5 cup family

We played Risk as a family the other day. How? you may ask with our kids being so young…it would take a lot to explain, but I simplified it and we had a blast.

As I sat at the table and watched Ben and Dan go head to head over a country, Rachel cheer for the fact that she “conquered” the picture of the whale, and Naomi laugh as she took over one of my countries, an overwhelming sense of love for my family filled me. I haven’t felt like this in a long time.

Let me explain. For the last couple of years I have struggled to feel anything but tiredness. After adjusting to Bolivia, having a baby within the first year, all of the preparation it took to get here, moving…I was just worn out. All of my energy was spent getting out of bed in the morning. But now as I reflect, I am thankful that the tiredness and extreme worn-out-ness is a thing of the past. These feelings that I have now for my children are so wonderful… to actually FEEL feelings other than tiredness is a gift from God.

Thank you to all of you who have prayed for healing in my life and that of my family’s. These prayers are being answered. I now have the energy, the strength, and the emotional capacity to play, love, and care for my family. Even though I feel like I somewhat missed the last two years of my children’s lives, I am actively working now to build strong relationships with them from this point on.

So playing Risk on a Sunday afternoon, reading the Narnia Tales, coloring, and watching the Muppets with my kids are things I treasure daily.

Thanks for the prayers.

daryl.

This is Rae’s purse. It was given to her by her aunt, and she absolutely loves it. In fact it has become a treasure chest for our family’s belongings. If you can’t find it, its because its in her little tin purse.

One night she was sitting on my bed playing with it and I asked her what was in it. She mentioned each object as she pulled it out of her purse.

“Chapstick…Papa’s. Toy cell phone. HOLA! Can’t talk now. Mommy’s room. See? Nani’s tiny pink bottle. Mommy’s chairs. Benji’s car.”

“Rae, those aren’t your things.” I said.

“TOO WATE! their mine!” and she snapped the lid closed.

So when she is away at school, I check her little tin purse for hidden treasures and put back my things.

Facebook

I have now joined the wonderful world of Facebook. It is actually rather fun and I have managed to find some people that I haven’t been in contact with for a long time. Kind of addicting too.

Have a good weekend!

Ciao! Daryl.

I love to decorate. And those who have known me for a while know that my house has a tendency to change décor quite frequently. Now here in Bolivia, I find a way I like an arrangement and leave it that way. Probably because we have moved so much I’m beginning to like things to stay they same.

However, lately I have been moving the home décor around so much that Dan mentioned it was starting to stress him out (because he never knew where things were going to be when he looked for them) and the kids mentioned that our house was like a puzzle. “What do you mean?” I asked them. Naomi, being the oldest, was the spokesperson. “Because Mommy, you move something from there and then move that there, and then you move it again kind of back where it was before but not really. Like a puzzle.” She was quite proud of her explanation and I was shocked that they had described my form of decorating so succinctly.

So the last couple of days I have been asking myself, “Why do I change the home décor so much or rather, why do I feel this pressing need to get it perfect?” And my conclusion is this… control.

I feel that if I get my house all together and decorated just right that I will be pulled together, have my act together, and no more stress will exist. However, when I think this logic through, it doesn’t make sense. Of course there will be stress, of course life will still be messy, and of course I will still make mistakes because that is reality. But somehow I want to control my surroundings thinking that will make the stress of life go away.

This control of decorating morphs into other areas of my life as well. Many times I avoid spending time with God because I feel that I have to have every aspect of my life put in place before I approach him. Like having a presentation ready before I stand in front of the class, my relationship with God sometimes follows the same line of actions.

I read a quote by Anne Lamott that really hit home. “God doesn’t want or expect you to get it together before you come along, because you can’t get it together until you come along.” The fact that God doesn’t expect me to get my act together before I approach him gives me a sense of relief. And if God doesn’t expect me to have it all together, then I shouldn’t expect myself to have it all together. I often find the expectations I put on myself run me into the ground. Expecting myself to be all put together, my clothes just so, and the decorations on the fireplace picture perfect.

