May - Dec, 2000
Vol. 2
1st Quarter 2001
2nd Quarter 2001
3rd Quarter 2001
4th Quarter 2001
1st Quarter 2002
2nd Quarter 2002
3rd Quarter 2002
4th Quarter 2002
1st Quarter 2003
2nd Quarter 2003
3rd Quarter 2003
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Bussing in the Andes
 No. 5 January 2001
Cozy Christmas
It's been a good year for Lori and I and we give thanks to God our Father for his guidance and sustenance. We had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Our Christmas was simple as we and some other American friends drove to Sorocoto for a few days. Some of the time was spent working on the house but mostly we stayed in our little schoolroom playing games, cooking or eating food or all the yummy snacks that some of you sent us, worshipping our Great God and Savior and we powered up a little cd player to reminisce over some cozy Christmas tunes. It was hard being away from our families during this holiday season and all of the little Christmas traditions.
Trick or Treat
Christmas was just another Monday here in Bolivia. In the city, many of the stores and restaurants were open and people were out and about. The week proceeding Christmas, many campesinos filled the sidewalks and street corners going door to door as if it were Halloween asking for food, children's clothes or toys for Christmas. Reactions varied from flat rejecting the needy to those who had compassion. It was refreshing to see someone who had prepared and stocked up on bread or collected children's clothing or toys to hand out to those seeking gifts for Christmas. We were not prepared and only had delicious oatmeal cookies to hand out to those who came "trick or treating".
Another custom we noticed was the selling of baby Jesus dolls that would be dressed up and carried to the Cathedrals to be blessed by the priest. It is common for dancers and musicians to go house to house requesting to play and dance for the doll. We are not sure how to interpret these customs but we know that when the Spaniards came 500 yrs ago that they met with great resistance to Christianity and the Incas subsequently accepted the faith as a seemingly compromise between Catholicism and previous folk religions. For this reason many Bolivian unique rituals and customs have come out of this blend.
Busriders
We decided to be tourists for a week and explore some more of Bolivia after Christmas. Armed with our Lonely Planet Bolivia tour book Pete donned his shorts, Lori her capri pants and packed our bags for Copacabana and Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. These are fascinating places as the lake is like an oasis in the midst of the Altiplano. We did some hiking and visited some ancient Incan ruins on some of the islands in the lake. Later we traveled to Potosi, an old mining town that at one time supported the entire Spanish Empire. In Potosi we visited with Victor Hugo, the agriculture technician that works with us in Sorocoto, and his family. He served as our tour guide taking us to the still operating mine in Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain), some hot springs and the House of Money where the Spaniards had the silver or gold minted.
Adios
A difficult point in our trip was when we had to say goodbye to our good friend and teammate Jessica Mayfield. Jessica has been relocated to serve with Food for the Hungry in Guatemala (also much closer to her boyfriend). She has been such an encourager and support to us here. There were times when she would send care packages from a neighboring community where she worked that had a better stocked store, or she would send items from her own packages from home. We really felt loved and cared for by Jessica - we are going to miss you, Jess.
Getting focused After a week of bussing around Bolivia, we made it back to Sucre where we are getting focused on the next year of ministry. We wanted to include our goals for the 1st quarter and ask you to pray for our diligence on the following goals:
Pete
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Common
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Lori
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 Daily quiet time praying and studying Scriptures
 Weekly inductive Bible study with Lori
 Begin a small experimental fish farm that could be replicated in order to improve community diet and additional income.
 Begin visiting the nearby six communities that have water systems monthly to survey if they are being used adequately and maintain contact local water committees.
 Work alongside the campesinos in their fields
 Learn how to play soccer
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 Establish the Sunday school program in the community
 Because of the constant demand from community members we will begin teaching English classes once a week to those who desire to learn
 Coordinate with the city church supporting the rural churches in efforts to encourage and continue discipling these young churches.
 Initiate informal Bible study groups with community members.
