A few posts back I told my dear readers to ask me anything. Seeing as we are coming up to our 10th year on the mission field as well as fifteen years of marriage I opened the floor to find out what you are curious about. The following 12 minute video answers the 14 questions that came in. If you want to skip ahead to a question follow this general guide:

1. [0:10] How do I start working on the mission field?
2. How did you start working on the mission field?
3. [1:50] How do I pack up my family and move somewhere and not have any income?
4. How do you support yourselves?
5. [4:20] When you started 10 years ago did you have an idea where you wanted to be at this point?
6. Did you accomplish that?
7. [4:50] How would you describe your role in Christ Nation Ministries?
8. [5:10] If the ‘now’ you could talk to the ‘then’ you what would you say?
9. [5:45] How do you fight against burnout?
10. [7:00] How does one make it to 10 years on the mission field?
11. [9:25] The thing you love most about living in Bolivia.
12. [9:45] If you could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else where would you be and what would you be doing?
13. [10:55] Do you feel you may ever do missionary work in another place in another time in your lives?
14. [11:30] Favourite way to have your coffee.

Thanks for watching!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Video running time: 1 minute.

Coming out of the post office I encountered a peaceful protest by hundreds of government health workers and teachers demanding fair benefits and punctual pay. What struck me as interesting is that they all had water to drink and parasols to block from the sun. Other sectors of society are not usually that careful when they head to the streets.

If you listen closely in the video beyond my jabber and the plink of the sleet you will hear the rumble of thunder. The lightening flashed relentlessly about a kilometer above our heads. Had it let up we would have slipped and sloshed through the sleet covered rocks and brush and trickling streams to the summit. No trees or buildings means the only conductors are the adventure thirsty humans gasping for air. Preferring not to fry our brains we waved a bitter farewell to the peak within sight but out of reach. This my fourth visit to my dear friend Mt. Tunari will not be my last. We’ll wait for the rainy season to taper off before we go again.

(21 sec.)

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Some snap shots from our day:

A personalized look at the city I live in and my top 12 points of interest. Following the video you will see the complete list with a few links to past blog posts I did about that spot. A special thanks to my husband DaRonn for helping my with the technical side of putting this together, some filming and for his cameo appearance.

Running time of video: 2 minutes and 45 seconds

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1. El Cristo

2. The Botanical Gardens

3. The Market

4. Cine Center

5. The Tunnel

6. The Recoleta (where the best meat in all of Bolivia can be found at a restaurant called Churrasqueria Tunari)

7. I.C. Norte Supermarket

8. El Prado (My Flickr file of images from this area of town)

9. Divas

10. Mount Tunari (2009 summit, 2010 summit, 2011 almost summit)

11. Bowling

12. Juice Zen

The following vlog was made after a long afternoon downtown getting the final document. I don’t even care that the lighting is low, that the girls’ room and myself are a mess-o-rama, or even that the boys are playing Wii and the camera picked up the game’s music. We have the document in hand that declares to the whole world that the adoption is final.

This document, along with a special permission slip, I will take to three different government offices to have it legalized and the signatures recognized. In the middle of that legalization I will have the signatures I need to get her birth certificate. With this legalized document and the birth certificate I will be able to get her Bolivian i.d. card, her U.S. born abroad birth certificate and her U.S. passport. This is all paper work that goes relatively fast and should be done before the end of the year.

We had the honor of having my dad here at our home for his 60th birthday. In the following video you can see some of the the tidbits of our celebrations on his special day. Highlights include: a choreography to the song Oh Blah Di, an appearance from the Chin Heads and the traditional singing of Happy Birthday.

We love you Dad, Opa, Abuelo, Ronn!!!

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I imagine that the family and close friends will be the only ones that will want to invest the two minutes to watch some everyday antics at the Washington house. That is cool with me. The camera was just there on my desk as I worked so I pushed play without them knowing. Here they are in all their hilarity.

Yep, she’s fitting right in. My kids are wondrous!

See related vlog post:

Vlog Two Minutes with my Two Year Old Tyler

(Feel free to skip to the video at the bottom if you haven’t watched it on facebook or youtube yet. I mainly wanted to capture these initial thoughts, feelings and observations during the changes taking place in my life right now. I get a bit wordy.)

