From Chocolate ice cream to Contractions

After nine months of family and friends praying for a fast delivery, their prayers were definitely answered. At nine o’clock pm on September 21^st we were eating ice cream. At 11 o’clock we called the doctor. At 11:30 I was 3cm dilated. At 12:30 we were heading to the delivery room and at 1:35 am on September 22^nd, after two pushes, Miles Michael Ellis was born.

A fast delivery is just one of the many blessings we have received in the past week since Miles has arrived. From a hospital bill a third of the cost of the U.S. to our doctor who generously delivered Miles for free, to being able to skype with my sisters in the hospital to Miles sleeping through most of the night, we feel like God has showered us with gift after gift on top of this new little person in our family.

We have also noticed that it is truly a blessing to have delivered in Bolivia, in a country filled with poverty and tragedy. Too often it is easy for us to become numb to the countless stories and statistics we hear about children and hunger and homelessness because we are surrounded by it everyday. Being parents has now given us a new look at things and, while it reminds us to be truly grateful that we have everything we could possibly need to take care of our own son, it also reaffirms the importance of being here and working with children.

Its heartbreaking to me that one child every five seconds dies from hunger while I have both the capability to breastfeed and can afford to buy formula. Here in Bolivia we have been asked to take children who were being neglected by their mother and were literally eating grass because they were so hungry.

We currently have three pediatricians who are offering their services and there are nine million children who die every year from preventable illnesses. We heard of a baby named George who lived in the neighborhood that our first orphanage is in who had a condition where he couldn’t suck to breastfeed. It is a curable condition, however, the mother couldn’t afford the doctor’s bill and before we could find this family, the baby died.

40% of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day and we see the affects of this every week at Baby Washing. It is very difficult to know that these mothers cannot even afford to buy milk for their children let alone clothes and back at home Miles has a closet full of them.

The hardest reality to deal with though is the fact that Braeden and I can love our new son so much and want to do absolutely everything for him while our orphanages are being filled with children who have no parents to love them.

So thank you to everyone for your prayers for our new little addition. We are so grateful for all of the gifts, cards and how happy everyone is for us. Now we ask you to pray for all of the children who are born and do not have all of this. Pray for the children who have no parents but also pray for the parents who do love their children and, because of poverty, can’t give them what they desperately want to give them. Many of us worry about getting the new Littlest Pet Shop that our child wants for Christmas or being able to afford Ballet lessons. Imagine worrying about where your child’s next meal will come from.

The Water Witch

Here's a story i thought you all might enjoy.

My dad has an electrician friend who called the other day to tell my dad about a friend of his who claims to have the ability to feel the presence of water below ground with his hands. He says that it is a gift from God and he will walk through any piece of property for free to help people find water sources underground for wells. My Dad, being the humorous man that he is, decided it would be interesting to take this guy out to our orphanage in Villa israel to see if he could "feel" any water underground for a well out there.

When he met the guy at the plaza he found a large man, about 6'2"(very tall for Bolivians) with his shirt tucked into superman underwear so my dad already had a hard time taking him seriously. When they got to the property the man took out a wire hanger that had been bent into a V and began slowly walking around the property spinning it in his hands. At certain spots he would stop and the hanger would spin really fast. Sometimes he would say "oh thats just the powerline" and sometimes he would say "okay, there's water about 40 meters down, there's this much of it and you will get this many liters of water."

On their way back my dad decided he would offer to pay this man for his time since my dad was really only curious about what he would do and wasn't very serious about using the information. He was figuring he would pay him about 30 bolivianos( 4 dollars) and the guy would be happy. But the guy asked for 150.(20 dollars) My dad ran to a bank to take 150 bolivianos out and handed it to the guy. The guy looked at it, confused, and said, "No, i meant 150 dollars." My dad couldn't help laughing and said that he didn't have 150 dollars to spend on finding out where water was located underground. The guy said that normally he charged 250 dollars for his talent but he would take 100 since it was for an orphanage. My dad explained that he didn't even have 50 dollars to spend but he promised that if he ever got the 10,000 dollars to put in a well for that orphanage and there was in fact water where he claimed there was then he would make sure he paid him 150 dollars. We are all very curious to know whether this guy was right about the location of water so if anyone has 10,000 dollars ( plus 150) lying around let us know.