There is a song that (my brother in law wrote) that comes to mind…

O, come as you are into His presence
O, come as you are leave nothing behind
O, come as you are and let His healing flow
Jesus wants to meet you,
Meet you where you are.

Lord, here I come.

Maybe you heard my story about being on the bus in Bolivia, looking out through the window and watching the world fly by. I thought I’d just journal out a “typical” ministry trip. Last week I traveled to Oruro, the mining capital of Bolivia to meet with a group of 7 student leaders (here a student is anyone between the ages of 18 and 30).

Tuesday morning: Packed my bag, said goodbye to Daryl and the kids and went to the bus station only to discover there was another diesel shortage (these are common) so most buses were canceled. I stood in line for over an hour only to find everybody suddenly surge ahead as another bus line opened an Oruro bus (they had just obtained some extra diesel I guess). I didn’t realize holding your place in line was such a skill, but it is. Luckily friend I had made while standing in the first line got a good place in the new line. He saw me way back and bought me a ticket. It turned out to be the last ticket for that bus as the agent closed the line after him.

3 pm With my ticket in hand, I quickly bought some snacks for the ride, paid the bus station tax, got on the bus, watched the landscape, read a book, tried to nap.

7:30 pm Arrived in Oruro and was met by Joshua. He’s in his last year of medical school and the son of my good pastor friend Jhonny Orozco. First things first, now that I knew of the diesel shortage I bought a ticket on a bus the next morning. We took a taxi to the main square in the city, met the other 6 student leaders and found a place for dinner. I’ve found that Bolivians have 4 great loves in life, their families, their sports, their music, and their food.

8 pm While we all ate deep fried chicken and bananas, I shared with them a bit of my story, got to find out bits and pieces of their lives, fielded some ministry questions they had, asked some questions about their current and future plans, and and went over some materials we’d be using together.

9:30 pm We finished eating and agreed to meet again in 3 weeks. Oruro is above 12,000 feet and being still winter in the southern hemisphere it was getting cold. I went back to Joshua’s house and spent an hour chatting with Joshua’s grandparents (in Bolivia 3 or 4 generations all live in the same house) thanking them again for a place to stay, again hearing their standing invitation that their home is always open.

11pm Joshua was really excited about a recent event they had for student leaders and wanted to show me the promotional videos and fliers he had designed. Mainly though he just wanted to find out about our time in the States and more about my plans now that we were back.

Midnight Climbed into my sleeping bag which was covered with 4 fleece/wool blankets, wearing fleece PJs and stocking hat to keep warm (buildings don’t have central heating here).

Wednesday 7:30 am Joshua and I took a taxi downtown (people typically eat at the central market before doing their shopping) where we had my favorite local breakfast of tojori (hot brown cereal drink made of corn and cinnamon sugar) and pasteles (deep fried bread with cheese in the middle and powdered sugar on top) then headed to the bus station.

1:30 pm Arrived back in Cochabamba, caught a taxi home, Daryl and the kids were just finishing lunch, put the kids down for nap, showered, wrote up my trip expense report, collected my notes and got ready for a 4:30 pm meeting with pastors Jhonny Orozco and Eddie Perez (we’re setting up the logistics for a short term team to arrive in 6 weeks).

Thank you to those who give so generously to the ministry here. Your gifts make these trips possible. I’m now traveling every 3 weeks to Oruro, and every few months to La Paz, El Alto, and soon Santa Cruz. Our goal is to meet and train emerging leaders in their cities placing the burden of travel on those doing the training. Two months ago Eddie Perez took on the new position of National Director for Young Adults, overseeing over 150 student groups spread out across Bolivia. Because we’ve raised over and above our financial goals, we’ve been able to make a 6 month donation to the Baptist Union which allows Eddie to travel almost every weekend (he was having to pay for his trips from his salary and from a small business selling artisan crafts).

