The Three Cook-a-tears or Culinary Arts in the Booher Home

                                                                  HOT!!!!! Sauce!
 Yesterday evening I (Emily) was baking cookies with the help of Clancy, Clara, and Ruth,when Clancy came up with the brilliant idea of making hot sauce as a surprise for Mama and Myles. I thought that it would keep them from picking in my dough, but little did I know what would happen later.:o
 They put locotos (Bolivian hot peppers that are almost as hot as habeneros), salt, and because they thought that it might not be spicy enough they put store bought hot sauce in as well. Clancy stirred it together, then gave it to Ruth  to try. How nice of you Clancy! Ruth sat down at the table and took a small amount. She came running into the kitchen doing a little dance and begging for water. I gave her some yogurt, and soon she was back to normal.

The Hot Sauce King with his two Victims

  Clara was the next person to try it, and somehow she succeeded in getting some on her lips. Bad idea! She came running into the kitchen with her tongue hanging out of her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks saying,"Mama I feel like someone punched me on my lips and my mouth is burning!" Mama put yogurt on her lips, but even that didn't help! She was still suffering from side effects two hours later! She put a frozen chunk of butter on her lips to stop the burning,and that helped quite a bit.

Poor Clara!

  Ruth decided she was ready for another try, only this time she dipped her finger in the sauce and then touched her eye! How intelligent! She was screaming her head off! By now Mama was about to give Clancy the worst whipping of his life. Mama washed it off with Uncle Dwight's awesome soap and Ruth was soon back to normal.
 Clancy, the Cook-a-Tear-in-chief, never even touched the stuff! Stinker! He just laughed when the little girls came in sobbing.:0 He takes after his dad! I have long ago learned to NEVER taste any of Clancy's experiments (ever since he put B.B.'s in the spaghetti).;)The closest I got to it was to smell it, and it even smelled spicy!

The moral of the story is: do not allow your children or younger siblings (I hope I'm not giving them any ideas...) to make hot sauce without supervision. If they do, do not taste it, or you might look like this........

A Lesson In Faith

While flying along with Rudi and our children in a squeeking, creeking, jerking, frequently stopping, darting in and out of traffic, Trufi, last night on our way home from dinner, I began to contemplate FAITH. Just off the top of my head I would define faith as: putting my complete trust or confidence in something, or a result. In this case I was putting my faith in the Trufi driver and his skill to safely get us home.  I really had no other choice. When we got home I considered what the scripture says about faith. One of my favorite chapters in the Bible defines what faith is. "Now FAITH is the substance (confidence)
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by IT the elders obtained a good report. Through FAITH we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear... But without FAITH it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Hebrews 11: 1-3 & 6 I must confess it is sometimes easier for me to put my faith in men rather than in God. I can SEE a man. I cannot see God as a physical form. However, one of the ways I KNOW that God exists is because of his creation. " The heavens DECLARE the glory of God: and the firmament SHOWETH his handiwork."Psalm 19:1 What peace came to my heart and mind, last night as a I lay down to rest. God is watching over me and I know this by FAITH. Can I have faith in anything higher or more powerful than God... NO WAY... My soul has an anchor in what the word of God says about faith, even if every Trufi driver lets me down and wrecks, I know that my faith has found a resting place. I will put my faith in God and the promises in his Word, and I know that only in them, am I truly safe from anything that could ever harm me physically or spiritually. Well, maybe not physically, but definitely spiritually!

Mi Casa

Jen, David, the Rudi Booher Family, Vico, and Elena

Hello from the courtyard of our new home. David (in the orange shirt) is holding out his hand to show the numerous keys that go with our house. I think there must be at least 20! So far we have only had to use two of them: the front gate and the front door. Here in Cochabamba we have to lock things up tight! Everyone also has sharp objects on top of the fences, gates, and such to discourage theft. Pictured below is one wall in the front of our house. These glass bottles are attached with cement. An innovative way to recycle glass bottles, eh!

The Front of our Casa

I wanted to show you all around our house... Hang on tight as it may get a bit random at times...

The Sewage Canal across the Street...

   
 If you look at the picture of the "Front of our House" you will see a dip in the cement behind the first bushes. This "dip" is the Sewage canal that the houses and businesses on our street all connect to. It smells pretty bad when you get closer.... When Jen told us about our house she told us there was something "odd" about the bathrooms. When we got here we found out that we could/should only go uhmm... number 2's in one outside bathroom. We have christened this bathroom the "Big Jobber House".This bathroom is attached to a small septic tank system. All other waste water that goes from our house dumps into the canal... (I warned you that this would be random!)

