivian that used to work at the missionary school here in Cochabamba was given a small amount of money to do any kind of ministry he felt called to do. Touched by all of the boys on the street who worked all day shining shoes for their families, Micky decided to use that money to take the shoe shine boys out to a nice restaurant. When he gathered them all up and walked into the restaurant, the restaurant turned them away because they were too dirty. Micky bought a bar of soap and a comb, cleaned them all up in the plaza fountain and took them out to dinner. He continued doing this every Saturday until the money ran out. More donations came in, however, and he was able to continue and soon baby washing was born.

Over the past seven years the ministry has grown from a bar of soap and a fountain to a full bath in a tub, a clean set of clothing, a glass of milk and a piece of bread and hair brushing for the girls. When in the beginning baby washing was inhabited by shoe shine boys getting a clean face and hands, now more than sixty children a week come, along with their mothers, to receive a bath and a clean set of clothing. Micky's ministry was truly blessed over the years. There have been countless mission teams volunteering their time and money bringing toothbrushes, clothes, underwear and diapers to pass out. A washing machine was donated so that the mothers could wash their old clothing. A tent was donated when the city complained that it was indecent to wash babies out in the open. Whenever a need arose, someone stepped forward to take care of it and it has been clear over the years that God wanted this ministry to both continue and to grow.

This past year Micky and his family have struggled with health and family issues and had to make the difficult decision to stop the ministry. Ever since the first Saturday we were in Bolivia my family has been a part of baby washing and Saturdays at the plaza have been a huge part of the teams that we host and visitors that come down to help. Because of this we have decided to take Micky's place and run Baby Washing.

Even with Micky and his family there every week, Baby Washing has always been hectic and now that it is my parents in charge over all the aspects, it has been overwhelming at times. in three weeks my parents will be leaving for the states for two months and Braeden and i will be in charge of Baby Washing. This past Saturday we got our first taste of what it would be like when my parents were gone for my sister's graduation in Chicago. What i was expecting to be an extremely stressful and disheartening experience turned out to be a blessing. When we arrived there were only two volunteers there to help us. We hurriedly set up the two tents, scrambling to get everything ready before the crowd of kids around us got too restless. it has probably been four years since i have actually had to go into the bath tent to wash because we always have enough volunteers who want to experience washing. This Saturday i crawled into the tent, nervous about kneeling down for two hours, getting nautious in the stuffy, hot, smelly tent and not physically being able to bend over the tub with my somewhat in the way stomach.

After about an hour i was so happy that i was able to wash. Scrubbing down, soaping up, untangling and rinsing off baby after baby was not only refreshing and a good sign that Braeden and i were certainly capable of running baby washing for two months, it was also a good reminder of why this ministry is so important. Having to scrub off countless pairs of feet that were black with dirt was the perfect example of how we can not only be Jesus to people in Bolivia by preaching and explaining the word of God but by washing the feet of his people like he did for his disciples. We were so thankful for the success of this past week's Baby Washing and ask for prayers for the next two months.

8 Saturdays X 60 babies a week X 200 pieces of clothing X 100 cups of milk X hundreds of braids= Two satisfying months

Women have to pee ALOT

We just got done with another team this week from New Hampshire

of three couples and five teens and we have to say that out of all the

teams we have had (college teams, youth groups, families, singles,

young, old, mother/daughter, construction) this team beat everyone

by far in the amount of bathroom breaks needed. And bathrooms

breaks were not an easy task on this particular trip because we took

this team to the rainforest for two days. Now the rainforest is about a

four and a half hour bus ride from the city and if any of you are

picturing a lush tropical vacation in a beautiful resort with refreshing

swimming pools and fruity drinks. . . you are wrong. The rainforest

is certainly beautiful but it is miles from a relaxing vacation in the

tropics. Think tiny hole in the wall restaurants, big spiders, invisible

bugs that bite you through your clothes,humidity so thick you feel

like you just stepped out of a steamy shower, no air conditioning

and, most importantly, a severe lack of convenient bathroom stops.

For your amusement here is the list of toilets we frequented along

the way: A pay per person stall along the road, a pay per toilet

paper stall at the checkpoint, a public restroom with a flooded floor

that required its users to dump a bucket of water down the toilet as

a way to flush, an open hole in the jungle, a river, the hotel

bathroom (not that bad except for a flooded floor) and last but not

least, a three stall bathroom with holes in the floor. Our team was

wonderful, though, in their acceptance of the lack of toilet seats

and air conditioning. While in the jungle we were able to varnish

and screen in the windows in one of our orphanages, visit with

the first completed orphanage and bring supplies for the parents

and donate radio equipment to one of the churches in the area to

broadcast Christian radio in the jungle. We also visited a monkey

park while there that allows you to sit and play with monkeys that

are being introduced back into the wild. They come up sit on your

lap, play with your hair and try to steal stuff from your pockets. A

great experience, i however, have done it enough times to not

want any monkeys hanging off me. i opted to stay on the bus with

the construction worker's wife and her sleeping baby. What we

quickly realized is that the monkeys liked to crawl through bus

windows. As the team made their way to the park area four

huge monkeys made their way towards the bus and we were

scrambling to shut all of the bus windows before they got to us.

We then spent a good forty five minutes in a stifling hot bus with

monkeys banging on the roof and hanging off the windows, trying

to get our attention and eyeing the bundle of bananas we had at

the front of the bus. With that wonderful description of what a trip to

the jungles of Bolivia entails, i am sure that no one is exactly

jumping to sign up for a trip but i do have to say that, while the

rainforest is personally one of my least favorite places visit here in

Bolivia,every time i get back i am so happy i went. Not many

people can say that they hiked through the rainforest, held

monkeys and swam in part of the Amazon river.