Bolivia Day # 2 7-1-11

     Finally got to see the boys! driving into that gate on the bus and seeing them was crazy.  I knew I had missed them but the emotional response I got within my heart felt as if I was seeing a close relative I had missed every day for a year!  Except not 1, over 50!  These boys each have a special place in my heart.  I wish there was some way to tell or show them that and have them understand. Ricardo.  Last year I awkwardly got off the bus and was standing there amidst 60 Bolivian boys and we were all staring at eachother.  Ricardo came up to me and grabbed me by the arm pretty roughly, and from that point on we were inseperable for the rest of the week.  He can be a bit rough and mischevious, but I find it lovable, after all, we all have interesting behaviors weve developed, due to our pasts and we just need love. I love him dearly.

     It was great to see Allie again, this trip wouldnt have happened without her.  She connected me with Life Fellowship, http://lifecharlotte.com/  and fundraising and preparations would have been much harder without their church and team!  She is such a sweetheart and I respect her so much. 

Cant wait to see Alberto.  He became such a good friend on the last trip.  We were rushing to get our stuff together for sidewalk sunday school in the villages with the children, we planned to do a David and Goliath skit as a team and make witness bracelets with the kids, and give them coloring sheets with David and Goliath scripture and pictures on them.  Mona has been so wonderful getting all this stuff organized! It was a blessing in disguise that it rained (it rains in Bolivia??!?) and that sidewalk was canceled.  We were all exhausted from the extensive travel and needed to recooperate briefly.  I'm so thrilled that we were able to bring so many supplies! 

This is how you hook up a television in Bolivia. Look at this kid!  He's putting the cord out the window!!

     Seeing so many crazy boys and trying to catch the Bolivia Argentina game was awesome!  There were tons of children crammed in one small room with members of the staff and team, 3 televisions with lots of static, and all the kids were playing with wires and antennas to get the signal. It was awesomely entertaining and a great time for photos!  

      I really pray that Michael and Alyssa make it, their flights were canceled because of the tropical storms in Florida, and I think they are going to have to go through Argentina, I believe? and meet up with us later. Anyway I pray for their safety and cannot wait to see them again!

  I spent the entire flight reading "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey, and I cried my eyes out and was thinking how the story was so intense and beautiful, but that a lot of parts had to be exaggerated, or his withdrawal perspective of how he thinks things actual happened.  Anyway, on the last flight from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba Fred told me the story is made up and not a true story and that it was on Oprah and everything.  Which kinda ruined it for me honestly.  I mean, I picked up the story at my own yardsale, and was immediately interested in it, I find all types of addictions to be intriguing.  Embellished, exaggerated, whatever, the story is still a BEAUTIFUL and intense tail of addiction and abuse and I love it, its a very accurate portrayal of some of the feelings and perspectives a person could have, I was just pretty dissapointed to be told that after all the reading and crying on the flights!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey  Im still interested in reading his other books.  He is a great storyteller. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/million-little-lies

Check out this miraculous holy coffee splatter Chris and Mona made today!  I'm pretty sure God and some dulce de leche were involved... 

Durante el Segundo y tercero Dia Bolivia 2011

7/1/11 mission with Children's Impact Network

     It already feels like it has been a week and we just arrived.  So much has happened.  Of course beautiful Ricardo was the 1st one to greet me when I got off the bus again.  It was dejavu from last year.  But more familiar and comfortable.  He is a lost angel.  I love him so dearly.  I'm so thrilled that we were able to bring so many supplies!





We were able to bring tons of school supplies, construction/work project supplies, and school uniforms!  Being part of a team in advance before you get to the site definitely has advantages, and in this case a big one was all the supplies we were able to collect and get donated.

Day 3:  7/2/11

     Devotions with the Colombian team was magnificent!  truly magical.  In some moments God simply drops all our guards and we become unbelievably comfortable and entranced by how majestic the current moment is.  I absolutely adore worshiping my Lord and Savior through song and instrument, and in my car, or the bath, or home alone while cooking, I am GETTIN IT!! but when I am in a crowd I have this strange anxiety and paralyzing shyness that always keeps me very quiet and reserved.  Every once in a while God will break through that paralyzing cloud, I forget everything but the current emotion, and I let it go.  Only every once in a while.


