Check out despair.com for more of these demotivational posters that I think are stinking hilarious!
Now about the name, Poco a Poco. I would guess that even if you are not fluent in Spanish, you know that this means "little by little". As I contemplated the potential benefits of taking up blogging, I thought for a while about what title I would give it and kept coming back to this one because I feel like it is my motto for life and ministry here. In so many things, we see progress, but it seems to take more time and more intermediate steps than I was used to living in the US. Take our visas, for example. We got here in early January with a 30-day visa, theoretically time enough to process our longer-term (one year) visa. Because of too many hoops to jump through and delays to mention here, two and a half months later we think we've turned in everything we need to and paid all the fees and fines, too, but still have to wait another couple of days or weeks before immigration will release our passports (with one-year visas stamped inside) to us. More importantly, ministry--which I would define as any activity that helps people come closer to God or deepen their relationship with Him--consistently happens step by step, little by little, poco a poco. That's probably true in the States (and elsewhere in the World) as much as in Bolivia.
What can you expect to read in the blog entries to follow? Definitely stuff related to ministry (see definition above). I'll also try to share about life here in Bolivia, which is probably different than where you are living, but please hold me accountable not to demean or ridicule this place and culture where we live. Sometimes that's a temptation because I'm more North American than I thought I was when I left for the mission field in 2003 and things that are different than what I'm used to aren't necessarily backwards (though they can be frustrating!). Driving down the hill from our house this morning, I was struck by how much I love living here and couldn't imagine living anywhere else--so hopefully I can share interesting things without seeming like I just got here last week, if you know what I mean. You'll also read a little about my worms...not the intestinal kind, but the composting kind, that I regularly feed our organic kitchen scraps with grandiose dreams of our future lawn and vegetable garden being nutrient-rich because of them. We also hope to build a house someday in the midst of said lawn and garden, so there will definitely be some construction updates, especially as I learn more about construction in Bolivia via a big church building construction project we are in the process of launching.
I'll wrap up this intro and hope to post soon and often (but not so often that you think I'm spending all my time in front of the computer and not earning, I mean being a good steward of, my support money). Tomorrow is Lisa's 30th birthday so we've got some celebrations planned!
