The Lesson I Learned

There are quite a few things about our trip to Bolivia that I have come to love. The people here are for certain at the top of the list, if there is even a list. They are a very quiet, reserved people group. Very different from my personality altogether. But once you do sit down with them and start talking and wanting to know more, it is as if you opened a book! They are taught from a young age to be this way. It reminds me of that old saying of don´t speak unless spoken to. They are beautiful, but you can see that over the years beauty took a back seat to the hard life of providing for their families. I am still amazed at the women here. Not a day goes by while we are out that I don´t see a lady old or young, pushing a wheelbarrow full of whatever she intends to sell miles out of town heading to the market. Not only will she be pushing a 100+ pound wheelbarrow, but she may have one child tied to her back and another one, or two , or three that are old enough to walk tagging along. So there she goes, pushing past me and I am reminded of all the times I drove around the parking lot at HEB so I could get the closest parking spot. I think from now I will make sure to park far away just for her! I understand that me parking far from the door will not be of any benefit to her, but maybe it will benefit me to remember just how blessed I am. God has really been working on my heart these last few weeks. Reminding me of just how lucky I am and how easy I have it. I have a truck that gets me where I need to go, I am not pushing a wheelbarrow from my house in Sonora to San Angelo to sell what produce I grew, I have cold and hot water at the turn of a knob, a roof that is not made of palm tree bows that doesn´t leak when it rains, a warm bed when its cold and an AC when it gets too hot, I can wash my clothes and have them dry within a couple hours and the list can go on and on. I really am blessed! Thank you Lord for allowing me this opportunity to be reminded of that, and please help me to always be mindful of it even when I am having to sit and wait for a table at a very nice restaurant that is making me pay too much for the food I will eat. I could have it a whole lot worse!

So far in Bolivia...

It is hard to believe that we only have a little less than three weeks left here in Bolivia! Our time here so far has been great. Our second week here we went out into the brecha to work with a drilling club that has been working on several wells and to check on the wells that had already been finished. We accompanied Teo, Elias, and Sergio (the Water for All Bolivia guys) on the trip, along with Todd who is making a video about WFA. It was a long three hour drive out to where we were going so this meant that we would spend two nights camping. We set up our tents in a lady`s front yard right next to the roosters and her pigs. We would grow to hate those roosters come two or three in the morning! We got to eat some pretty traditional dishes while we were out. Up until then Colin had never had pork cooked with so much hair on it.
The guy in charge of the well club that we were going to assist is named Victor. He was a young guy in his early 20’s and has a little family. He was in the first drilling club that went through that area and was now showing others how to drill. We got to eat with his wife and mother and that was really a neat opportunity to be a part of. They prepared a big meal for the Water for All guys to show his appreciation. At the end of our meal he stood up and thanked the guys that were with us for helping him get water out on his little place. He told us that it was a dream of his to be able to farm and live on his own place and that he was now living out his dream. (For the record, I didn`t know that was what he was saying ‘til later, but I did know that what he was saying made him very emotional at the end.) Needless to say it was very clear that he was very grateful to the Water for All guys. He took us around his farm and showed us the crops he was growing, his garden, his fruit trees, and the rest of his property. Another thing that will forever stick out in my mind about our day with Victor was when we went to the town where he had been living before he had a water well on his farm. We got to meet with two older ladies that lived in this small village and Terry gave them a solar powered radio that only picks up two Christian stations and a Bible. We later found out that the village does not have a church. Terry told us as we were leaving that if there was a church in that village all the locals would come. To me that just means more people are needed to go and live with these people and become a part of their community and bring Jesus to them!
The next day we went out to help out and watch the water clubs drill a full well in one day! In one day they did everything! It was pretty great. This was their 8th well and you could tell they knew what they were doing. Victor did a great job training up this club.
We came home mid week, just in time for a cold front to make its way to us. I was glad to not be out sleeping in a tent once that hit.
Last week we went out and looked at five wells that were drilled and took pictures and marked them with the GPS. Then mid week we went to a new well club that was getting started. It was close enough that we could drive home and didn`t have to pack the tents. Thank goodness we came home! I had my first bout with food poisoning and was ever so thankful I wasn`t out camping somewhere. Colin went back the next day to help the group finish up and I slept in.
Terry had a meeting in Santa Cruz on Thursday night so he spent the night in town and we went in the following day to go to the Santa Cruz zoo and see the animals of Bolivia. That was neat, but once you know what animals are out in the woods where you are camping, it’s a bit un-nerving!
Another cold front has made its way to us and we are all bundled up tonight. Along with the cold air came rain! It is a bitter sweet rain for me. Back home in Texas we are going on record breaking days without rain so this is a treat! But it may postpone our trip out this week. I really want to drill and if it rains the roads get too bad to drive on and we won`t be able to make it out to the site.
The circus is in town! I don´t know if we will go or not, but every day a truck load of circus performers drives around town announcing over an horrible loud speaker that we should bring the family to their show. Well…I now understand why small children and some adults fear clowns and things of that nature.
One of the greatest things about this trip has been an overwhelming desire to go into full-time missions work. Just more conformation! It’s really not as though we needed more, but seeing what Terry has done here over the past 20 years just lights a fire under us. We know that we have a long road ahead of us, but we also know that our God is big and will be there with us, and has gone before us, no matter what we will face. I find so much comfort in that. A peace has settled over both Colin and myself and with it has come a great joy, it’s a joy that I want everyone to know and have in their own lives and hearts.

