Bundling Skills

We like to watch the TV show American Pickers at our house. If you've seen the show, Frank always likes to go for the bundle. Instead of paying one price for something, and one price for something else, he tries to bundle two or more things for a little lower price.

Those skills came in handy when Sparky went to the Dominican Republic in February. They had some good shopping close by, and she was able to buy lots of bracelets and necklaces for practically nothing to give to her friends. We even have a few left over.

The same man who made the jewelry also made wooden carvings. Sparky always tries to get Caboose some kind of carving if possible (and he loves turtles), and the Hispaniolan Woodpecker was a must for her dad. Not to mention her dad's love of birding, Sparky saw the Hispaniolan Woodpecker when she was in the DR.

The woodpecker was $10 and the turtle was $7. She looked around and didn't seem overly interested, and then asked if he would take $12 for both. He did.

She came home and told me all about her bundling skills! She did good.

MG Sparky — MT2

I realized when I was linking up Sparky's previous trips, I never posted a follow-up to her Bolivia trip last October.

I know why I probably didn't. We were a little consumed with some doctor trips from a bacteria she brought back, which was intestinal. And since this was only a few weeks before Hubby's surgery, I was especially concerned. Actually I was a little freaked out. But Sparky was all clear just prior to Hubby's surgery and he was fine and it was all good.

And just in case you're curious and want to know, she contracted campylobacter, we have no idea how she contracted it, she did not drink any water, they take their own food, she did nothing different from anyone else on the trip (except she was around some children and a dog, but she did use the hand sanitizer properly), she wiped her lips after the shower with a clean cloth before she licked her lips, etc. Everyone is clueless and it will go down as a mystery.

Everything was a little more complicated when she was prescribed an antibiotic that the doctor hadn't prescribed for the last five years because it makes most people sick but was the one she needed. It made her sick. She couldn't quit throwing up. So we ended up in the ER and went home with a prescription for the second best medicine, hoping it would work. And IV meds wouldn't work because the medicine needed to be taken orally and processed through the system. Fun, fun.

I thought the best thing to do would be to show you a few pictures from her trip and then share a couple of pictures from her letter she sent out to people who contributed to her trip:

Thank you for your prayers and support for my trip to Cochabamba, Bolivia, that I took October 10-16, 2010. I had a great time and God really worked in my life on the trip. This was the first trip that I have taken where *** was building a church, and it was a new and different experience for me.

I worked in the kitchen helping cook the food, cleaning up afterwards, and doing the dishes. I liked experiencing the different culture of Bolivia. It was definitely not something that I had encountered before. The coolest thing about the trip was that after the dedication service the night before we left, a lady that had been sitting by me came to know Christ as her Savior as a result of the service. And since there were people there that spoke English they acted as translators for me when I had the opportunity to have conversations with people. That was another thing that I greatly enjoyed about this trip.

It was amazing to see how quickly the building got finished, and how it was already being used. Although after the trip, I still feel like Africa is my place to be when I go into the missions field full time, it doesn’t diminish the excitement of having gotten to go to Bolivia on this trip.

This is a picture she took from her window seat looking at the city sitting down in its valley in the Andes.

They drove by where they were building something, and Sparky was amazed that they were using what looked like bent and jerry-rigged wood pieces to hold it up. And that's actually what it looks like even though the quality of the picture is not the best.

The possible culprit of the campylobacter.

The bird she saw every day. We're all jealous!

Another possible, but much cuter, culprit of the campylobacter!

Sparky looks tall! Sparky looks tall! (If you don't know, she's 4'11" and done growing, and I can say that because I'm 5'1". I'm done growing too. I'm into shrinkage age. Someday I'll be as tall as her.)

Sparky took several pictures of statues that were in the intersections. They almost look like our traffic circles here in Michigan, but I can't see enough of them to tell. But the statues are large and varied in theme. This one was interesting...corn.

The group went to see what was the tallest statue of Jesus in the world, the Cristo de la Concordia, at 34.2 meters in height, on a pedestal 6.24 meters, bringing it's total height to 40.44 meters. It had been specifically built slightly taller than the more famous one, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, so that Cochabamba could boast the tallest statue. In November, 2010, Poland unveiled a much taller statue, so now it's not the tallest. But it was when Sparky was there.

Of course all of that is dependent on whether you count the mound and the crown, and then the one in Cochabamba is still tallest.

The holes are for air to go through. The group went up in the statue. They were in the armpit. It still feels wrong to say that.

This is the project they worked on and completed in three weeks.

I hope you enjoyed a small and varied taste of Cochabamba, Bolivia, South America. And a little trivia to boot!

Naïveté Is Bliss

Sparky always has to fly to meet the rest of the group wherever they are leaving the country. The last two times have been from Miami.

Even though she could take two checked pieces of luggage on the international flight, she is only allowed one because the group may need her second one to take food or materials or tools. This time we had prior permission for her to take two so she could take all the items for the orphanage.

Her chaperone (who she flies out of Michigan with) suggested that they upgrade to business class so they didn't have to pay any domestic baggage fees. The cost was pretty much a wash.

