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!