Back from the jungle

Well I´m back from three days in the jungle. It was much much too short, but a great experience to be back in the jungle. We stayed with Alejandro, the builder at the 2nd orphanage in Chapare. It was an authentic bolivia experience through and through. From the food to the travel to the language it was way out of any american frame of reference. The first full day I was there I was very sick, prbly from whatever I ate the night before. and spent the whole day sleeping on the wood floor of the church or on the wood pew (on a side note, why is it that we are so concerned about the comfort of our church in america?? These people have so few ammenities, it would appal most of the people in america, and I am completely convienced that they are better off for it) The last day I was feeling much better and was able to work on the orphanage with the other half of our team that was at the site (the interns split into two groups, 6 of us at this site, 7 at the other) We were supposed to have lunch with a sister in the church but typical of latin america lunch was very late and we had to catch a bus, ever the gracious host, she sent us on our way with the fish (whole, head and all, about 25") fresh of the grill on a plate to eat with our fingers, that was an experience, good fish too. Keeping in style, the bus to pick us up was about 4 hours late. We had a great time sith alejandro talking about random things, one of the subjects we hit upon was that it´s very common to hitch rides in the back of fruit trucks here. For aobut a doller you can hop in the back with your blanket and ride on top of the oranges or yucca. It is a very typical way to travel between Chapare and Cochabamba or Santa cruz as fruit goes out to market in both cities from Chapare. Wanting to experience the culture A few of us interns asked if we could do that instead of riding the bus, alejandro said it was fine and so we left the jungle in the back of a fruit truck at about 7:30, there were about 10 other people in the back of the truck. It was absolutely beatiful driving through the jungle as the night fell. What an oppertunity. Alejandro talked with one of the interns and me on top of the trucl for aobut 4 hours. Among other things we all shared our testimonies (in spanish of course) it was so neat to hear how the Lord has worked in his life and to be able to share what the lord hs done in mine. Then it got cold...very cold. We spent about 3 hours trying to sleep under alpaca blankets. we arrived in la Cancha at about 2:30 in the morning and got a taxi back to the hacienda. Some shelves fell in the kitchen while we were gone and there was a GIANT mess, so I cleaned that up and got to bed about 4AM. And that´s my adventure in the jungle. Please continue to pray for the Lords work in Bolivia.