Terry & Kathy Waller - Water for All (Update 10/24/07)
Bolivia news from Kathy
Dear Family and Friends,
I have waited too long to write to you because now there is too much to say! Let’s just say that it is all coming back to me why it took me a year to recuperate from our last stint in Bolivia. We are all doing well. Home school is going well which is an answer to prayer. Marilu was frustrated at first because she didn’t understand anyone and couldn’t get anyone to understand her but we knew at the end of two weeks that things were looking up. She was sitting in the kitchen talking to Terry and she said, “ We have a wonderful house. This is a wonderful kitchen. Isn’t life wonderful?” Makes you remember why Jesus said we had to be like little children to see the kingdom of God!
I killed 5 tarantulas the first week. All but one were found in some part of the house. There are also a lot of logistical problems in outfitting people for camping where there is no electricity or special camping foods available. The day we arrived in San Julian we had to run get some beef and cut it into one big thin slab and salt it down to make our own dried beef because there was no charque (raw but dried beef that is reconstituted and cooked) available in the market. We put a big mosquito net over it to keep the flies off. Then we made some granola for them to take. There were trunks of rice and dried beans and sugar etc. to be packed. I have a whole new appreciation for people in the army who are in charge of logistics!
The volunteers are all great kids. They drilled about 5 wells the first two weeks in San Juan de La Cruz but then it took them 2 weeks to finish one well that was here in our area. It was a really deep and difficult well (over 210 feet deep) and some really weird stuff happened during the drilling of it. The final thing was that the day before they finished (a week ago Sat.) Megan, our only female volunteer, tripped on a board and drove a splinter between her toes. The splinter came out but she basically mainlined dirty water (pigs and cows onsite) into her foot and within 3 hours it was swollen and she couldn’t walk on it. I could see it was going to be a painful process to clean it out properly and she was going to need some antibiotics so we decided to take her to the hospital in Santa Cruz right away. I gave her some Cipro before we even left because it was swelling so rapidly I was afraid to leave it another 3 hours for the trip to Santa Cruz. We arrived in Santa Cruz about 10 at night and they cleaned it out in the emergency room and said to continue with the Cipro but it was not the least bit better by the next night so they put her on two more antibiotics. The first night the doctor said she shouldn’t go anywhere for a solid week and we thought that was a little over the top but I was in full agreement by the next night. In fact, it took a full week for her to be able to limp around without crutches and it was Thurs. before the danger of her having to be hospitalized and put on IV antibiotics was over in my mind.
In the meantime, the guys all came to Santa Cruz Tues. for some much needed R&R and we picked Kim Edlund up at the airport. He came to give a course on church planting and to be the spiritual advisor for the group. Unfortunately his luggage didn’t arrive with him on Tues. and didn’t get here until Sat. morning. There was a dispute at the airport and there were no flights from Wed. until Sat. and we thought civil war was going to break out because the national government sent out troops and shut down the airport and there were rubber bullets and tear gas galore being fired at the people protesting such heavyhandedness on the part of the government. Terry and Kim went back to San Julian for everyone’s passports in case we had to evacuate and I was grateful that Megan’s foot was better and we didn’t have to figure out a way to get her out with the airports locked down! The government recalled the troops on Friday and everything returned to normal so the guys got two more days of rest than they had originally counted on. Megan and the girls and I stayed until Monday so her foot would be that much better.
Today is our 25th wedding anniversary! My sister and her husband celebrated their anniversary by going on a cruise. Terry is going to be sleeping alone on the cold hard ground in a tent in Yapacani after a 5 or 6 hour trip which includes going across a river on a raft. I am writing emails from San Julian alone with two young kids and a crippled volunteer. Oh well!! Things could be much worse. At least Megan still has her foot which I was worried about for a while there. She is very sad to be left behind and would much rather be on this recent extreme camping experience but she can barely walk and who knows how far they will have to walk and there isn’t a vehicle available for them in case of an emergency so I said “No Way!” to her going. She home schooled the kids while I went back to bed this morning to make up for the 3 hours of sleep I got last night packing stuff up for the volunteers who left this morning with Terry.
We will go to Santa Cruz on Sunday and meet up with Terry and Kim Edlund who flies out on Monday.
We called Melissa Sat. from Santa Cruz and it sounded like she was having a wonderful birthday. Matthew had his birthday out on the last camping trip and I could only send cupcakes along. Terry’s birthday is tomorrow and I sent cake in a bag but won’t be able to speak to him until Sunday.
The women are painting Christmas scarves. I hope to send some out with Kim Edlund and the rest will be sent home with the volunteers, I hope.
Margarita is certainly in her element here. She is enjoying the tree climbing and fishing and running back and forth to the market and her Spanish is great. I am just hoping she doesn’t lose ground in English but she is doing great in math!
I should have brought more flashlights!! We are having our own extreme camping experiences here in San Julian. The first two weeks we were without electricity 2 solid days and at least a third of the day every other day. It was maddening because I couldn’t bring meat or any perishable goods back from Santa Cruz because I couldn’t count on them not going bad in our on again off again refrigerator. I repent of having sold our gas freezer but who would have guessed? San Julian, once it got electricity, has been very reliable with it. We seldom had power outages for 3 years and now we are seldom without them! When there is no electricity in the town there is no water so when it was out for 2 days there were people coming to our street from all over town because we have 3 wells (including ours) on our street complements of Water For All. The ambulance drove up one day looking for water to take to the hospital. Unfortunately we had to send them next door to the hand pump because there was no wind and we were out of water too because the windmill wasn’t running and our tank was dry. This was while Terry and the volunteers were camping.
In spite of, or I should say, because of all the above happenings we can feel your prayers. The volunteers seem to be happy and are learning lots of new stuff. Except for the foot incident and the occasional stomach protest and headaches from the first 4 weeks of continual burning forest smoke exposure, everyone is well.
An evangelism team came out from Santa Cruz led by Sue Whitten with the Baptist mission. They had great music and testimonies and clowns and drama and evangelism cubes. During their visitation time in the neighborhood 29 people accepted Christ! Please pray for these new Christians that we can help them be discipled and baptized and that they grow in Christ.
Please pray for Terry and the guys as they drill this week in the Yapacani area. Pray that Megan’s foot heals completely so that she can participate in the next round of drilling.
Please let us hear from you! It is always and pleasure and an encouragement to get emails from you even if it is only one line. May God bless You.
Love,
Kathy Waller
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