Happy New Year 2010!.

The first two weeks of 2010 have had a few memorable moments. First, was watching Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl long distance with my brother and sister-in-law, Doug and Mary Ann. Doug put his laptop in front of his TV, turned up the volume, and we Skyped for three hours and shared the evening with them. Technology!

With our Peruvian carne de extranjeria (long-term visa) we are able to leave Peru. We were able to go to Bolivia last week and meet with church leaders and begin our preparations for the Bolivian side of this Peru/Bolivia Lake Titicaca Border Mission. We especially enjoyed spending time with the Funk family....John and Suzanne (and their two sons) have been Methodist missionaries in southeast Bolivia for 3 years. They are currently in La Paz for 6 months serving as Methodist National Volunteer Coordinators. We learned more about Skype from their son Jeffrey....he was playing Chinese Checkers long distance with his grandpa when we arrived at their house for dinner!

This car is being blessed in front of the large cathedral in Copacabana, Bolivia. It is a riot to watch....the grand finale is to pour wine or beer over them! Our car had been so excited about the same, but yet another hurdle confronted us at the border....they refused to let our car leave Peru, so we had to find someone to park it with for a few days at the little town nearby. Sadly, our car will probably never be blessed in Copacabana....they require a permit AND a sizeable deposit to take our Peruvian car out of Peru. Total cost each time would be $250 PLUS a sizeable deposit. It is going to make it much harder to get people out to some of the more of remote villages of Bolivia, but we're working on that.

I must share that this mission is turning more international than we had dreamed possible. We met with a group of Cuban ophthalmologists who have been working in Copacabana for 3 years. The office management was pretty unsure of us at first; but when we met with two doctors, one of them turned out to be Methodist! He is a general practitioner and is very interested in working with us.

This is a possible Rotary project site outside of Puno in the beautiful little valley of Jayllihuaya (good luck with pronunciation!). It has a perfect climate for growing flowers and vegetables. It is a proposed literacy/economic development project which has a lot of potential but needs some more work to get it all organized. We met with leaders and members of the community (and a few dogs) to get their input.












An agronomist has experimented with this ornamental flower greenhouse and has developed a successful business and model for them. They were gorgeous and of couse Bev came home with some!

I leave you with good news....three Methodist representatives from General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) from New York were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake. One of them, Clint Rabb, is a friend who trained us as Individual Volunteers in Mission. We are currently awaiting more details, but know that they were in a hotel that was destroyed, and the last we heard two were able to get out and were working at rescuing the third. All are thankfully alive.

More good news....Cammeo Medici, a delightful young 23 year-old from Iowa, arrived yesterday. She will be living and working with us here for 6 months. Her energy is very welcomed!

P.S. I must edit to add some very sad news for us ....two of the three Methodist leaders from General Board of Global Minisitries (GBGM) have died as a result of the Haiti earthquake. One of them was Clint, the other Sam Dixon, the Executive of United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), ironically the mission branch which responds to emergencies like this. They had been trapped for over 50 hours, and although they were able to evacuate Clint to Florida, he did not survive. Please keep their families and friends in your thoughts and prayers.

More information is available on the GBGM website. We have appreciated that GBGM has done well at keeping all of us volunteering around the globe for the Methodist Church up to date with the news they received. It leaves you feeling very vulnerable, so far away and without your normal infrastructure of medical and emergency support we take for granted in the U.S.