Filed under: Life in Bolivia, News of Bolivia, Tom, holidays | Tags: Bolivia, Christmas, legalism, Christianity Today, articles
Our little country has hit the big time, at least in terms of the anti-Christmas stance of their “Evangelical” Christians. Christianity Today had the following article today about how Bolivian Christians have pretty much rejected Christmas. This is funny to us, since, at our school, we light the Advent candles, teach Christmas carols and have a huge Christmas program for the parents, and (as Anne has so astutely pointed out) not one parent has complained! Anyway, here’s the article’s link; totally worth reading: “Always Summer, Never Christmas”.
When Christians don’t set aside a holy day for Christ’s birth, [South American Bishop, Frank] Lyons says, “I think the whole doctrine of the Incarnation is lost. We may refer to it every now and then, but the whole historical aspect of the faith that brings it into the present falls by the wayside.” - from the article
Filed under: Bolivian music stuff, Highlands School, Tom, holidays | Tags: high school, Christmas, school, music, program, elementary school, middle school
Today was … character-building. Most of the school converged on this church building for our Christmas program rehearsal. Many - not all, but many - things that could go wrong, well, did.
I forgot about a song I was supposed to help the 1st and 2nd graders with.
The archangel Catalina (surely you’ve read about her in Luke!) got mad at her teacher for some, um, creative decisions he decided to surprise her with.
There were major disagreements with the middle school teachers on how their kiddos should come up on the stage.
The middle schoolers made most of our hair turn several shades of gray by burying their faces in the sheet music and frowning through “Deck the Hall” and “Jingle Bell Rock”.
The middle schoolers suddenly became snapping-challenged in the middle of the big number.
My senior pennywhistle player had an existential crisis.
I left the practice thinking pretty much everyone on staff was mad at me.
I mumbled and frowned my way through the rest of the day, managing with much willpower and not a little grace from the Almighty not to take it out on my high school English class. It was only after discovering that no one indeed was mad at me and everyone was very happy with how the rehearsal went (were they at the same rehearsal?!?!?), that my spirits began to lift and I regained the will to go on.
All that is to say, after the dust clears, I love what I do. Freaky how that works.
We got caroled-to tonight. Our school’s staff - mostly the single folk - decided to go around and sing Christmas carols to the families we know. They ended their round of spreading cheer with our home. It was delightful - and kinda weird - to hear carolers outside our door.
When the doorbell rang, Anne peeked out and said, “Tom, there are a bunch of people caroling!” This was odd because no one carols here. Funny thing is, Anne couldn’t see out that well, so they were, like three songs in before we got up the nerve to open the door. It was a wonderful surprise to see our friends out there, belting out carol after carol after carol.
They decided that, because I like to sing, they should sing every last carol on this songsheet I had made. That’s about twenty Chiristmas carols. In a row. Non-stop.
The world’s longest medley. It was hilarious.
And sweet.
Even if the Panthers had lost (which they did not), this seasonal serenade from our dear friends would still have totally made our night.
Just had the best time listening to the Panthers beat Tampa Bay. It’s like we were there. Woo hoo!
Filed under: Uncategorized
The church we’ve been attending this school year does a children’s moment during almost every service. We really like that Avery gets to participate in the service, but we hold our breath every time she goes forward with the other kids. She always manages to sit right next to the person speaking, which puts her in close proximity to the microphone. Of course, the speaker at the children’s moment always asks the kids questions, and Avery’s hand is always up, even if she has no idea what the question or answer is. Thankfully, she hasn’t said anything too embarassing so far, but it is usually fairly amusing.
Take today’s exchange for example. . .
Speaker: “Who knows what holiday we are all about to celebrate?”
Avery: “The cookie exchange” (planned for later that day at our house)
Speaker: “Who can tell me what you would like for Christmas?”
Avery: “I want new clothes.”
Perhaps you can’t tell it, but we HAVE been talking about JESUS this Christmas, but it is difficult to tell from her answers! Next Sunday is the children’s program where she will play the role of a lamb. Hopefully her only line is BAAA!
So, Anne, Avery and I got to do some heavy-duty shoppin’ today at the Arts and Crafts fair at the local embassy school. Had a great ol’ time gettin’ Christmas gifts. Here’s one Anne got me!
done
So, it’s called a moceño, and it’s very easy to play. Avery actually “mastered” it before I figured out exactly how to make a sound on it!
We had a great, if rather unorthodox, week of Thanksgiving festivities. It started last Saturday when the American (and Kiwi) staff from Highlands gathered at Amy and Christian’s home for a wonderful meal and time together.
Even though Bolivians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, we decided to make it a special week at school. For Spirit Week, each day was a special dress-up day. Make sure you look at the photos below of how Tom and I dressed up as book characters! Thanksgiving ended up being pajama day, so it worked well since we all felt lazy and full after a meal of fried turkey and lots of casseroles. You can’t buy pumpkin here, so I brought some canned pumpkin back with me from the States. My pumpkin crisp was a big hit with the Bolivian staff.
