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| Tubing down the Cowichan River |
Although it was busy we did manage to get some relaxation time. We spent 2 days camping in Cowichan Lake and we got to tube down the Cowichan River on the August 1 long weekend.
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| Victoria Symphony Splash fireworks |
We also took time to see the Victoria Symphony Splash - where they float a large barge in the Victoria Inner Harbour and have the local orchestra put on a free concert. It ends with Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture set to an amazing fireworks display.
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| Victoria Symphony Splash |
This year over 40,000 people attended. So it was very nice that we were able to run into a few friends. We even saw Joel and Stef who are serving as Need Greaters in St. Kitts but were back visiting family and friends.
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| Parksville Sandcastle Competition |
And at the end of our trip we even made it up to Parksville to visit friends and check out the Annual Sandcastle competition. This year's theme was 'Good vs Evil', or something to that effect.
For those we missed seeing this time, we will be back to Canada in May, which is not too long from now. We hope to see you then. Please send us an email to let us know how things are going for you. We'll try to keep you updated with the blog as things happen. If you subscribe you will get emails directly to your inbox every time we post an update.
By now likely most of you have heard that we moved to a new country. If not, here is an overdue update.
It was a hard decision to make. Incredibly hard. With 6 days left until our return ticket flight back to Canada we were struggling to make a decision ... 'what to do? Stay the course and hope for the best? Make a change?'
After almost a full year in Bolivia we were enjoying the service and results but we were burning out because of so many reasons ... the largest being the language hurdle. We were feeling awful about considering abandoning our congregation, but we were becoming less and less useful as the stress added to constant bouts of sickness and induced negative emotions.
For 2 months we considered other options within the country. We checked out the 2 English options, one brand new group in La Paz and one brand new congregation in Santa Cruz. We also checked out a Spanish congregation in Sucre that our CO wanted us to support. But we had waited too long to consider making a change. As Paul had said, it was as if we had been 'poured out' and now didn't have much left to give.
So here we were with a decision to make. Our lives have been blessed very well to enable us to reach out as need-greaters; I have the online job, we currently have no family obligations in Canada, we are young enough to handle some of the rougher living conditions of developing countries and we have a burning desire to do 'what we can' within our new found limits. We didn't want to give it up and head home.
So back to 6 days before our return ticket flight back to Canada. We were in Sucre at the time. As usual I got up at 5:40 am to start my online job at 6:00 am. Rachel was laying in bed knowing we needed a decision. She decided she wanted to move to the country that was our second choice when we wrote the branches a year earlier, the Dominican Republic. We have long time friends there, it has many English congregations, it is closer to home, and it has many other benefits. Knowing that it would require a lot of upheaval in our lives she prayed that Jehovah reassure her that it is the right choice by having our friends from the DR call right away. We usually talk every couple of months and we had already talked recently and were not expecting a call.
She continued to lay in bed while I taught. At the end of my class I checked on her and asked if she was any closer to a decision. She told me she wanted to move to the DR. I said good and we should call our friends there as they had tried to phone on Skype as I was just starting my class and I didn't answer. After we contacted them we found out they had a two bedroom furnished apartment they used as an income earning suite that they had just informed the landlord they wouldn't be needing. After talking with us they called him right away and reserved it for us. An hour later I had the flights booked.
We wondered how we could 'tie up' loose ends in Bolivia in just 6 days. We didn't want to have a garage sale - too much stress. So we called the landlord and offered him everything in the suite for 25% of what we had paid for it on one condition - that he let friends stay there until the end of August. We had paid rent until the end of August because we knew that we would be in Canada for parts of July and August. Because of that trip we also had promised some potential need-greaters that they could stay at our place. They had contacted us months earlier through this blog and had requested to stay for a month in Oruro while they "spied out the land". We asked our landlord to honor our commitment to them. He agreed and bought everything.
So the next day we flew to Oruro and packed our things. Two teary-eyed days later we were in La Paz celebrating an early anniversary before our return to Canada.
Through the process of learning our limits we have drawn ever closer to our wonderful creator who is so patient and full of loyal love. What a reassurance knowing he listens to us and answers in such a timely way. Truly, as he promised, he is close to those who 'are crushed in spirit' and he saves them.
We feel thankful to still be able to serve in an area where year after year there is great increase. Not because we personally get to help many learn the truth, but more because it is teaching us to rely on Jehovah and to include him in our decision making. He becomes more and more of a close friend to us as we put him 'to the test.'
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| Mofongo |
Once we arrived it brought back memories of our last visit in November of 2012. We got to eat 'mofongo' again. It's a mixture of plantains, cheese and bacon - all mashed together in an over-sized egg cup. Delicious!!!
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| MotoTaxi -there's 3 of us on a 150cc |
One of our first experiences here was going to the English Convention in Santiago. Of course, the method of transportation is not quite the same as Canada or Bolivia. We caught a 'Moto Taxi' (a motorcycle taxi) to the bus station. The bus dropped us on the side of the highway and we had to run to make it 'almost' on time to the convention.
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| 2015 RC with Kevin, Celina and Suzi |