 Intensive study of Quechua through books and local community member to help learn pronunciation and common phrases to be using Quechua more than Spanish in the community
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 Daily quiet time praying and studying Scriptures
 Weekly inductive Bible study with Pete
 Extended prayer time with the Lord once a week
 Continue to build relationships with the women and youth
 Teach Pete to play soccer
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Thank you for your continued support and prayer.
In Christ
Pete & Lori
Big News!!!! Our mailing address has been changed so disregard the one that is with our picture on the fridge and take note:
FHI-Bolivia
Casilla 879
Sucre, Bolivia
Sudamerica
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Muddin' in the Andes
No.6 February 2001
el rio grande. Life continues to be an adventure here in Bolivia. Since we have been in the rainy season we have met some obstacles just getting in and out of our community. The rains have caused mudslides and huge rocks to fill the roads making it impassable for a vehicle. The river fills quickly with the rain running off the mountains that at times the current is too strong for a vehicle to cross. Last week we needed to come back into the city in order to attend an office retreat. The road from our community was so bad with rocks and mudslides that we left our jeep in Sorocoto and hiked out with all of our gear. After hiking for a couple of hours we made it to the place where we were to get picked up by an FHI vehicle. Due to lack of communication we waited for most of the day until finally a truck pulled upon the other side of the river. We had hoped that the truck would come over and get us since the river had lowered during the day, but the truck simply stopped on the other side and began honking for us to come over. Realizing that they wanted us to cross over to them, we put on our heavy packs, rolled up our pants as high as they could go, held hands preparing to battle the current, and started our journey across the river. After crossing safely we slowly drove back to Sucre picking our way through the rockfalls, mudslides and areas where some of the road had disappeared. What would have been a 3hour-trip back to the city under normal circumstances took us 14 hours. What a day!
cleaning house. Once back in the city, we soon left for a 2-day retreat with the entire staff from our office. Our office staff consists of 50 people, mainly Bolivians, with three of us being from the U.S. and one from Canada. The purpose of the retreat was to gain a vision as an office for our work in the region of Chuquisaca and discuss weaknesses and strategies for improvement. We had a big sports tournament one afternoon including soccer, volleyball, and racquetball. It was a great afternoon of recreation and we were able to see who the real soccer studs are in FHI.
The best part of the retreat happened during our last meeting. The spiritual aspect of development work is being integrated more within FHI and recently all the regional offices went through the new manual that teaches the Vision of a Community, which explains how to meet both spiritual and physical needs in the communities where we work. It has been a struggle to integrate the two needs since so often the technicians in the campo are focused on meeting USAID numbers whether it be in the agriculture or the health program. Sometimes meeting spiritual needs of the people and sharing the love of Jesus is forgotten in the busyness of the numerous development projects. As the group was sharing these weaknesses, a few technicians began to share their disillusionment they felt regarding this issue, and the lack of unity within the office. Another staff member stood and apologized to different people for attitudes he had toward them or things he said that he shouldn't have. The Lord opened up the doors of reconciliation and healing began to take place within the office staff. There had been a lot of talk behind people's backs and bad attitudes toward different people and FHI in general. This is not what Jesus desires of a Christian organization that is to be proclaiming His name, and that night He was obviously at work among His children to form unity. The director then had us all stand up in a circle, putting our arms around each other and praying for God's healing and forgiveness. We are encouraged greatly by what happened that night and we ask you to pray with us for continued healing within the office staff and unification to proclaim the name of Jesus, as we also strive to meet physical needs.
hungry heart. A few nights before leaving Sorocoto, we met with a young man named Juan and his wife, Cristina. Juan has been helping work on the house and he has had many questions for Pete regarding God and Christianity these past few months. Recently, Pete had invited him to an informal Bible study, and Juan agreed. Pete named a night and a time and Juan and his wife showed up at our schoolroom home ready to study the Word. Beginning by explaining the importance of Scripture and its authority, we looked at different verses about this and Juan had many questions throughout the night. We read a little from the book of Colossians and again Juan had questions while we read. It is very obvious that the Spirit is working on Juan's heart and he is yearning to know the truth. The people here have been fed so many lies from Satan through the years that it is hard for them to see and believe the truth about Jesus. Satan has had a ball keeping them in the dark. The blinders from Juan's eyes are being shed and it is so refreshing to sit and listen to him search for the truth. Praise God! He and his wife seem very interested in continuing this Bible study so we are praying that this does happen and that Juan and his wife decide to follow Jesus soon.
