The end of 2020

 

Christmas here was interesting, weird and hard but with some great fun moments. In Bolivia, Christmas Eve is a bigger deal than Christmas day with the big meal on Christmas Eve (often at midnight). Thankfully here at the children’s home, we ate around 8pm. All of the children were incredibly excited, escalated by a group from a university and a man dressed as Santa bringing gifts. After dinner, there was a lot of fireworks reaching a peak at midnight (I fell asleep for an hour or so as I am now well entrenched in a 10pm-6am, more or less, sleeping routine). It was lovely to be with all children and be part of their joy.

On Christmas Day and Boxing day, I had the opportunity to spend time relaxing and eating with other members of Latin Link. This was really nice especially for a wee bit of the feeling of a british Christmas though swimming outside in the heat on Boxing day was extremely strange. 

It was also important to be able to call my parents, sister and Gran, especially as my Gran was by herself. My sister tested positive for COVID last week (she works in a nursery), resulting in my family being in quarantine over Christmas. It was lovely to speak to them but also reminded me how much I miss them, especially just the normality of passing time with people rather than the strangeness of video calls. 

During the Christmas period, I have been less busy here due to the summer holidays and the different schedule. Therefore I found myself passing more time by myself. In some ways, this has been great and relaxing. I also feel that my relationship with God is improving and my prayer life is more active. I am really enjoying reading ‘How to pray’ by Pete Greig and would recommend it for helping think through how you spend time with God and involve him in your life. 

However, I am looking forward to next week and throwing myself into things here and working more one on one with the young people again. I have also started thinking a little about what I might do next year and the year after and I am finding this exciting but also a little overwhelming. Overall I am enjoying my work here and my relationship with God but unquestionably I am missing talking and being with close friends. 

Cases of Covid are rising again in Bolivia and we are in a second wave, please pray for wisdom for the Government. From what I am seeing many people here seem less fearful than in June and July and it seems unlikely that a full lockdown will be imposed or that it would be obeyed to the same extent. 

I hope every one of you has a year full of God, that you feel his presence in your life and you become more like the person he wants you to be 

Philippians 1:6

‘being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’