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Finally we saw some real tears today.

Backing up a tad to the visitation days. It was a funny frustration, but still unnerving, to think of this child as my own, yet to never have seen her use the bathroom. Silly, I know! Still, it was not until the third day that I saw her use her little potty seat. It was a gratifying moment, to say the least.

Now back to today. Aside from the bathroom thing the other thing eating at me was that I had never seen her cry. Sure, her lip quivered a couple times and she winced and whined at a few things. And I should have been completely grateful that we had heard her laugh more than once. Which, by the way, a child’s laugh is the most wonderful sound in the world. The caregivers told me that she was a brave child. I get that. Still, I wanted to experience tears with her.

Today that happened, more than once.

The first time was when I had to tell her no. The tension had been building and the limits were being tested. A new house with new things means learning the barriers. The tears on her cheeks wet an angry face. She is the strong silent type. No wailing, not a peep, just the death stare and tears.

The second time was a double whammy of wills clashing and possibly fear of abandonment. It happened quickly. I had been complying all day every time she wanted to be held, which was about 75% of the time. The evening was upon us and I needed to tend to some other people in the house. I did the unthinkable and put her down off my lap and outright ignored the lifted arms as I turned my back and walked away from her. Then came the music to my ears. She cried! This was the tears and the audible crying out. It broke my heart and soothed it at the same time. Please understand that I am not reveling in the pain I knowingly inflicted. I am just glad that we are getting to see a new part of her personality. We are getting to know each other. The beautiful thing that followed was that Gabrielle found an opportunity to create a connection with her little sister, a connection that has been slow in coming. The older asked me if she might help the younger. I said she was more than welcome to. Gabrielle offered her arms and a reluctant yet desperate two-year-old Kaitlynn found her way over to comfort. The next half hour the two cuddled, played and cuddled some more. It was precious.

The third and final bout came at bath time. I was so excited to introduce my daughter to the joys of rubber duckies in a nice warm bath. It was all too new and quite frankly terrifying. I watched her eyes grow big as we started filling the tub. Then I pulled her to my lap and took off the first shoe. A scream, a jump, and she was letting it rip as she clung to my neck. The wonderful thing of it all was that she felt safe enough to cry. I let her cry it out as I continued to gently prepare her to enter the water. She is complacent so we didn’t have a hissy fit to deal with. She was just genuinely scared and seeking safety. Even as her tiny feet found firmness on the floor of the tub and the water lapped at her calves she was trying to suck in her lip to stop the crying. I let her stand and watch me play with the ducks. She found the courage to reach down and splash a little. I asked her if she wanted to sit down. She said, “Si.” Then she actually had fun! I could hardly get her out. Then all through Tyler’s bath she tried to climb back in the water.

You know, I think God wants us to feel safe enough to cry when we are with him. I think that He is just strong and confident enough to not get his feelings hurt if we let our angry tears show when we are mad at Him. I think that He wants to know our insecurities so that He can direct us to the loving arms that will hold us, even when they come from an unexpected source. I think He wants us to be honest in our emotional display with Him when we are terrified to do something that we know He is going to have us do, and that He will help us to do regardless of how we cry and cling to Him hoping He doesn’t make us face our fears.

The tears Kaitlynn cried today showed me that she is letting her guard down and we are getting to know each other. So many other things happened this Bolivian Mother’s Day, good things, fun things, heart warming things, exciting things, hard things, surprising things, etc. I am so just thrilled to share this important milestone and write it for posterity.

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Now, the promised video. It is four minutes long and shows both video and images of our time with Kaitlynn thus far set to music. Enjoy!

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@ngie vids
Vlog: “Carnaval”
Location: Cochabamba, Bolivia
Date: 4 of Feb. ’10

A little video about this season in Bolivia called: Carnaval. I have a tiny cold so I sound a little nasally and look a little pastey. Also, I can’t believe that I wore the same t-shirt that I did in a previous video. Sheesh. Ah wells. That’s real life for you.

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For more about our climb of Mount Tunari read my previous post: Desire Fulfilled (click to go there).

For more vlogs you can go to the video page (click to go there).

Enjoy the view!