Reflections It’s so encouraging to have co-workers with similar passions in ministry. And we need more workers with a heart to build into the lives of young adults in Bolivia. They are the future of the church and of missions in Bolivia. There are over 2,000 young adults in just the Bolivian Baptist churches, not to mention those in other churches, and then the friends who come to things like Sunday afternoon soccer games but aren’t connected to a church. And we’re finding thousands more interested in spiritual things but not yet hearing or understanding what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, God’s Son. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Luke 10:2

Yesterday I let the kids play their version of Monopoly at the dining room table. I was listening to their conversation and this is what I heard.

“Rachel you can’t have that!”

“MINE!”

“No Rachel the dice are for the game!”

“No! For my purse!”

“Rachel!”

“Oops. Too wate. Dice MINE!” and she put them in her tin purse and locked it.

This weekend I worked on updating the blog. As you can see I changed the format again. I have also added a link to WorldVenture’s website, a link to email us, and pages for some stories I have written. Since today is Monday and house cleaning day I have not had much time other than these few minutes to write a short note. I found some photos to share with you all. The stories will come later. Hope you had a good weekend. Take care.

PS.  For those of you who are wondering…the airlines have still not found our missing suitcase.  I think it is lost but they still think they can find it.

This is our first Bolivian wedding. The groom works with the jr. high/high school group at our church. The other people are our friends from our church.

Nae and Ben proudly standing with Lucy and her new bone and new bed. Nae chose the bed saying Lucy had to have pink because she is a girl.

Nae’s graduation at Portland Christian Elementary. We are so proud of her!

And last but not least. Rae dressed as Buzz Light Year. It was so cute to see her running around the house dressed as Buzz with a little tin purse on her arm. She would put the purse down and shoot bad guys. She is so much fun!

Last night Naomi prayed a beautiful prayer that I would like to share with you. I realize that not only am I on a spiritual journey, but my children are as well.

“Dear Heavenly Father, I mean, dear Lord, I mean, dear God… Thank you for today and that we had a good day. I pray for my friends in the States that you would help them not to miss me too much, my cousins too, because I miss them. Help me not to miss them too much either because I love them. I pray for Lisa and Steve (you know which Steve the one that says ‘Hey You!’) and for their baby Asher. I pray for Mommy and Daddy, Benji, and Rachel. Help us to have a good day tomorrow. Amen.”

The reality that we live apart from family is very real to Naomi. Already she is counting down the days until we return to the States. I keep telling her it is 3 years away and that is a long time, but she insists she can hardly wait. Please pray for the kids that they would make new friends here and that their language would catch up to their peers. And that God would give Dan and I wisdom as we teach our children to pray and grow in Christ.

Our life is getting back to normal.

The other day I smelled something burning as I walked down the stairs.  Looking in the kitchen I saw that the water in the sink had been turned on full blast, Dan was running his arm under the water, and Ben was saying there was a fire.  “What happened?” I asked Dan.  “Oh…nothing much.  I was just trying to fill the lighters for the stove and accidentally lit my arm on fire.  But no harm done, just singed all the hairs off my arm.”

Ben came downstairs and asked Dan to fix his Batman.  The arm had come off.  “Well how did it come off?” Ben looked at Dan like he was crazy and said, “Well, I was banging him on the floor and it just fell off. But I know that you can glue it.”

So, like I said, our life is getting back to normal.

I just have to say it is wonderful to be home.  My Wonder Woman collection is displayed on my desk, the kids are happier than they have been in months, I love talking with my friends, Dan has been enjoying meeting up with friends as well, church has been one big happy reunion, and even though my Spanish is a little rusty it feels good to speak it again.

Our time in the States was very beneficial.  I am looking forward to sharing with you where God is taking us or rather where God is taking me.  The journey has been… one of discovery.  So stay tuned for more.  Until next time.

daryl.

The dust was flying, guys sliding on the dusty concrete “cancha” court, all yelling and laughing and smack talking simultaneously. I just tried to listen and not look too out of place, then jumped, skidded, remembering again not to touch the ball with my hands (darn basketball reflexes), and managed to pass it off to a teammate without it getting stolen.

