Adios La Paz

Wednesday was our last full day in La Paz. Our hosts, Ed and Sarah Molding, took us on a bridge-like walking path that gives good views of the city. La Paz is unlike any city we’ve ever seen. There are mountain peaks in every view, much like Colorado springs, only instead of being covered in snow, they are covered in houses and other buildings. Here are some of the pictures we took of the city.

We are so thankful to Ed, Sarah, and their daughter Alana for welcoming us into their home and fielding numerous questions about Bolivian life. Sarah will be coming with us as we fly to Sucre, showing us the town and making sure we know how to take care of our basic needs.

Hi from La Paz!!

We are in La Paz! The second leg of our journey went much smoother than the first! Our flight left Miami around 11:30pm and we arrived in La Paz around 5:30am Monday morning. Ella tossed and turned on me for most of the flight so we were all pretty tired when we arrived. Ed and Sarah Moulding, FH missionaries from the UK, are our hosts while we are in La Paz. They picked us up from the airport and fed us some breakfast. They are taking great care of us. Then we all took a nap, finally waking up around 1pm! Ed and Sarah have an almost 3-year-old daughter, so after lunch we took the kids to a park that is just a few blocks from their apartment. As you can see, Ella is enjoying herself!

Today, (Tuesday) we went to the FH office here in La Paz and met several of the staff there. We will also do some more general FH and cultural orientation later this afternoon after we rest a bit. We are all adjusting pretty well to the altitude, although we are moving pretty slowly! John has been dealing with some headaches but overall we are doing well. Our biggest prayer request at the moment is that we will continue to stay healthy and feeling well, while we are at such a high altitude. On Thursday we will fly to Sucre, down to 9000 feet, which will hopefully alleviate some of John’s headaches.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers! It was so fun check our e-mails and see so many messages and notes of encouragement. We will try to update as much as we can while we are here in La Paz as we have good Internet access. We aren’t sure what our access will be like in Sucre so we will play it by ear.

Starting off with a BANG!

Well, our adventure to Bolivia has begin!! Above is a picture of us with all our luggage. The picture makes me laugh because it is like the calm before the storm. In the picture above we are about to have a major twist thrown into our plans! Following this picture we proceeded to take all our luggage inside to check in. You may have noticed in the picture that we have three large red duffle bags and 3 grey tupperware crates. As we checked in we were told that there is a 'box embargo' on all American Airways flights going into Bolivia and our crates were considered boxes. After about 30 seconds of panic and talking with a manager we realized our only choice was to get some duffle bags to replace the crates and repack. So with an hour and 15 minutes before our plane was to leave for Miami, we left Ella and all our bags at the airport with John's parents, and RAN out to the parking lot to our car. We found a Meijer, RAN inside, and found some duffle bags. John ripped open the bag in the middle of the isle to make sure it was big enough. We RAN through the check out line and made a bee line back to the airport. John's parents had all our crates spread out, ready to be unpacked. We quickly stuffed everything into the bags, checked in AGAIN, and made it to our gate just as they were starting to board. For those of you who know us well, you know we are big Amazing Race fans, and even tried out for the show several years ago. We most definitely had our 'Amazing Race' moment this morning...and I'm sure there will be more moments like it to come. We know there were many of you praying for us this morning, and we can't thank you enough! We were in need of it!

Right now we are SO THANKFUL to be relaxing in our airport hotel. We all took naps this afternoon and will head back to the airport later this evening for our 11pm departure to La Paz, Bolivia. Thanks for the prayers. We look forward to sharing with you from Bolivia.

The Big 80!

We just got home from a wonderful 10 day trip to South Dakota. We had the chance to see ALL of Jennie's family while we were there. We spent a day in Sioux Falls where Ella played with all her boy cousins (actually they are all her second cousins) Riley, Mitch, Logan, and Brady. We also hung out with Jennie's Aunt Amy, Uncle Tom, and Uncle Dean.

Several days later the whole Mach clan got together to celebrate Jennie's Grandmother's 80th Birthday. We had a surprise party for her in which over 80 friends and family attended. Growing up the Mach family got together several times a year for various holidays. But as we've all grown up it's been harder to get us all in the same place at once. It's been several years since we have all been together, and it was so fun to see everyone again. It reminded me of the good old days!

Grandma Mach with her grandkids, their spouses, and her great-grandkids

The Whole Mach Clan

Ella has a lot of pictures from the trip on her blog if you are interested.

Through Ella's Eyes

We just wanted to let you know that Ella has started her own blog! So, instead of litering this blog with a ton of pictures of Ella, we now have a blog where we can post millions of pictures of her unashamed!

Here is the link for those of you who are interested our adventure to Bolivia through Ella's eyes:

www.ellainbolivia.blogspot.com

Friends

This past week we have been reminded of how blessed we are to have such wonderful friends. We have really been showered with love this past week as we have said our goodbyes to so many people that we will miss living life with.

My dear friend Erin and I have been on an eerily similar life pattern ever since we met 8 years ago. We first met at the Chicago airport as we boarded the plane headed to Africa. We spent the next year together on a roller coaster adventure in Kisumu, Kenya, serving at Agape Children's Ministry. We both have degrees in exercise science, got married within 3 months of each other, both went back to school to get nursing degrees, and our first borns are only 3 weeks apart. It has been amazing to go through life with her and we have been blessed to be living just 45 min apart for the past several years. With the looming realization that we are about to hit a huge fork in the road, me going one way and Erin going the other, we made plans to have a toddler free trip together to Columbus. (Actually Erin did ALL the planning and I just showed up!) We had a wonderful time hanging out and catching up!

This is the most recent picture of Erin and I that I have. It is obvious that we only take pictures of our kids now....

I went from my time with Erin right into a going away party thrown for us by our community at church. We have been a part of this community for the past 5 1/2 years, long before any of us had any children. It has been such a blessing to have these amazing friends to walk along side as we all grew in careers, grew our families, and grew in the Lord. They threw us an awesome party (including a rendition of the "Amazing Race" game through a park) a time of prayer, great food and fellowship. We will greatly miss having wonderful friends at our fingertips.

Us with our awesome Bolivia Cake, courtesy of our friend Willa

Ella and her Buds

The Girls

We have moved!

As of the end of June, we are officially out of our condo! I'm not exactly sure how it happened as the last few weeks of June seem to be a blur in our minds. I DO know that it would have never happened without the help of so many wonderful friends. A special thanks to those of you who allowed us to borrow your trucks and also helped by watching Ella while we packed. We are also so thankful that we have two families letting us store some of our things in their basements. We feel very blessed to have sold all the items we needed to sell before we had to be out of our condo. Thankfully we only had to move our stuff once!

So where are we living now? John's parents have generously shared their home with us for the month of July before we leave. It's wonderful for Ella to be somewhere familiar. She has taken all of this change very well, although we have started to see some behavior in her that we think has been brought on by all of this change. It was hard for her to see some of our things 'walk' our of our home as other people bought our things. I never thought she would start crying as our computer chair went out the door! Every time she wakes up from a nap she wants to take EVERYTHING out of her crib with her, as if someone might take it away if she doesn't keep an eye on it. Overall, she has been so flexible with all of the change that has been going on around her and for that we are so thankful.