Well, I arrived safely to Santa Cruz on Sunday night. It was a long journey (go to sleep at 1 a.m. Sat, wake up at 4:45 a.m. Sun), but mostly it went well. It was nice to visit with the Clements in Miami. They were on their way to Santa Cruz as well, for the wedding of their daughter, Corina. (Corina is the one who runs El Jordan and is a good friend.) Anyway, it is nice to have folks you know with whom you can visit! I say the trip went mostly well because when I arrived, my checked luggage did not arrive with me.
At Viru Viru airport, there is a glass wall separating the luggage/customs area from the pick-up area. Yoli and Jadzia were there with Corina and others waiting for the Clements and I. They were waving and I was waving back, waiting for my luggage to appear. It never did. So I filled out some paperwork and went out to see my wife and daughter. Jadzia was very sleepy, but she wanted me to hold her.
In fact, since I’ve been back, she insists on being near me or having me hold her all the time. She really cries when I leave (just to go to the bathroom, for instance). Hopefully this won’t last long, but it is so cute to see how attached to me she is.
Anyway, the luggage was rerouted back to Santa Cruz and we picked it up Monday morning with no problems. Thank God! I wasn’t relishing the thought of borrowing/buying a bunch of clothes down here.
Many things are the same here, and there is the usual adjustment to the weather, to taking the bus and walking everywhere, to listening closely to people’s Spanish so I can understand, to spending long visits with folks. It’s all good.
At El Jordan, I got to see a bit of “Jericho.” Jericho was a project to expand El Jordan by purchasing the property next door, tearing down the house there, and building a new multi-story building. You can read more about it here or see some pictures we took last year when it was under construction.
It is now all finished, and it’s really cool to see. There is a nice large multipurpose meeting room on the first floor with a kitchen, several awesome childcare rooms on the second floor, and then classrooms and guest rooms on the other floors. It also looks quite impressive from the street. Best of all, it greatly expands the capacity for ministry to happen. Yoli was using the kitchen last week to teach four girls in her cake-decorating class.
Speaking of which, I got to see the cakes (and taste one of them) today. They were very good students, indeed!
I’m not sure what’s on tap for the following days, but I know we’ll see friends and family. Tomorrow we may go to see a Bolivian movie that is supposed to be pretty good (but there are no showings with English subtitles, unfortunately). Also, my brothers in law are quite intent on taking me fishing overnight sometime. That should be an adventure.
Josh, You and I were able to avoid round 1 of the overnight fishing outing before, but it sounds like you might be a tad outnumbered this time. We can’t wait to hear about the adventure when you get back. Make sure you get some pictures!