The Big Jobber House

Handwashing Station

Our house came with this very deluxe area to hand wash your clothes. There was not a designated place for a washing machine. I think that the Lawyers that own/lived here before us did all hand washing for their clothes. David rigged up an area for our washing machine in one of the spare outside bathrooms. (There are two extra bathrooms outside, besides the "special" one!)

Amazingly, the washing machine "sits" in the shower area, pulls power from the shower head socket on the wall, takes water from the back of the toilet area, and drains into the toilet.... Ned, are you impressed? These folks down here know how to make it happen when it comes to electrical and plumbing! My washing machine works great and has a very large capacity. I need to get a bigger dryer to handle all of the clean wash....

Mi Secadora

Yep, you guessed it... my clothes dryer is "Bolivian style" and, thankfully, my favorite! You are also looking at the majority of our "yard". We are hoping to do all of the yard work for Casa 1 and Casa 2, to get all of the lawn mowing out of Rudi's system! Those of you who know him know he loves to work in the yard!

The Widow Maker (Shower head)

   Another wonder in the electrical and plumbing world here is the electric-heated shower head, fondly dubbed "The Widow Maker"! 220 volts can really pack a punch especially when standing in water! Not that I would know anything about it! The way it works is: you turn on the water, then you flip the breaker switch (pictured to the left in the grey box) which starts heating the water in the shower head. The slower the water flows through the shower head the warmer it is. It is actually super clever and a very economical way to have a hot shower... Just hope that your shower is not a shocking experience!

The View from our Balconies

The view from our balconies of the mountains and skies surrounding us is amazingly beautiful. The weather has been sunny, with some clouds in the afternoons. When the wind kicks up it is amazing how much dust gets in the air.

Installing our Phone line!

       I don't think this picture turned out very clear, but this is the phone guys working on the phone/power pole to the left of our house. It is a real jumble of wires and the fella on the ladder is very high up off the ground! Wouldn't the safety associations in the U.S. have a fit?

Our local herd of Sheep

 Although it feels very city like where we are, it is not uncommon to see a flock of sheep or several HOLSTEIN dairy cows, right on our street grazing on the very few tufts of grass available. I don't know who they belong to, or where they go, as I have never seen people in charge of them.

Our Neighbors

This is our neighbors directly behind us. I don't know if animals or people live in these tin roofed huts. I think it is a combination of both. I have heard lots of chicken and rooster sounds coming from here, as well as, people sounds! The house beyond them is the one of the nicest I have seen in our area. The part of town we are located in has a real mixture of industry and homes.


                      

17th Anniversary

Rudi and I are celebrating our 17 wedding anniversary today!  It is the first time we have ever celebrated a spring anniversary. The season is spring "down under"! Not knowing what to expect here in Cochabamba we went ahead and celebrated our anniversary on the California Coast a couple weeks ago. I wanted to post the words to the song that Rudi sang to me during our wedding. They seemed especially appropriate this year!

Rudi and Carla- Carlsbad, California 

 

 

 

 

 

           "Many A Mile To Go", sung by Colin Raye
I look down the road that winds in the distance and wonder where it might lead....
I only know it makes no difference, as long as you walk with me....

 Many a mile we will travel, many a dream we will share, many's the time we will
gladly take the long way there. With every step we will draw closer, at a every turn
our love will grow. Take my hand we have many a mile to go.    

True love is not a destination that one day we will arrive... this is the journey we'll
be taking the rest of our lives...                               

Many a mile we will travel, many a dream we will share, many's the time we will
gladly take the long way there. With every step we will draw closer, at every turn
our love will grow. Take my hand we have many a mile to go....many a mile to go...



Every year is better than the last.... Happy Anniversary, Rudi-love, I love you!

Sights of Cochabamba

Corner Market w/ Amazing Fruits and Veggies!

What a difference a week makes..... In most ways it feels like being dropped off the world into a whole new planet. It also feels like we have arrived as babies. Thankfully the Lord provided us LOTS of help in the form of Vico & Elena, Jennifer & Jake, Kaley & Pauline, and David. They have bent over backwards to help us get moved into our wonderful new home. I will try to condense the sights and smells of the last week for you in this blog...

Elena, Ruth, and Carla on the "Pasareyla"(overpass) w/ Trufi in the background

 Elena and Vico taught us how to flag down, ride, get off, and pay for a  "Trufi"(true-fee). We will have to depend on these and the "Micro"(me-crow) buses until we get our own car. It has been difficult for me to take in all of the different routes and where to get off. I am starting small and survival right now. I think it will take me months to "master" the city! The driving and drivers are absolutely crazy. It is a death defying ride no matter who is driving and LOOK OUT pedestrians. They definitely do not have the right of way at all!