Our Trip Thus Far...

Well, we made it to Bolivia!! We left mid morning on Monday the 11th and landed here in Santa Cruz early Tuesday. The only trouble we ran into was with my carry on bag. I put most all my clothes into my carry on so if something happened to our stuff, I would still have clothes to wear. Well in Miami they took my carry on and said they were going to put it under the plane and I could pick it up when we landed. However, they asked us if we were going to La Paz, and I said yes, because we were. We had to stop there but we were not getting off the plane. While we were not getting off, my carry on bag that was now checked, was getting off! It never dawned on me to look at the ticket that they gave me, because if I had I would have seen that my bag was getting off the plane before me.


But it all worked out just fine! Terry talked to a lady and right away they had located my bag and were putting it on the first flight to Santa Cruz. So we spent the night in a hotel in the city and rested up from our 20 hour trip. My bag was flown in and we picked it up yesterday morning and headed out to San Julian where Terry lives.


Colin and I just love this area, the people and the way of life. It has just lit a fire in us to go and do this very same thing in Africa! We drove around yesterday afternoon and looked at some of the wells that the drilling clubs have done. I have taken a whole bunch of pictures, and I will upload some later.


Today Colin helped put one section of pipe in the ground with a local farmer that is putting in a well. They wanted him to stay and help because he worked so fast! They had rented the drilling machine and really didn't need our help or else we would have. Colin is picking up Spanish really fast! I am not. I hear little things and now and then I know what is being said, but not like Colin. He is able to have little conversations with people!


We are going to head out this afternoon and fix a windmill that feeds into a fish pond. Colin and I are truly amazed that we are here and thank God for this awesome oppertuntiy!

Bolivia in One Week!!

A week from today, Colin and I will be in Bolivia with Terry Waller for six weeks! We are both so excited we can hardly stand to wait any longer. I just wanted to share with you some pictures from the Water For All International facebook page to show who it is that these wells are helping in Bolivia. If you are not friends or "like" WFA on facebook yet, now is the time to do that. I am sure Terry will be posting pictures and updates while we are there. I can't wait to have my own pictures and stories! I am also very ready to see just what God has in store for us on this trip as well.

We should be able to keep updates coming while we are away, and I look forward to writing it all down and sharing about our adventure! Please keep us in your prayers while we are gone. To Him be all the glory!

Our BIG News...

I know that most of you will see the title of this blog and the one thing that you will think is "A BABY!!"...Well...there is no baby news as of now. Sorry. But we do have other fun news about our lives.
Over the last six or so months, Colin and I have been preparing ourselves to move to Africa and drill water wells. We feel like this is how we are suppose to spend our lives - helping those less fortunate than us. And this is exactly what we will be doing in a few short months!
We are getting ready to head to Bolivia for six weeks to get even more training with Terry Waller of Water for All International. We leave for that trip on the 11th of July!! When we started praying and thinking about doing this it seemed like we had all the time in the world, but before we knew it, almost half the year was already over.
God has really guided us through all of this. For months we've known that we are supposed to move to Africa and serve. Along the way God has done so many things that confirm our choice to follow Him to wherever He calls us to go. For one, within a couple of months of knowing we were supposed to go, Colin's job was cut to half time. This was by no means the reason for our leaving, but was further confirmation that we were doing what we were supposed to be. All of the pieces from the what to do, to the where to do it, to the how, and the where, have all divinely fallen in place.
Once we get back from Bolivia we are going to be leaving the experiment station, a bittersweet reality, and moving to Paint Rock to further our well drilling training.
We will start raising support as soon as we can because we would like to be in Africa as early as January of 2012. We are sure that we will be in east Africa, but as to which country we are not yet sure. We are trying to be as open as we can to all of the possibilities and go wherever we are most needed.
I know that this may seem very vague, but some of the details are still unclear even now. Once we are closer to leaving we will update ya.
The last thing that I would like to say is more of a request. If you would like, please keep us in your prayers. God is really doing great things in our lives and we want to remain open to Him and His purpose. Also pray for our family and friends that we will be leaving. Watching us go may be one of the hardest things for some of them to do.
Again we are super excited about this new direction we are heading, and what better adventure to go on than one for the Most High!
~Ronnie~

