Day 5 - According to Brandon and Whitney

Hola from Bolivia! Today’s post is from the Smith fam - Brandon and Whitney. We would like to share with you just a little about the work we did today, the camaraderie we experienced and some spiritual insights we have from our day.

When we woke up this morning, our Bolivian friends, Pati and Luchita had already prepared some fuel for our work day. This fuel was in the form of a fantastic Bolivian donut called un bunuelo, We then geared up for work by preparing our attitudes as Danny led us through a devotion in Psalm 19. What struck us most from this Psalm was how the beautiful jungle we worked in exists for the purpose of bringing its creator glory! Also, we turned the meditations of our hearts to the Lord. Our devotional times have been awesome in Bolivia. Once we were prepared to work with some extra help from Bolivian coffee we got directly to a very productive morning and early afternoon of work. We have been working at Camp Yungas for the past few days, but today was probably the most work we have done in one day yet on this trip. We are very encouraged by the way the students have worked on this trip. Specifically, today the students finished painting the kitchen in the main dining room at the camp. This job is more detailed paint and so it took some nuanced touch-up work to complete the tasks and they did a really good job. Some of the students helped with me (Brandon) and Kep as we touched up the dining hall we painted a couple of days ago, and also swept the entire floor (it’s a fairly large space). Once we completed this task some of the guys went to help Lucho, who is the administrator of the camp, and Daniel, Lucho’s helper, to literally tear out 3 gigantic dead trees. It was a tough job, but we finished the job and even had a very manly grunt-filled celebration as these gigantic trees came crashing down with tangerines falling all around us from off the surrounding trees. As the guys did this the girls prepped to paint a couple of the cabin rooms. The girls painted a cabin and the guys painted a cabin. When all was said and done we had worked with only one break from 8:45 AM until 2:00 PM-a full and beneficial day of work.

After we finished working we went into the building we have been staying in and ate lunch together. We had a traditional Bolivian dish-potatoes with peanut sauce (poor Connor wasn’t able to have any but he was able to enjoy another dish). Allie and Whitney left with Kep and Debbie to return to La Paz immediately following lunch. They arrived in La Paz at 5:30 and worked until the rest of us arrived in La Paz at 8:30 PM and prepared an absolutely wonderful dinner for us. The rest of the group cleaned all of our stuff up, packed all of our things, and prepared to leave Yungas for La Paz (about a 3 hour drive). Our driver didn’t pick us up until 5, so we had quite a while to hang out with one another and enjoy Camp Yungas for the last time on our trip. We want to take a moment at this point to simply point out how awesome it has been to see these students work together, get to know each other better, and to even make new Bolivian friends despite the language barrier. A lot of these students know each other, but on a trip like this they get to learn new things about one another and have their perspectives expanded by one another’s points of view. Whitney and I have been so encouraged by the humble attitudes each of these students have had and it has honestly been our pleasure to lead this group alongside Danny. We have learned Colleen is an amazing uphill hiker. Missy jumped right in to play soccer with Bolivian students. Connor slept in a hammock last night so he can now literally say he slept in a hammock in the Amazon Rainforest. Josiah joined him as they hung out together and got to know each other better by being super manly and sleeping outside. Trevor has never had a negative attitude even though he currently is struggling with altitude sickness once again. Danny has led this group with pastoral care. Noah has smiled seemingly every moment of this trip. Anna has been great with the kids we have met. Phillip was a sight to behold dancing with the Bolivian students at their school. Tim has continually made us laugh. Allie impressed us all with her shooting abilities during our game of H-O-R-S-E. All of the students have humbly served and added to our devotion times, and even shared their testimonies via a translator. Whitney and I have been so encouraged by this group and feel we have grown much closer to all of them. We thank you parents for allowing us to help Danny lead this trip and spend this time with your kids. Our prayer is that one or more might give their lives to missions overseas as a result of being on this trip. We also pray the students are missionaries already, and as they return home and go off in separate directions we want each of them to identify a mission field they can pour into wherever they are. We thank our friend from Bolivia, Chris for pointing out this great truth during our devotional last night.

Currently we are recovering from a rough ride back up to La Paz. The weather was very poor on the drive and many of us are struggling with the altitude, however, we are so unbelievably grateful for our hosts, Kep and Debbie, who prepared such a delicious meal for us, which we just ate, and for allowing us to watch the Cavaliers attempt to beat the Warriors-which is where we are now and where I leave the readers of this blog for tonight.

Cavs in 7.

Buenas Noches,

Brandon and Whitney