Tim's Trip to Bolivia

Over Christmas break Gary and Diane Kuhns came to visit us in Sao Paulo on their way home from visiting their son and daughter in law, Grant and Heather in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Grant and Heather had made a one year committment to teach at Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center. Grant and Heather decided to accompany their mom and dad to Sao Paulo over the break. When we were saying good-bye to Grant and Heather we talked about going to see them in Bolivia before they left in June. When we arrived home from the airport Tim opened his email and found an invitation from the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) to serve on an accreditation team to Santa Cruz, Bolivia...the same school that Grant and Heather work at. Isn't God good?

Tim took off on the last Saturday of April for the accreditation visit. The objective was to go to Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center (SCCLC) with three other administrators to verify that SCCLC met all of ACSI's accreditation standards and observe their school in action. The leader of the team was the administrator at Alliance Academy in Quito, Ecuador. Other members included an administrator from Bogata, Columbia and another from Lima, Peru. We worked from 6:00 a.m. to after 10:00 each of the three nights of the official visit, Sunday - Wednesday.

Tim arrived on Saturday where Grant and Heather Kuhns met him at the Santa Cruz airport and then took him to a Bolivian Churraschuria where we were served all kinds of meats. They tried to get Tim to eat cow utter, cow intestines, and chicken hearts to no avail. The traditional meats of filet mignon, sausage, pork tenderloin, and pork ribs were also served. After supper they dropped Tim off at the South American Ministries guest house where Tim would stay until Thursday morning working on the accreditation team.

SCCLC is a school that was started for missionary kids. Currently they have about 68% missionary kids in a student body of 251 students in grades Pre-K thru 12. All of their teachers had to raise all of their own support from the states. A group of very dedicated professionals were found at the school.

Because a land developer moved some dirt next door to the school about two years ago the school was experiencing a very serious flooding problem. They had not mowed their soccer field since last fall, the water had come into various classrooms damaging some computers, and the walk ways were covered with water whenever it rained. In fact, they told us that they were able to catch fish in the middle section of the school. The workers caught an eel and ate it one day, according to a story they told us.

Wednesday after the conclusion of the accreditation visit Grant and Heather were able to go with the rest of the administrators to a few soviegner shops and then to a restaraunt.

On Thursday morning Grant and Heather took Tim to some very unique Bolivian shops, visited the orphanage that Grant worked at and tasted more uniquely Bolivain food. Then they went to the Santa Cruz Zoo. While at the zoo they fed tic-tacs to the monkeys, were able to pet most of the animals, and were able to pick up a Sloth for a photo opp. Safety at the zoo was not of utmost concern. In fact Grant told a story of how a small boy was accidently dropped into the tiger's pen recently and was mauled to death by the tiger. The Sloth in these pictures was "running" wild moving between the trees in the background. (Sloth's really don't run, they move very slothfully.)

In the evening we went back to Grant and Heather's duplex before going out to eat at the only mall in this city of 1 million people. The mexican food was great and the little tour of the mall reminded Tim of the little mall in Enid. It was obvious that Bolivia is the poorest country in South America when looking at their roads, their buildings, and their people.