Bolivia

Posted By Josh on August 4, 2010

Well it has been a while since I have updated this. I have been on vacation for 3 weeks and had a wonderful time. I left the school hitch hiking and then at the next town I got on a bus and rode for 28 hours.  I was able to enjoy the sites along the way. I even got to experience travel on “The Most Dangerous Road in the World.” After that very  long trip I arrived in La Paz. I had a blast in La Paz. I was able to relax and enjoy myself. I walked all around the city which is beautifully placed in a canyon in the middle of a mountain range. La Paz stands at an altitude of 11,913 feet above sea level. I got the opportunity to ride a bike down “the most dangerous road” which was an all day ride down a cliff edge that was used as the only road to La Paz for years.

After La Paz I took a bus to Uyuni and spent a day in the salt flats there. That was one of the most surreal places I have been in my life. All you could see was a flat white ground. There were small rocky hills that acted as islands in this sea of white. I will try to get the pictures of that up soon.

Then from Uyuni I arrived in Potosi to see the mines. That was a HUGE mistake. I arrived in the city at the beginning of a rapidly growing strike. I am currently stuck here and they just went independent. Almost everything is closed, they have blocked all the roads out of here at multiple places. I made arrangements for a flight out of here, but now they may be stopping all flights.

Please keep me in your prayers for safety and God’s timing.

I also would like especial prayers for my parents, I think this is effecting them more than me.

Thanks for all your support,

Josh

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: Cold, pilot, Potosi, strike, stuck, Update, vacation

Posted By Josh on July 13, 2010

Well I finally got away from Santa Cruz and flew back to the school in Guayara. I got back and it turned out that There was a family coming so on Friday they moved Salim, Cody, and I out of our house into another. It was a busy day because added on to the move I had to teach 4 classes. And I needed to finish before sundown. Needless to say I have a lot of stuff in a pile next to and on my bed. But even with the move, I am so glad to be back home.

I have almost finished everything I need to do with my pasport. The only thing I need to do now is want for them to call me again and go pick it up. Praise God for letting this finally finish.

I am now getting ready to take a tour around Bolivia, as the students get the mid year break. I am looking foward to check out some of the different citys, I am planning on visiting Guayaramerin, Rurraerabaque, La Paz, Cochabamba, Potasi, and Sucre. This is going to be a small adventure as I tour around the country via Flota (bus) by myself. I will do my best to keep posted on my usual Tuesdays and I will try to put plenty of pictures up.

Thanks for all your support and prayers.

God bless,

Josh

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: news, pilot, Teaching, Update, vacation

Posted By Josh on July 1, 2010

Well sorry I haven’t posted in a while. This past week I have been in Santa Cruz finishing up my paperwork. Nothing super eventful has happend other than that. I have finished “everything” for my pasport and I should have it in the next week or two. It has been super cold here, I haven’t gone out of the house without my coat. I have planned out a couple places I want to go for the little break we have starting the 15th of July. Also on Saturday night we had a huge bonfire, that was pretty awesome, you can see the pictures on my Picasa in a couple weeks. Yesterday my ride came to pick me up and hopefully we will be on our way flying back to the school Tomorow. I can’t wait to get out of this city.

Thanks for all your prayers,

God bless!!

Josh

Nathanial

Pratt

Well enough of my ranting, have a good day.

Really I mean it

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: Cold, FIre, pilot, Update, vacation

Posted By Josh on June 15, 2010

Sorry about not posting last week, I got sick and couldn’t make it to town. Last week we had an awesome Christmas program. We teachers decided that it would be nice to teach the students about Christmas. Since school is out before December 25, we decided to have it in June. We spent the whole week singing Christmas songs in the morning and night. And during the worship times we explained why we take a day off for Christ’s birth. We also spent a night going around to each house on campus singing Christmas carols. Each house had some special food for the carolers when they came to their door. The whole night was a blast. Then to finish off the Christmas week, we had a program and invited people from the nearest town of Yata. The program turned out great, the kids all did there best. They even recruited me to play The First Noel on the violin. Over all we had a fun week, excepted for the part where I got sick .

This past week we spent a lot of time getting the tower up. We are almost finished with all 7 bases and then, after the cement dries, we can start putting up the tower pieces. About two days ago, I went to lunch like usual and after we sang our usual “Grasias amos senior por da pan” I got into line. Now this lunch I was especially hungry. I spent all morning digging a hole for one of the supports. Well when it was my turn to get food, I put out my bowl and it got filled with rice as usual. Then they, like usual, put some beans on my rice. Now I have never had a problem eating anything my whole life, when I was hungry, but I have to admit. I had a very, very, hard time finishing my food. And it wasn’t because I was full. When I get home, I don’t know if I can eat anymore rice for at least a year. Maybe if the Naritas make me something, I might eat some rice .

