Chad: yeah so this is going to have three parts, but i wanted to share them all.

story #1: our friends mike and aileen are here now (they have a blog too and when they teach me how i'll put a link to their blog spot onto ours) . we took them out friday night. we had been to a restaurant that rocks that we wanted to bring them to. our typical means of travel is that i drive and emily stares at our santa cruz map and tells me when to turn. it's not foolproof but it's pretty bolivianesque. at any rate we were using our not quite tried and true method to get to the restaurant. we got a little turned around and we needed to get back to a street we had just turned off of. so i took the initiative and took the first available right to get to the main street again. now i have to be honest, i have rarely gotten nervous or uncomfortable when driving here, but there is a first for everything. i turned onto this multi-lane street to face no less than a hundred headlights coming in formation right toward us. evidently i chose to turn onto a busy one-way street the wrong way right after their light had changed. yeah, i was pretty much nervous. i believe that there was some screaming. i know there was honking from furious bolivian drivers going the correct direction. i gunned the engine and cranked the wheel. we flew up onto a sidewalk and over a corner to land safely on the street we had turned from. poor mike and aileen, for them it was like night #2 in bolivia. bienvenido a bolivia (welcome to bolivia).

story #2 i worked really hard the other day digging a trench and installing a drainage pipe at an orphanage. it was hot.

story #3 i caught a huge beetle this morning and it was cool. that's all. (so maybe one story and three cool pictures)

Emily: I love the feeling of a wonderfully lazy Sunday... we have been reading most of the afternoon with the exception of a quick nap here and some laundry there. I was going to bake some peanut butter cookies but didn't have any butter. Sad. I would have gone to the store, but it seemed so far away, and definitely would have zapped the lazy Sunday feel. I ate a spoonful of peanut butter instead. Sorry Chad, no cookies today.

Chad: As many of you are aware I have a bit of an affinity for basset hounds. In fact that has been one of the challenges of being on this continent (I couldn't bring my parents basset hounds). I have particularly missed Chessa, who despite Emily's opinion does not drool very much like Chloe does. At any rate, the other night we went to the Santa Cruz Ghetto to drop off our friend Jared. This is a neighborhood without paved streets that white people lock their doors when travelling through. After dropping him off I saw a basset hound. His name was Diego. I got out and asked the Bolivian people near by if I could pet him. It was awesome. It is also amazing how God can encourage us with the simplest things here. Oh and for all concerned Emily did not pet Diego (or go within four feet of him) and I did not get fleas or any other communicable disease (so far as we currently are aware of).

Yeah, so I pretty much have a mate now. One of my friends here is from England, and his name is Andy Partington. He's a couple of years older than me and has two kids. Anyway, we have gotten to be pretty good friends, and the reason that I know this is that he now calls me "mate." So that's pretty sweet. The problem being that if I call him mate it sounds stupid. We Americans don't have any names to call each other that have the sophistication, yet friendly nature of mate. We say dude, buddy, dawg, and many other less than worthy nicknames. I'd be curious to see if anyone has a suggestion of a nickname that doesn't make me seem like a neanderthal (sp?) when speaking with my "mate" Andy.

Chad: Sorry everyone that it has been so long since we have blogged. By now we probably have no one left that even checks it. Last weekend we went to a youth retreat with our church youth (Bolivians). It was really interesting. They really get into the worship. After the service we were talking with a newly-wed couple. Around us it was mass pandamonium. Typical of retreats or other camp experiences they were running around throwing everyone into a pool and getting each other wet. They never do stuff like that to us because we are the "misionarios." As we were talking with the couple a friend of theirs charged up from behind them (across from us) and dumped cold soup on them. We got smooshed banana pieces, white chunky water, peels, and other bits of assorted food dumped on us (inadvertently). It was quite an interesting experience. I've never had old soup dumped on me. If there is anyone still out there thanks for reading my story.