Some of my favorite books

This is a list of some of my (Colin) favorite books of all time and the books that have the most impact on my life in one way or another. These aren’t in any particular order. Some of these books are books that opened my eyes to conditions beyond my very limited scope, some of these books I really enjoy reading for pure entertainment, and some of these books altered the way I live life. All of these have become favorites for one reason or another.

-The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton
This book ought to be mandatory reading for anyone growing up in West Texas. West Texas is not a soft, green, lush environment. West Texas is a place where drought is common and rainy periods few and sometimes very far between. This book is about a rancher in West Texas who is very strong-willed and independent, and I dig him! He is my kind of guy. I fancy myself a younger version of Charlie Flagg, and if I was an old rancher I’d like to think I would be a lot like him - except I don’t know if I could raise Angora goats. The book is sad at times, but this is a book about life and sometime life is sad. This is one book that I really could read every few years.

-Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
I like pretty much everything by C.S. Lewis, but this is my favorite of his stuff. I like him because he says things the way I wish I could say it. Actually, he writes about stuff I haven’t even pondered, but if I had thought about it, I would have wanted to say it as simply and eloquently as he does. I think he reduces everything down to the least common denominator and says things in such a simple way that anyone can understand. I feel anyone who spends time reading Mere Christianity will enjoy what Lewis has to say.

-Doctrine by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Brashears
As someone who was raised in a Christian home and went to church and attempted (most of the time very poorly) to be a good-church-going-religious guy, I had a lot of beliefs that I couldn’t back up. I knew what I was supposed to believe, but didn’t know why. I was pretty wishy-washy on what I believed and was poorly equipped to explain or talk with someone else about why I believed what I did. I read Doctrine because if I am going to call myself a Christian I ought to know what God says about being a follower of Christ. I also wanted to investigate what it is that a Christian should believe and what areas are open for discussion. I needed to study up on the doctrine of Christianity and this book helped compile the basic Christian doctrine for me in a way that was easy to read and understand.

-The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus
To me this book is all about obedience to what God asks us to do. It is also about how obeying God is not safe. We say things like “the safest place to be is in the center of God’s will,” when all actuality the Bible says that if we are following Christ we are going to be persecuted and people are going to oppose us. So this book is about how we ought to desire to be obedient to God more than we fear all the stuff that might happen to us or our families because we are doing what God has asked to do. It would be horrible to miss out on more of God because we were worried about the health risks associated with working with AIDS infected children in Africa, or for people to die of sickness and starvation because I was scared to take my family to a war-torn country to serve them, or for lost people in China to never hear about God because I was more worried about my 401K than giving money. When you really think about it, the safest place to be really is in the center of God’s will, even though it might cost you everything in this life.

-Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
I think maybe this book is where the inspiration for the movie 300 came from..? This book really is nothing at all like the 300 movie it just deals with the same event(s). I am not generally one of those people that claim “the book was so much better than the movie,” because I’m all for watching a movie in 2 hours as opposed to reading a book over 3 weeks. I like movies! Can you imagine what the book Titanic is like? The movie was bad enough and it took a whole day to watch. How much more painful would reading that book over the period of a year be? So yeah, I go for the movie over the book almost every time, but this is one book that I recommend over the movie.