Thanks again for all of your support and prayers. They are greatly appreciated.
In His mighty grasp,
Pete and Lori Newell
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Sapling in the Andes
No.7 March 2001
new life. The angels in heaven were rejoicing two weeks ago when our friend Juan Carnaviri chose to give his life to Jesus. Juan is the man with whom we recently started meeting for Bible study. He and his wife Cristina and their baby boy, Moses, came to our school room one night for the study and Pete shared the Good News with them about God's plan of salvation. As Pete explained how each of us has sinned and is separated from God and the only way to come to Him is through His son Jesus, Juan wanted to know more. It was refreshing to sit and listen to his search and then his understanding of his need for Jesus. Due to the late hour, Pete was not able to explain the whole Gospel message so we said to come back the next day. The next night they came back and as we finished explaining God's plan for them, and asked them if they would like to make a commitment to Jesus, Juan told us that he had prayed earlier that day, giving his life to Christ. We were thrilled that Juan had already made a decision and we eagerly welcomed him into the family of God, letting him know that he was now a child of God. Juan's face was full of joy and excitement about his new faith. Please pray with us for protection over Juan and his family as we know that the enemy is upset that another has crossed over from darkness into light.
project forestation. Our good friend and coworker in Sorocoto, Victor Hugo, has high hopes and dreams for the development work in Sorocoto and neighboring communities. He is the agricultural technician in our area so his work includes introducing new ideas for crops, encouraging the use of greenhouses, utilizing terraces, and in the near future he wants to get more involved with helping with animal breeding (there happens to be a knowledgable geneticist coming to visit Sorocoto from Sycamore, Illinois in April who will hopefully give Victor Hugo some good tips on how to produce better animals). Victor Hugo's latest project in the area was buying 4,500 trees to plant in the otherwise barren land. The trees would provide firewood, forage, and more soil conservation. Between the time that he was able to buy the trees and the time he wanted to transport them out to our communities, the rains hit hard, washing away some of the road to Sorocoto and causing many rocks to fall on the road. Transporting the trees in a truck became impossible. Therefore, Victor petitioned the help of the community members for whom the trees were intended to come together and transport the trees back to Sorocoto on their backs or on the backs of their burros. He named the day for hauling the trees and many of us made the one and a half hour trek to Tomoyo, the nearest community where a truck could bring the trees, and we packed as many plants as we could in our packs, forded the river and carried them back to Sorocoto.
growing patience. A character trait that the Lord has been building in us these past few months is patience. In a country where convenience is not a common luxury, where roads to the campo are impassable for three months due to the rains, where radios to communicate to the city are not always functioning, where the right equipment and material to build a house is hard to find, and where a new language is hard to learn, God has taught us that flexibility and "going with the flow" is the only way to get through these times of frustration. The latest patience builder came this past month when the community had their monthly meeting on the 15th and set a date to clean up the road to make it passable. We were looking forward to this day so we could drive our jeep back to the city three days later to purchase needed supplies. On the appointed day, it was raining and since there was not a rain date planned nothing was done in the next few sunny and dry days. Therefore, nothing will be done to the road until the next community meeting, a month away. Once again we found ourselves hiking out with our gear to Tomoyo, where we hopped on the public transportation, which is a huge open air truck, carrying approximately 50 people, bags of potatoes, one cow and one sheep. We are learning more and more to trust in God and His plans for us, not on what we have planned and think should happen.
We thank you for your continued support and prayers and we are encouraged by what we see God doing around us and in us.
In Him,
Pete and Lori Newell
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