Blackout

29 January

Today while Charles and I were doing our grocery shopping, he started to feel an intense pain on his right side near his abdomen. It's not the first time he's had pain there, but he said it usually subsides as quickly as it starts. Today, however, it didn't go away quite so fast. We proceded to check out and go to the market only minutes away from the grocery store. When we pulled up at the market Charles said the pain had gotten much worse and asked me to call Placido. This is where Bolivia cell phones differ from American ones. Here we put credit on our phones just as you would use a calling card in the States. The downside -- the credit always seems to run out at the worse times. So there I am in the car trying to scratch off the metalic stuff to get to the code to call Placido as Charles goes completely white. He tells me he can't hear me or see me at this point and that he was "going down." Within that moment he stopped responding and blacked out. At the same time I got Placido's direction to meet him at the hospital.

So fortunately I found a taxi and we made it to the hospital where we met Toni. By then Charles had come to and was feeling better. After talking to a doctor and running lab work our diagnosis was almost exactly right -- Charles has a localized hernia that caused the intense pain, causing the blackout. The labwork all came back normal.

The next step is to schedule surgery in the next few weeks to resolve the discomfort. Placido can do the surgery and the recuperation is at most a week.

Praise God that the blackout wasn't more serious and that the pain subsided relatively quickly. Charles is taking it easy, and we will meet with the doctor tomorrow morning to see what medications he will take to help with the pain. At present, Charles is completely healthy and back to normal. He's been up and around -- without any lasting effects from today.

Please pray for Charles' health and praise God he wasn't alone today when the pain caused him to blackout.

Thank you for your continued support.

Princess for a Day

Well since none of you were able to make it to the Conferencia Princesa this weekend, I'll describe it to you. Friday morning we took 4 Ayore girls with us to the Princess Conference held by our mission. The conference was two days long with forty-something girls each day.

The conference was focused toward girls ages 8-12 with the idea to make them feel like they genuinely were God's princesses.

The day started off with the girls being crowned with floral headpieces and escorted to their seats -- Charles being one of the escorts! We drank tea and ate breakfast on fine china.

The day was filled with talks on inner beauty, heavenly riches and princess responsibilities as well as dramas, crafts, manicures and games all centered around being a princess in God's eyes.

I was priveleged to give the talk on responsibilities of a princess. It was interesting to see the dialogue we had going -- surprisingly the girls really didn't think as young people they had responsibilities as believers. The majority thought that only adult Christians were responsible for their actions, words, etc. It was eye-opening for me to see how much communication lacked between girls my age and the audience. Those girls are in real need of godly role models and leadership.

The crafts the girls made was a decorated mirror with their face in the center. They were asked to smile when the picture was taken and when they put that picture in the mirror they were told that the smile was to remind them of their beauty and self worth in Christ. The lady leading the craft encouraged the girls to smile when they see themselves since that is what God is doing when he sees them. I thought it was a great activity for young and old alike.

At the end of the first day one of the Ayore girls told me she wanted to rededicate her life to Christ and a second one wanted to pray the prayer to invite Christ into her heart. I will be following up with these two girls. Please pray with me for Lola and Daniella as they have just entered into a brand new relationship with the Lord. How exciting! Now, I have the responsibility of leading them in that life and hopefully guiding them with my words and actions.

The two days were no-doubt tiring but well worth the smiles we saw from the girls who attended. Thank you to those of you who were praying for the event.

January Letter 07

Older and Wiser

Mercedes

Minor Improvements

After a lot of work from the teams this summer, the frame of the Guest House in Poza Verde was finished. However, it's not quite ready to live in. The idea of this house is that there is a place for guests to stay overnight out in the village. Occasionally there are camps or retreats in Poza Verde as well as projects that require several days. Charles and I decided that we would like to stay out in Poza Verde for one weekend every month to play with the children and visit with the community. We did some evaluating this past weekend of what the house needs. There are a few minor improvements we'll have to make in order to stay overnight! The motivation behind finishing it is that we actually can put it to use. For the last six months it has been vacant. Hopefully, this year we'll be able to get a lot of use out of it and in return gain some valuable relationships with Ayoreos in Poza Verde.

Immediate Needs:

• Gas refrigerator w/ tank ~$500


• Solar Panel with battery ~ $450 (for lights, cell phones, radio, etc)


• Bed ~$100


• Bathroom improvements ~$50


• Gas stove w/ tank ~$120

Future Needs:

• sink


• countertop


• cabinets


• mirror


• cleaning supplies


• extra beds


• tile for the floor


• screening for windows

Our Team

Drs. Toni and Placido Mercado -- team leaders and practicing doctors

Charles and Hannah McCall -- discipleship and Childrens' Ministry

Lucy LeBeran -- Nursing student, office manager

Dr. Raul Hurtado - practicing doctor at the clinic

Carmen Mercado -- Dentist

Rocio -- Ayoreo, discipleship volunteer

Benial and his family -- Ayore pastor and leader of discipleship

Pablo Duran -- volunteer for Childrens' Ministry

The Gardening Group

Charles is training this group of Ayoré men to be skilled gardeners and in turn make a living for their families. This new ministry is growing!

Bolivia's Beloved Sucre

In October we went to Sucre, Bolivia's Capital, with Charles' parents. It's known to be one of Bolivia's jewels as all of the architecture is ancient and all white.