-Radical by David Platt
For me this book eliminates a lot of the stuff I was using as an excuse to continue along in my peaceful happy life waiting for God to call me to do something incredible, rather than doing what He told all Christians to do a long time ago. At the beginning of this book you need to go ahead and have a conversation with God and figure out if you are really ready to do whatever it is He wants you to do. If you are willing to answer “yes” to His question then keep reading. As I read through the book, what at first appeared to be really radical seemed more and more like normal plain old obedience. As I read through Radical and began looking in the Bible, what we would call radical today seemed the norm during the time of the first church. My behavior today would appear radical to the first church because to call myself a Christian and then to live a safe, wealthy, self-centered life just wouldn’t make sense to them.

-For Men Only by Shaunti Feldman
I did not understand women at all before I got married. I’ve been married for a couple of years now, and I still don’t understand women. However, this book has helped me to better understand the way my wife thinks and has helped our communication. The author has written numerous other books but this one and For Women Only were incredibly helpful to me and my wife in helping to understand how each other operates and is wired. I feel that our marriage is stronger because of what I learned in this book and others like For Women Only, Captivating, and Wild at Heart.

-The Man Who Rode Midnight by Elmer Kelton
The old man in this book reminds me of my granddad. I pretty much like every book Elmer Kelton has written. This just happens to be one of my favorites.

-The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
This book is about Grace. I read this book at a point in my life when I really didn’t understand grace. I didn’t understand grace or feel I was deserving of it. This book was life-changing for me. I read this book, read about what grace is, the price that was paid for me, and how for me not to accept and embrace grace was to dishonor the huge cost that was paid on my behalf. If your life has not turned out the way you thought it would and no matter what you do, there is still something missing – read this book. I felt like the prodigal son who had lived a completely self-centered life and had made a mess of things doing it my way. I felt ashamed and undeserving, but God’s grace and kindness led me to repentance. I think anyone that reads this book will be changed. I don’t see how you cannot be overcome when you come face to face with God’s grace.

-The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonheoffer
Grace is freely given, but isn’t free. The grace we have the opportunty to freely accept, costs more than we can ever give or earn. Grace cannot be earned and no one is worthy of grace, but to all who will accept it, it is freely given. The author of this book lived a life that evidenced the high cost of grace and he desired to live in such a way that he didn’t cheapen grace. He died for what he believed. This was not a book that I could sit down and read through and understand. I had to spend some time reading and thinking

-The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn
The best book on money and stewardship I have read. This book is super-short and you can read it in just a little while, but the principles in this book drastically changes the way we do our finances. When you see your money and possessions as items on loan to you from the creator of the universe, you start handling your things a little more carefully, and you start asking God where He wants His money to go rather than where do I think I should spend it. For me it was revolutionary to realize I own nothing, God owns everything. And then I was like, I better start taking care of His stuff!

-Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald Sider
Not the most entertaining or uplifting book I’ve read, but very impactful. I don’t think the purpose of this book is to try and guilt people into giving all their money away or to make us feel bad about all we have here in the United States, but it does make you aware of the extreme wealth we all have compared to the poverty of the rest of the world. After you are aware of just how affluent we are and how nice we have it, maybe you will feel the need to give of yourself to better the lives of others. It is a good thing to be aware of the world that exists outside of our little bubble. When it comes to money I don’t think we should fear giving too much away, but rather not investing enough in the lives of others.

in light of the recent wildfires in Texas

http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/03/22/underwood-on-australias-fires/

The link above will take you to an article written by an Australian fire fighter who witnessed the devastating 2009 wildfire season in Australia and had concerns about how those fires were mismanaged and how they seemingly caught everyone off-guard. He has some warnings for the U.S. and how we manage volatile fuels and manage wildfire when it occurs. It would be wise for us to read this man's comments and heed his warnings. We do not live in a soft green environment but rather an environment that has burned for as long as there has been fuel, and it will continue to burn. Knowing that this environment we live in is prone to burning what can we do to properly manage our environment and what are the best practices we can take to manage wildfires? Every few years we go through a period where the fuel loads are high, the conditions are dry, and the winds blow - and everything comes together for a big wildfire season. It is unfortunate that when these events occur we are not better prepared. It is sad that many lose homes and some even lose lives. I believe that we can better manage the resources we have to mitigate the damaging effects of these wildfire seasons. The amount of tax dollars that are spent on fighting wildfires and the number of acres burned don't seem to jive. If we were accomplishing our goal would more acres burn every year and would we not eventually see a decline in the number of devastating wildfires? Why do we continue to spend more and more money every year to fight fire instead of being proactive and spending only a fraction of that money on fuel management? We need to be good stewards of the land because what we do on our own land can affect those around us.

I hope you will take the time to read this article.