Well the rest of the week went smoothly. The day starts with a 5:30 am student worship, then some study time, A 6:45 am worship, eat after that, go to classes/work at 8, finish morning classes/work at 12, go eat, start classes/work again at 1, finish at 4, music at 5, a hour of free time, eat at 6 pm, night worship at 6:45-7:25, study hall at 7:30-8:30, and finally lights out at 9:00 pm. God is blessing this school, and everyone in it, thanks for all your prayers and support. Please keep the Adventist leadership in your prayers this week. They are having a series of meetings.

Thank you and God bless!

Josh

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: Christmas, heat, sick, Teaching, Update, work, Yata

Posted By Josh on June 1, 2010

Well another week another adventure. I can’t believe that the first trimester is over. We finished up our classes on Thursday and then turned in our grades. And the first trimester is over. On Friday the kids had a break from school and enjoyed themselves by playing games and just plain resting. We also got together in our families, we have special family worships on Sunday and Tuesday nights, and cooked a special meal for Sabbath lunch. Sadly I missed most of the fun time cooking because I was preparing my sermon for preaching that night for the evangelistic meeting.

The meeting went well, there wern’t as many people as we were hoping, but seeds were planted and some more in the small town of Yata. The meetings started on Monday of last week and ended on Friday. The speakers were Keila, Jerry, and me. Keila and Jerry spoke on Monday through Thursday, and I closed the meetings by speaking on the final night.

Friday evening Salim got sick and had a bad fever. When I left for the meetings his fever was at 103*F, When I got back I found out that it rose to 105*F. Our nurse Susie, was doing everything she could to lower his fever and finally succeeded at about 7:30 that night. Over the next day he was battling a fever and horrible stomach pains. By Sabbath night he was dehydrated and very week. We have been having a few cases of malaria going around the school this last week but Praise the Lord, we found out that Salim didn’t have malaria. By Sunday evening he was feeling better and that night he had a semi restful sleep. By Monday, except for being weak, he is almost back to normal.

Mothers day down here in Bolivia was last Thursday the 28th. We held a service on Sunday which was nice for all the students families who could make it. The program went nicely and the students did awesome, you could tell they worked very hard. I wanted to give a quick shout-out to all the mothers out there. Thanks so much for your care for us!! And a special thank you to my Mom for putting up with me 21 years. Happy Bolivian Mothers Day!!!!!

Thanks everyone for your prayers and support, I wish I could say everything goes smoothly here and nothing bad happens but as you have witnessed. People get sick, tired, and accidents happen. But the Lord is good and as He wrote in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to them who love God, to the called according to His purpose.” Although there may be rough times, God always prevails.

God bless!!!

Josh

Category: Bolivia, Misson | 1 Comment »
Tags: Evangelistic Campaign, medical, meeting, Mothers Day, trimester, Update, Yata

Posted By Josh on May 25, 2010

Well the trimester ended for me this week. I can’t believe how fast time has gone bye. This has been a huge learning experience for me throughout this first trimester. God has been helping me help these kids and I’m starting to see improvement in their English.

This morning I was awakened at 5:10 with singing outside my window. I woke up to see what was going on only to find out that they were singing to me. Then I remembered that it was my birthday!! The little 21, wow I need to get married now!! Naaa, I guess I can wait a couple months. After they sang to me for a while we went to our morning worship and they had a little celebration for me and another girl who also had a birthday today. After that we had breakfast. They served my favorite food….. rice . To finish the celebration they got a huge bucket of water and dumped it on me when I wasn’t paying attention. Needless to say I had a fun birthday. Thanks to everyone for making it a special day for me.

This week we also started an evangelistic campaign and the first meeting was last night. It turned out well but we are hoping for more people to show up. It is in a small town of about 300 people and we only had about 20 show up last night. I also was surprised yesterday to find out I was volunteered to speak on Friday night. We are preaching each night, basing each night on a chapter or two of Steps to Christ. Please keep this meeting in your prayers and all the speakers as we spread Gods word to the little town of Yata.

God Bless!!!!!

Josh

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: Birthday, Evangelistic Campaign, trimester, Update, Yata

Posted By Josh on May 18, 2010

Well the cool days are over and the heat is back. It is back to being humid as ever. After about 5 days of cold weather the heat has come back.

