A Big Party! ....and now for a Road Trip

Laurier advance team finally gets to meet the children at Casa de La Amistad


Party time
Children who live in nearby prisons had a chance to inspect their new brighter surroundings at Casa de La Amistad Friday afternoon, thanks to the painting efforts of the Laurier Heights advance team. Even in the happiest of times, an element of sadness may exist. Why did the girl at the top right not eat her cake and pop? She took it to the prison, probably to give to someone else.

Below Norma holds a baby









Story by Norma Whittle

The long awaited meeting with the children from the Casa de La Amistad arrived. Today (Friday) we had a Fiesta!!

The children were all waiting for us when we arrived back at the Casa this afternoon after we went home and cleaned up upon the completion of our task of painting two classrooms. As we entered the room we had painted yellow, the children were very excited to see us. I must admit it was total chaos.

Many children were anxious to have their picture taken and more than eager to give us hugs. Only a small group of kids were actually invited but word got out in the prisons and lo and behold about 45+ showed up.

After we spent a good chunk of time taking their pictures and working our way throughout the group, one of the teachers got everyone to gather into a large circle. Each of us took a turn introducing ourselves to which the kids yelled back a very enthusiastic Hola!! She led them and us in a Spanish version of Head and Shoulders which Isabelle followed with the English version. The kids got great giggles out of the way Isabelle repeated the song, but accelerated the action with each repetition.

They were all then treated to a plate of sweets (cakes) and a glass of either orange or blue pop. Wow look out tonight!! They also went home with balloons and plastic sunglasses. Before we knew it they were all rushing out the door and back down the street to the prison. I kind of stood there wondering what had just happened. It was all very busy and seemed so short. I wished I had had the chance to find out their names and hear their stories, but for today it was only a brief encounter. Each little life had so much more behind it. Each set of eyes held the secrets, the joy and the pain.

A now a word from our Editor

It´s true. We´re holding back some good stuff.

The Laurier Heights team has learned a lot more about Casa de La Amistad and Jireh than has been reported to date. They are exciting programs, but events have accelerated for us in Bolivia and we can´t get it all on the blog. This has not been a holiday trip and it never was intended to be one. We are having fun, but our program is full. We have to sleep. Ray and I are up late most evenings finalizing our stories.

Even though you aren´t hearing everything now, we seen an advantage. It might be more effective and more fun to share some of this information in first person. Even if parts of the story aren´t reported until we are back in Canada, we will make sure that the missing parts will be reproduced on the blog so that those of you who can´t attend Laurier will still get the whole story.

Besides, we aren´t sure many of you are actually reading the blog, judging by the few comments we´ve received to date. Let´s have some interaction. It’s what the blog technology is designed for.
---Daniel Johns














Party favours
Isabelle places a Canada tatoo on a willing girl while the boys try out their sunglasses beside a bunch of balloons.

A message from our team leader

After transforming two classrooms, Laurier hits the road

Story by Pastor Sue Hunter

Friday has finally arrived. We have been working hard all week at the CASA - preping, painting, and cleaning. It has been good to watch the transformation of the two classrooms all week, but it was extremely satisfying today to finally finish our work. Even more satisfying was to see the children enjoying the bright new space and to hear how encouraged the teachers are by our efforts here.

On top of all our work at the CASA, (check out the paint including the ceiling detail in above picture) we have had a very full schedule this week, as you have been reading about in this blog. We are so happy that we have access to this sort of technology, someone who knows how to run it all (Ray), and a journalist (Daniel) who knows how to write it all down. Being able to communicate with you like this is an unexpected blessing. And we greatly appreciate your comments!

When we began this adventure, we prayed that we would see God around every corner. And I have seen that - in our team and in the Bolivian people. Our team is growing together and it is great to see how our gifts and talents work together.

It has been inspiring to see the passion that God has placed in the hearts of his people here. The people we have talked with overflow with compassion. They are deeply committed to what God has called them to do and they keep doing it, even when they do not have all the resources in place. They are not afraid to have big dreams - and they seem to have a faith in God that will carry those dreams to fruition.

Now, this phase of our hard work is done and we will be going to La Paz for the weekend. We do not know if we will have access to the internet while we´re gone, but we should be back here at the CBM offices later on Monday. We trust that God will keep leading and guiding and opening our eyes to his work here.

However, we expect an new entry Saturday evening because we will ask Pastor Lawrence Kim to post an article from Isabelle Johnson about an event that took place earlier this week.