“Footzall” is the Bolivian name for soccer played on a piece of cement the size of a basketball court, 5 on 5, with a ball a little smaller than normal. I have 2 recreational goals during this 3 year term back in Bolivia. The first is to learn to play footzall. Some guys from our church and in the neighborhood around play Sunday afternoons for a couple of hours. I’m completely inexperienced but I love to learn new things and have a good time, and they’re patient with the “gringo”. And my second goal is to teach some of the college students I work with to play golf. Two good fun goals, both fun, both interactive and good for relationship building, one is something I learn, and the other something I’ll teach.

We’ve only been back a week now, our house is set up, well mostly, and we’re beginning to establish family routines again. These next 2 weeks are the coldest here, and since houses and buildings don’t have central heating, school is out. It’s kinda funny to wake up in the morning and make toast, only to realize that the butter we set out to “soften” is actually frozen on the counter. Mid day is still nice though, up to about 65-70 degrees F, a benefit of living in mountain-tropics.

And so now that home is settling, the next month will be filled with putting into motion some of the mechanics for discipling the emerging leaders in the Bolivian young adult groups. Again, I have 2 goals. I want to continue spending time with various groups of college students, listen to their stories, their jokes, their dreams, their concerns. And I want to continue my studies of biblical narrative, preparing meaningful lessons that I can teach and apply to this emerging culture. Something to learn, something to teach, that’s the easy way to describe what we do as missionaries.

Prayer points:

*Our last suitcase still has yet to arrive, and so we still don’t feel fully “unpacked.” It has some replaceable, and some irreplaceable items. We’d really like it found.

*Jhonny Orozco and his wife Theresa have adopted a beautiful little 1 year old girl, April. Jhonny is my cooworker in the Bolivian Missions movement and short term teams, and one of Dan’s closest friends.

*Dan’s already preparing to teach this next weekend for an “encuentro” which is a meeting of 4 or more college groups. He’ll be teaching with his friend Ariel, the college pastor at our church, on the theme he was given of spiritual health. The students have even made the doctor’s costumes for them, and have a skit prepared. We just love the energy and creativity of college students.

*The Bolivian churches have appointed a national leader, Eddie Perez to oversee their emerging young adult groups called “jovenes”. This is a very encouraging step.

*Terry and Pat Jenks with the Canadian Mission have a new project focusing on spiritual development with the “jovenes” groups. Our visions and passions are so similar we’re looking to partner together for greater impact, vision, and accountability.

We’re encouraged to see these new pieces as it means we have a team of people and resources coming together. And it encourages us that this is not just “their” projects or “our” dreams, but perhaps indeed a movement of God who so dearly loves His church. Pray for us as we coordinate and plan together (I know that they’re important, but I don’t like lots of meetings). Pray against the attacks of our enemy who would want nothing better than to see this emerging generation of Chistian leaders enter adulthood without strong and mature spiritual foundations in their lives.

love and blessings, Dan for the Collins family

Now that I have cleared off my desk, put stuff away, and found the computer, I can catch you up on our travels back to Bolivia.

So I put this photo in because it is too cute not to.  This is Rachel kissing my dad good bye at PDX.

Our two day return trip turned into four. We left Portland morning on time. After arriving in Dallas we discovered our next flight to Miami was delayed which would mean we may or may not make the flight to Bolivia. Dan decided to try to change our flight, which he was able to do. The five of us had dinner in the airport, wandered around for a couple of hours, and got on the next flight only to be delayed for an hour due to technical problems (whatever that meant) with the plane.

Unfortunately, we missed the flight to Bolivia by one hour, and our “fun” began. Naomi, Ben, and Rachel were exhausted. It was 12:30 am and we were at the American Airlines customer service counter trying to figure out what to do next. I pulled out the travel DVD player and played Backyardigans for the kids. This held their attention long enough for Dan to find out we got hotel and food vouchers, a stand-by flight the next night, a scheduled flight Wed. night, and our luggage would be held until we left. I will spare you all the details of how we got to the hotel and got our rooms, but we finally made into bed at 3:30am. The kids did amazingly well and I managed to keep myself pulled together too.