I love Ricardo.

And we had a blast at the park.  Broken toys to prove it!

Played Frisbee and flew kites, played cards and chess and ran around crazy and took a million pictures.

 Somehow I can't get tired of the fish eye effect.

Or taking photos.



What if I treated everyday like this,

even in America,

what if I acted as if my daily life was an exuberant adventure

and was excited to capture every moment on film

 as I do on these trips?




Life is a trip.

 The air feels different here and I don't think it is just the elevation.  I told everyone on the team I had a soul mate when they kept trying to set  me up with hosts and such.  It felt so good to be honest about it.  I miss him.  No idea where he is or what hes doing.  probably something epic. in the Congo? Rwanda? Tanzania. *sigh.  I simply cannot wait to see that face again.  It's weird to think that last year I watched the newlyweds and couples glazed on the bus and held my breath so I wouldn't cry because I missed and craved him so.  

This year he knows my feelings much more accurately.

I remember wishing he was there last year.

It was so deeply stabbingly painful.



We were going separate ways on separate paths and I wanted him to want to share my path.

I believe we have made a sort of path together in ways, but we are still continents apart at the current moment.

 Last year I craved his companionship more than I ever have while in Bolivia, and this year its even more but in a different way.

Then, I couldn't see a clear vision of us in the future, years, months, even days down the road, and I eyed the couples with envy as they smiled and stared into each other's pupils while pickaxing or riding the bus as if a magical Narnia was within their lovers skull.

It hurt deep down in my stomach as they prayed together and fell asleep on each other's shoulders.




It was refreshing to see these examples, to see this Godly young love up close, and to want to be a participant in this intriguing, mesmerizing partnership.  Now, I can see us in the future, I can picture us, and it is so beautiful, I am so impatient.

I always want the end result, and I forget to appreciate the process.  I see the destination, and I ignore the journey because I. Want. To. Be. There. and I want to be there now.  I want to be the best Christian, the best wife, the nicest person, the best activist, the smartest woman, but I want it all now and I don't want to wait.

But this is foolish.  I think every morsel and ounce of the journey with you would be euphoric and worth cherishing.
Even this emptiness and hardened pain in mi corazon.  Maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder.  Here we are again.
On separate continents in July.
I feel that this isn't the only time I will miss you and go through this in our lives.
I feel you missing me too.
This has happened before, It's happening now, and it will happen again.
Thank you God for the ability to feel.
To feel pain, longing, worry, closeness, to be able to feel someones heart from across the globe.
To really know someone and feel competent in understanding the essence of who they are despite distance.
I think we are going to make it.
For a long time.
The couples on the trip this year are also inspiring.
I love community and learning from others and their beautiful examples.
Maybe we will be one of these inspiring partnerships one day. : ) 

     I really love these boys and feel God on and in my heart.  I loved church.  It was so magical and holy.  John preached and my Spanish is awful but I could sense and feel the emotion in both his words and in all the souls throughout the room.  I caught bits and pieces of his message and was able to translate scripture in my Spanish English bible but I got the major points to be discussing the boys at the Bolivia Life Center and how their lives have been really difficult, but also how the people in this church have also led difficult lives and endured many struggles.  I could just feel a passion and compassion for all of the boys and for all of these beautiful strangers in the church and my emotions were sort of washing over me in an overwhelming manner. I could not stop uncontrollably crying and during a worship song, the elderly woman beside me who had also been crying just embraced me and gave me one of the hardest most powerful hugs I have ever received.  I didn't understand much she was saying other than Praise God and I love you, but the feelings I experienced I will never forget.  She was an absolute heavenly angel and I left her a rather impressive tear-puddle on her sweatered shoulder.  I needed that hug so badly in that moment and didn't realize this until mid-embrace.  Moments of absolute love and compassion with strangers always rejuvenate my faith in our absolute God.  I could feel that though we were strangers without many obvious similarities, we had each experienced much pain from the world, and also much love and healing from the Lord.  It was a comforting, sweet moment.

Thanks God!
Stephanie Mauvlyn Braun

*I had a pretty emotional week this current week in America, and I thought of this woman today, and wished I could redo this hug and this moment again.  Such a beautiful memory.  I hope to see her again in the future.  Even if not on Earth.  For now, I will hug her via prayer.