This week we has been wonderful, we had some people come from Santa Cruz for the weekend to visit the school. And it was fun have them around, the Students have been working hard on the work, and are getting ready for the break coming up. God has been good this week.

The highlight of this week for me happened on Sabbath. We got the kids together and held a meeting in a small town called Yata, where we do the outreach. The kids did almost the whole meeting from singing, to reciting memory verses, and much more. Next week I should have some pictures up from it. God has been very good, and he continues to watch over all of us.

God bless!!!!!

Josh

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: Cold, heat, meeting, Update, Yata

Posted By Josh on May 11, 2010

This week has been going along well. On one of the days that I worked with the kids, we were gearing to start planting 2000 banana trees to help fund the school. I told them that we needed to clear a section so we could dig holes for the trees, then we can burn the debris. After I made sure to give them there clear instructions I went to give the next group there instructions. I needed the next group to dig the holes in a specific spot that I would mark for them. I marked about 9 holes when I looked over my shoulder to check on the guys clearing the path. When I looked back all I could see was smoke…. They didn’t move anything, they just set the hole place ablaze. With all the dead and short grass from spending the past couple weeks cutting everything down in that area. the whole place immediately burned putting smoke in our faces and making the ground to hot to walk on.

After directing them to a small part that didn’t burn we dug a couple more holes as we waited for the ground to cool down. Then we got to move the newly black logs into piles to burn later. As we were moving the logs we would check the direction of the moving fire to make sure it didn’t go anywhere where it could cause any unwanted destruction. As we kept checking we noticed a little bit of it started for one of the houses. The little bit turned quite quickly onto a good sized fire headed directly to the house. At this point we forgot about stacking logs and ran for the fire. All my life I have only dealt with small fires and watching the fire department put out big fires with planes, helicopters, and big hoses. Here we were a long distance from any good water source and I don’t think there is such thing as a fire department in the nearest town. Which is more than a half-an-hours drive. So we grabbed some big branches and started hitting the fire . Amazingly, the fire started going out. After about a half-an-hour, the fire was not endangering the house and we let the rest just burn itself out.

A couple days after the fire incident we got a cold storm that blew in. And as amazing as it sounds, I have been freezing cold these last couple days in the jungles of Bolivia. I had a fun class where my students got to try to listen to 5 minutes of “Packy, the Runaway Elephant.” As much as they looked like they didn’t know what was going on they were able to answer all the questions I gave them about the story and I even got some laughs during it. I praise the Lord that these kids are learning in my class.

Thanks for your prayers and support and a special thanks for those who where at Toukies on Mothers-Day.

God Bless and to all the moms, I know I’m 2 days late, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!!!! Sorry This is the only time I could get to the internet this week.

Josh Pratt

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: Cold, FIre, Mothers Day, Teaching, Update

Posted By Josh on May 4, 2010

Well the school is starting to get back into its normal schedule now that the Brazilians have left. It was wonderful having the group of medical missionaries here. They are a wonderful group of Godly people and it was sad to watch them leave.

I am very pleased to see how much the students are learning. They are enjoying speaking in English to me not only in class but out of class. I praise the Lord that he is using me to teach as this is a wonderful learning experience for me.

Please send a special prayer for the leaders of GMI, they are in the process of improving their organization and how they run each branch.

Now I need to finish working on this awesome picture dictionary, which Mr. Mooy has already posted some pictures.

God Bless!!!

Josh

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Posted By Josh on April 27, 2010

This week has been fairly nice. I am almost back to normal from this last sickness. Classes are going well and I have started to get the pictures from my kids for the picture dictionary. It is amazing how well these kids draw and I can’t wait to get them online to show the world!

A group of docters from Brazil arrived a couple days ago in order to fly to a small village. They get here only to find that the pilot had to fly to Santa Cruz for a important meeting. Leaving the medical group at the school. Its been fun having them around and nice to have them do a check up on the students here . They are now doing checkups around the small towns in the area to fill the time until our pilot gets back.

Regarding the student that left because of his drug addiction, I have some unfortunate news. We talked to the authorities here in town about letting us hold him at the school until he is clean of the drugs, but they won’t allow us to do it. There is a small care unit that deals with drug attics, but it has a small rate of success. We are praying his mom sends him there. Please keep him in your prayers that God will rid him of this horrible addiction so he can come back to the school next year to finish his education.

On the up side we are just about to finish our first quarter of school and the students are doing great and learning a lot! Thank you for all your support and prayers.

God Bless!!

Josh

Category: Bolivia, Misson | No Comments »
Tags: drug, medical, news, pilot, Update