Hubby and I were joking about the free beverage, and I said that it did say she'd get a free cocktail, and Sparky said, "You mean I get shrimp!?"

She's so sweet. We had a really good laugh about that one.

Her chaperone had some fun at her expense too. She made fun of her because the seats were bigger in business class and Sparky's feet didn't touch the ground.

Sparky's Newest Journey

We were packing again at our house. This is a suitcase full of 100 stuffed animals, over 200 pencils, two Ziplocs of diecast cars, six dozen combs, and a few hundred ponytail holders. They are for an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

This is the last week of a four-week project where the group is building a church for local missionaries. Sparky is going to have some special opportunities to teach Bible stories during the week to both Dominican children and to the American missionary children. She is very excited!

She was able to fit all of her clothes and personal items into her carry-on and backpack, with the exception of a few packages of trail mix and an extra bag of cashews. The second hard suitcase has 30 more stuffed animals, dum dum lollipops, soft peppermints, and other goodies. It helped that she didn't have to take bedding, a pillow, or towels this trip.

Her suitcase is new to her (less than $5), but it's basic black. Somewhere behind the scenes she usually loses her luggage strap, so she needed to mark her bag to identify it on the luggage carousel easily. She opted for "MG" for Missionary Girl. It's lime green nail polish.

Her so-far always chaperone:

They will also be visiting a Haitian refugee village in the Dominican at the end of their week. They will purchase food at a grocer and distribute it to some of the families. Over the course of the project they will have fed every family in the village.

Togo, West Africa, last February.

Cochabamba, Bolivia, last October.

In May, she's going to Nicaragua.

Her passport is filling up!

Piranha!

This is the kind of cool gift a 14-year-old boy gets from his sister when she returns from Bolivia.

He's roughly as big as my hand. Or she. Look at those teeth!

Looks great as an accessory with little baseball helmets.

Delivery

It's important.

Comedians find that if their delivery isn't good, their jokes aren't as funny.

In baseball, the delivery of a pitch is of utmost importance.

To parents, a safe and healthy delivery of their newborn baby concerns them.

Almost daily we rely on the postal service for delivery of our mail without giving it much thought, until something goes wrong.

The same could be said for luggage.

Remember this suitcase that Sparky checked in Detroit on the way to JFK on the way to the Accra, Ghana, airport in route to Togo. This was the last time we'd seen it.

Until today.

We received a call at about 10:45 last night that we missed. They called again about 6:00 this morning. They delivered the suitcase a little before 11:00 a.m. to our house.

The outside is cracked.

One of the latches is also bent badly.

And the suitcase strap that secured it since you can't lock them is completely missing, as are all her identification tags. Every single one, except for the original tag the Detroit airport put on it that had the numbers that identified the suitcase as Sparky's.

The inside had been messed up quite a bit. The only thing originally on this side were the stuffed animals, her pillow (which was on the other side now), and a bag with water balloons, chocolate chips, and unsweetened Kool-Aid.

This side wasn't messed up quite as badly.

Except that the two jars of peanut butter were missing, along with those chocolate chips I mentioned. The Kool-Aid was untouched.

I think the suitcase made it to Ghana and the food was taken. Hubby thinks it was taken since it was perishable and the airport people didn't know when it would get back to the appropriate person. The airport still can't tell us where they located the bag and if it ever actually made it overseas.

The last time we saw this bag was on February 20th. It was reported missing at JFK on March 1st. Today is April 10th. If this bag could talk it might have a really good story to tell.

Precious Children

Sweet children in the classrooms...it's all in French...when you click on the arrow to play the black box goes away too...


The Twenty-third Psalm:


Another classroom:


This is some more video from that classroom.


Mark 9:37 "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Guest Post — Sparky's Africa Experience

Sparky and I have been discussing for the last week the best way to go about doing her guest post. This last Sunday night, she and Mr. Churchmember spoke and gave their testimony of the trip and shared pictures. Sparky wrote out what she wanted to say (she still gets a little nervous in front of people) and then we typed it out. We decided it was an excellent summary of her trip and it was her version of the trip from her eyes, so we'd just cut and paste it from Word over here. I did change names just for the blog, because of course she didn't use Mr. Churchmember and Mrs. Missionary when she was talking, and I left it in a different font too.

I will tell you the rats they were selling on skewers in the market didn't make it into the story...

First of all, thank you all for your prayers. I really appreciated it.

I had an awesome time while we were there in Africa, and I miss it a lot. Basically each day the ladies got up at 5:00 in the morning to start fixing breakfast, which was then served at 6:00. I set the tables and did dishes a lot of the time — that kind of thing since there were 3 other ladies to do most of the cooking, although I did help with some of the cooking as well.

After breakfast the guys started working and the ladies cleaned off the tables, did the dishes, and set everything out for lunch. Then we’d go in our room to pray, do devotions, rest, take the men like Mr. Churchmember water, and that’s also when we took our showers. While we were there we were only allowed to take 5 minute showers, called missionary showers. All my family completely cracked up when I told them this because they all know that usually a quick shower for me is like 20 minutes.

