Family Visits!

We were blessed to have our first visitors from home! John's parents, John and Roseann Warden, came to stay with us for 2 1/2 weeks. It was so fun to share our new world here with them. Of course, Ella was especially excited to have her Grandparents here.

We were able to show them how everyday life runs for us here in Sucre. We showed them the markets, stores, and parks. We were also able to visit several museums and other tourist places. That was extra fun for us as well because we hadn't taken the time to see some of those things. They were great sports in taking the public transportation (micros), as you can see below! The micros can get a little tight sometimes!

John and Roseann were also able to go with John to work a few mornings to see first hand the ministry that we are doing here, and meet the people we are working with. They were able to meet their sponsored children face to face and spend time with their families, which was really special. One Sunday we attended the Shekina Church, run by Pastor Elvis (black hair yes, side burns no...). John has been working closely with this church for the past few months and we have grown close with the kids that attend there. After the service we took a group picture with everyone who was there that Sunday. As you can see, the church is made up of mostly youth. It's really hard to reach the adult population here as they are so ingrained in their animistic religions. We are trying to empower these kids to know that they have the potential within them to change their generation.

Over Easter break we took a trip to see Lake Titicaca in Copacabana Bolivia, with an overnight stop in La Paz. John and Roseann really got a taste of what travel is like in Bolivia. We arrived to the Sucre airport around 10 am for our 11:15 am flight to La Paz. When we got there, we learned that they had changed the flight to 2:30 pm, two week ago! Normally the travel agency that you book your tickets through notifies you of these kinds of changes, however they must have forgot this time! So we made the decision to just wait it out at the airport instead of paying for taxis back to our house. 2:30 pm came and gone and we were still waiting for our flight to arrive. Finally, we boarded and took off around 3:45 pm. After spending the night in La Paz, we boarded a bus for a 4 hour ride to Copacabana. The bus ride was surprisingly pleasant as the landscape of the altiplano and mountains were spectacular. Three hours into our trek, we came to a port along Lake Titicaca that we needed to ferry across. The whole process was fascinating. All the passengers were unloaded from the bus and then ferried across the strait. The empty buses were also ferried across on little wood "barges."

Once the barge was full, 3-4 men with big sticks would push the barge from the dock, out onto the lake. (This was not an easy job as you can see in the video below!)

You can see below that they put two more cars on with the semi! I hope that last car has a good parking brake as it's just inches from rolling off.

Finally, we arrived at Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The Lake is incredibly beautiful and actually quite large. Titicaca is the largest lake in South America (115 miles long and 50 miles wide) and the highest navigable lake in the world (12,500 ft in elevation). Known for its Inca history Lake Titicaca has several historical sites as well as spectacular views. The Andes mountains frame many views of the lake and the sun sets across the water at this elevation are magnificent. It was a great way to end our time with John and Roseann as well as a beautiful reminder of God's spectacular artistry. Their trip here to Bolivia was a blessing and we had a great time together!