The next couple of days are kind of a blur except for two things. We went to the airport again at 11:30 pm to catch the flight. The manager there told us there were seats for us but we would all have to sit apart. Dan told him we couldn’t do that, our kids are too little. He told us to go ask people on the flight to move. Dan said, “That is not my job that is yours. If we can’t sit together let someone else (there were at least 15 people waiting on stand-by) take our places we are fine coming back tomorrow for our scheduled flight.” Well, the guy wasn’t too happy with Dan but he did “try” to do his job. We waited in the runway ramp for 15 minutes trying to keep the kids from melting. Then he came out and told us, “It was too much trouble. You can’t go. We are closing the doors to the plane.” At that moment I started crying. If I didn’t have Rachel’s hand in mine and a bag in the other… well, I felt like punching the guy. We walked back out the ramp to meet the glares of all the people who wanted our five seats. Some lady started to go off on Dan about us giving up our seats and I was so proud that Dan very firmly told her off (in a nice way).

Wednesday night we made it on the flight and arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia around 8 am. This time I cried tears of joy because there was only one short 30 minute flight and we would be home. However, that is not what happened. It took us ALL DAY to get home. We had to travel between two airports, twice, the kids each got sick, twice (thankfully they are pros at making it into airsick bags), we discovered we lost one of our 12 bags (this is a photo of all 12 bags in PDX), and I discovered you can sleep while sitting up with your eyes open.

It was one happy hour when we arrived in Cochabamba. A dear friend met us at the airport and it was so good to see her. More friends had fresh, French press coffee waiting for us at our house, there was food in the fridge, fruit on the counter, one happy dog…Lucy, and 5 very tired family members.

So that’s the entire travel story.  Until next time, Daryl.

Yes we know, we’ve been absent from the blogosphere world for now, what is it 2 months? well ok, I just posted some sections of our newsletter. but that doesn’t really count does it. So, um… we just took some time off I guess, not enough time to get it all done, and so the blog just had to wait.

We just returned from visiting friends and supporters in Idaho. Tom, Lisa, Anne, Kathy, Angela, Doug, Heather, Genna, Josh, Jen, Caleb, Josh, Jackie, Jayden, Jacob, Bill, Sandra, thanks for the hamburgers, pizza, fishing, good conversation, and for smoking me at disc golf. And Tom, I’ve started whistling again, good advice, thanks!

Just a couple weeks ago Naomi figured out how to ride her bike without training wheels. My sister Becky had her baby yesterday, little Hanah joins her brother Sam. Congrats Becky! Today our oldest graduates from kindergarten. It was just yesterday it seems that our bedtime routine changed when Naomi started reading stories to us. Now tonight she graduates. Rachel’s now out of diapers and has developed a liking for choosing her own color coordinating outfits. Ben can hit a baseball and golf ball (and he’s good too!). Which all has me thinking… life really does crank along. Change happens so fast.

And it made me think about Bolivia and the ministry road ahead. As we return to work within the emerging leaders of Bolivia’s young adult circles, life will continue to move right along. The future has so much unknown, and so much possibility, a lot like parenting. You’re just laying down the tracks as the train cruises along.

So we keep praying and we keep on keeping on. The next year is filled with developing the discipleship project that’s already in motion, traveling between Cochabamba, La Paz, El Alto, and Oruro, letting Jesus rub on each other as my friend Jhonny (yes, that’s how you spell it) and I work within small groups of young leaders in each city. And our ultimate goal is to see these students begin changing their routines in life as they learn to ride their spiritual bikes, to live out and share Jesus, transitioning the Bolivian church for the rapidly changing cultures of Bolivia, of South American, and of our world. They are the future of Bolivia, and the Bolivian church. And I think it’s going to be quite a ride.