We would start getting ready for lunch at 11:00 doing everything in the same way as we did at breakfast. Then after cleaning everything up from lunch, we’d have about 2-3 hours to do whatever we liked, or Mrs. Missionary would let me off kitchen duty sometimes so I could participate in extra things. That’s usually when I’d help Mrs. Local Togo Missionary with the kids from nearby who would come for the Bible study and games. Mawilly helped me do things there, and there is a picture of me with him in the slideshow. We’re working in the kitchen pouring lots of cups of Koolaid. Mrs. Local Togo Missionary took me with her to a small market that was different from the big one that the ladies went to earlier in the week. We also visited some kids at the hospital where we were adding on the maternity wing.

One of the last days we were there we went to a school that CWE built last year. It was an hour drive on crazy, bumpy roads which I loved anyway, but I’m not sure everyone else was as enthusiastic about. It makes our dirt roads look really good. We visited four classrooms and got to see the kids and they all sang for us. It was sweet and especially for Mrs. Missionary to see children in the classrooms since she had been there when they completed the school. The pictures you see in the slideshow where children have on pink colored shirts are from the school. There was also a church right next to the school that we got to go into.

For dinner we’d go through the same process as before, and once we were done eating dinner we’d clean off the tables and the guys would put them against the wall so that a devotional area could be set up. Devotions would last at least an hour and were always a special time.

The main focus of the devotions was turning the world upside down. Now how do we turn the world upside down? We’ve got to see people like Christ sees people if we’re going to turn someone’s life upside down. A way we can turn people’s lives upside down is by telling them about the gospel. It dramatically changes people's lives. But for people to even listen to what we’re saying and take it seriously, we need to have credibility and a good reputation. As you all know, a reputation is a person’s character, distinction, what we’re known for. As Christians, we should be known for our walk with God. Our character should be a step above the worlds. God will always be there for us – that’s his reputation. Samson, David, Joseph, Abraham, all had reputations. We all can turn the world upside down by using our reputations. People who live upside down for God stand out. They’ll have all the fruit of the spirit. So we have to be focused and have the right priorities. We need to be disciples, faithfully spending time in God’s Word so that it’ll nurture us. We’ve got to surrender and be willing, pray, fellowship with others, and we’ve got to witness. We have to be and have these things in order to turn the world upside down.

The last full day we were in Togo we had a maternity wing dedication. Now that the women giving birth can be separated from the sick women, the hospital is now culturally correct. The morning we left Togo there were already babies being born in the maternity wing.

It was amazing to see the cultural differences. Like here we have dogs and cats for pets—there the local missionary family had not only dogs, but a monkey and scorpion for pets as well. One of the boys actually caught the scorpion using a pair of flip flops. I thought the fact that they could keep those as pets was pretty cool. My mom and dad won’t even let me have a non-poisonous snake as a pet. Go figure. Practically all the ladies carried some type of bowl or bin on their heads filled with all types of different items. The women and girls carried babies on their backs by wrapping some cloth around their waist. It was all interesting to experience.

I also got to learn some lessons that I might not have otherwise. I learned how to live without my suitcase while overseas since my suitcase never showed up. Luckily there was enough in my carry-on to get me by. At one of the customs stops there was a toilet that wouldn’t flush normally. I learned how to flush it by using a bucket of water, so now I know what to do if the power ever goes out. For one of the first times in my life I realized that being short isn’t always bad. On the plane I was the only one who could lean over and use the food tray to sleep on.

I was also shown how very fortunate I am and how much I take for granted here. Some of the kids didn’t have shoes or a whole pair of clothes to wear; and when we’d hand out things, for example, they might get one piece of candy and they’d act like you just handed them some treasure. The ladies who worked in the guest house behind us would go through our trash we’d put out and scrape off all the plates and bowls to reuse them, and maybe even eat the leftover food as well.

On the trip, God confirmed the call that I’ve felt to Africa. My favorite part was when I got to interact some with the children. I now feel as though I’m supposed to do something with children there. I can’t wait to go back there (hopefully next year for a month with Mrs. Missionary). It was such a wonderful experience for me and I will remember it always.

Sparky's Togo Pictures

They stopped at a gas station on the way from Accra, Ghana, to Togo and this was a market across the street.

The hospital waiting room.

A lady giving her baby a bath outside the hospital.

The market the ladies went to early in the week is at the end of this street.

This man made shovels.

This lady sold machetes.

This lizard jumped and made all the ladies scream. Then the local kids laughed and pointed at them!

Where they stayed.

The missionary family's pet monkey.

And scorpion!

These are mangos. Sparky knows I love them, so she thought I'd love seeing them. I did!

This is the lady who made her special dress (which I will share on Friday) while wearing her baby.

Don't you just love the iron?!

Fixing a flat — see how they are lifting the car.

A beautiful view.

They allowed Sparky some time off from the kitchen to work with the children. She adored it, and she adored the children. Notice some of them are also wearing the smaller children.

These are the four ladies (girls?) that were on the trip.

The new maternity wing.

A termite hill.

The only reason Sparky wanted to come home was because she missed us.

She wants to go back next year for a month.

We think she's found her country.