The Mighty Micro

 I have gotten a real cultural jolt out of watching the various folks get on and off. There is a real mix of professionals, men and women in native hats and dress, as well as, teenagers and families. It is quite a system the way they wave down the various types of transportation, pay, and tell them where they need to get off. It all seems very "on the fly" as you can flag them down and hop off anywhere and everywhere. Nobody talks to each other, although many times they are practically sitting on each others laps.

La Concha

 We spent hours and hours on foot in this jungle called "La Concha". It is the largest market of its type in South America, possibly the whole world! If you do not have a guide expect to be lost and confused. Even if you have a guide expect to be lost and confused! Thanks to OUR expert guides we were able to purchase our beds, our refrigerator, our stove, and our washing machine. We also got some vegetables, fruits, and various things to set up our house. You can find it ALL at La Concha! When we got back on Wednesday from spending at least eight hours there, Jake asked me to sum up La Concha in one word. The word that worked for me was OVERWHELMING. The smells varied from raw meat, human excrement (do not step in the puddles here!), sweaty bodies, delicious fruit, and pollution from all of the cars and trucks.

This is a common sight outside our gate, on our street, and everywhere around town. The women also "wear" their groceries and various things in the shawls also! I think they are so cute. Most of the women are very short!

Here is Tio Vico & Tia Elena's house where we stayed Monday-Friday! Our four bedrooms and two bathrooms were on the second floor. The bottom floor includes, the kitchen on the right, the family room directly in the middle, with their room on the left on the bottom floor. There are two more rooms on the third floor. It rained Wednesday Night and boy did the metal roof make a racket! It also was odd to have to walk outside to get to every room. Very "alfresco" for sure!

We were also able to see Casa 1 and Casa 2 this week. It was my favorite part to get to see the children that are the reason we are here in Cochabamba. We are excited to be getting settled enough to start considering which ones we will be caring for soon.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and love. We feel it across the miles and could not do this without you! God bless you all!

ARRIVAL!

    Wow, how do you put into writing all of the amazing, new, exciting, faith building events that have happened in the past 72 hours? We have seen the blessing of the Lord on this venture at EVERY turn.
Every flight was on time and uneventful, other than a few bumps of turbulence. We were able to see smoking live volcanos as we flew over Guatemala, as well as, the Panama Canal from the air! Fun stuff!
   When we arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia we had to go through customs. The flight arrived at 12:47 a.m. Monday morning. We woke all of the children out of a dead sleep and carried our 14 HEAVY carry ons off the plane and were the last in a line of about 144 people. Paula would not stop crying. Thankfully, some of the people in front of us insisted that because we were traveling with small children we should take this other line that the flight crew went through that had not one person in it. It was like getting in the "fast pass" line at Disneyland! We were so blessed, as it knocked at least two hours off our waiting time! After customs we had to wait for six hours for our next flight in the Santa Cruz airport. All they had were some metal seats to wait/rest in. Hmm not very conducive to a good nights rest... I got the idea of making beds for the children on the luggage.

First Memories in Santa Cruz!

"Ahh, this feels great"

Hard, but Comfy!

It worked out great and all of the younger children slept like babies until it was time to wake them up for our last flight! Rudi stayed up to keep an eye on us and the luggage. Being the friendly guy that he is, he had some nice chats with several different people. One lady he met owned a bakery/coffee shop in Santa Cruz and had taught CEF!!! I thought that was pretty amazing!
    After four flights totaling approximately 14 hours and 24 hours worth of layover time we arrived in Cochabamaba at nine Monday morning! We were met by Jennifer and crew with four cars to haul all of us and our 600+ pounds of luggage to Vico & Elena's house where we will be staying until we get our house
set up this week. What a blessing to arrive at some amazing guest quarters. We have two bathrooms and four bedrooms at our disposal. Vico & Elena have made us feel most welcome and are settling us in and showing us around.
   Thank you for praying for us. We are encouraged and excited for what the future holds here for us!

Departure...

United Airlines flight 1535 to Guadalajara

"We are now officially out of the comfort zone", was the thought that ran through my head as our plane lifted off the ground from the LAX airport this morning. It has been a lot of work these past weeks: seemingly endless paperwork details, shopping, packing, packing, and did I mention re-packing! It is actually a huge relief for us to be underway and on the way to the beginning of our new adventure. We are READY. Speaking for myself (Carla) it almost feels like being pregnant and "overdue"! Everyone is in good health and good spirits. I was feeling all the prayer support this morning, when I only got about 2 hours of sleep last night (long story!), and still felt sane and not too crabby (yet)! Two different scriptures have been in my mind. The one early this morning was Hebrews 11: 8 " BY FAITH Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went!" I can relate a little to that verse today. The other is Isaiah 40:29-31 "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." I am counting on this promise to be true as we begin our grueling 2.5 day trip!