Yesterday was our first Team Day of the year. On Team Day, our whole school is divided up into four groups, and the Kindergarten class through Seniors compete together at crazy games. This time it was an egg theme, which was messy and lots of fun. The game at my station involved dropping eggs from a balcony into buckets on the ground.
We had a lot to be thankful for this week, but most of all, we were grateful that we picked up our visas at 5:00 Wednesday evening. We are now legal residents of Bolivia for the year, and we have our passports so that we can leave the country at Christmas. And we hopefully never have to set foot in the Bolivian immigration building again - yahoo!
Filed under: Anne
Although we are pretty used to living here now, every once in awhile we still have days where it’s very apparent that we are not in control of our environment!
Today, like every weekday, I called the taxi company that serves our school to pick me up so that I could go get Avery from her preschool. Unlike every other time I have called, no one answered. After repeated calls, I asked our secretary if she knew what was happening or if she could call another company. She told me another company would charge me a lot more, so she said she would call the owner of our usual company to see what was going on. She got a hold of him, and he explained that today was the taxi company’s anniversary. Therefore, they were all partying and not working today. She explained my situation to him, and he agreed to send someone to get me. Meanwhile, I called Avery’s school to tell them I’d be late since I was stuck at Highlands. The taxi never came, so I ended up getting a ride with one of our teacher’s assistants who was leaving for the day. It all worked out, and Avery didn’t mind the extra play time at school.
This afternoon, seven of us who still do not have our work visas were told to go to immigration to pick them up. When we arrived, they issued two of our visas, but not the others. They said that the paperwork still had to be signed by the director, and that we should come back next Tuesday. Apparently he can only manage to sign his name a few times a week! 
On our way home, we drove by the Curves that I joined earlier this school year. It is still closed. While we were in the States, the toilet in the apartment above the Curves leaked for so long that it flooded their floor, which meant the ceiling of Curves fell in. Thankfully, it happened at night so no one was hurt. However, it pretty much ruined the place and equipment. So about seven weeks later, it is still not open and I don’t know when it will be. Although it’s kind of nice to have a legitimate excuse not to exercise, I really was looking forward to working out there!
In order to counteract our feelings about Bolivia today, we went to our favorite Tex Mex restaurant for dinner and topped it off with Italian gelato for dessert!
Filed under: Life in Bolivia, Tom | Tags: Advent, Christmas, holidays, Thanksgiving
If you think starting Christmas early is a rampant plague in the States, just try to be in a country without a major holiday between Halloween and Christmas.
October 31, it’s a death-fest (and here they don’t do “cute” Halloween; it’s all very ghoulish and over the top), and then, before the broken eggshells on the sidewalk and vampire makeup is all cleaned up, Santa and Christmas trees are up, as well as the occasional incongruous snowman (Christmas happens in the summer here)… You have to look hard for manger scenes and angels…
I love Christmas (which, by the way, starts on December 25!)… love it, but there is something, um, missing when you jump from brain-eating Zombies to cookie-munching Santas.
We need a time to slow it down, to give thanks to the Giver of all good things, to chase turkeys around with a musket.
And then there’s Advent: that glorious time of awaiting, lighting the lights, looking back on the longing hope of Messiah and longing for His return…
This is a time to slow down, friends. I just refuse to fast forward.
Filed under: Anne
We have said goodbye to Barkie twice in the last two days. Yesterday, we had a day off of school for All Saints Day, a big holiday here. Tom took out the trash, and I wasn’t able to close the door behind him quickly enough. Barkie ran out behind him and then took off down the street. Tom hunted for him for about a half an hour, but he didn’t have any success. Barkie seemed to have a major burst of energy and initiative once he got outside. He apparently explored the whole neighborhood. Avery and I went out a little later to look for him. After about ten minutes, I was ready to go back inside when Avery said she saw him about two blocks away. Sure enough, there he was. We got within a couple of feet of him, but he acted like he had no idea who we were and quickly went off on his way.
Just when we had accepted that Barkie seemed to prefer freedom to a nice safe place to eat and sleep, eagle eye Avery spotted Barkie out the window. He was trotting down our street. We put some food outside our door, and he eventually came over to it and came in the house. He was quite tired after his adventures so he slept for most of the day. He seemed very restless after that and started barking often for the first time. This scared Avery and frustrated us since we try to keep him quiet for our neighbors’ sake.
Our friends who found Barkie in the first place said that a family with a large yard had agreed to take him, so they picked him up tonight. We were glad to say goodbye under better circumstances than yesterday. We think Barkie will be happier with more space and Avery will be happier without the barking.
We have decided that we might like our cat better than we thought we did. . .
