The calm after the storm...

First off, please let me say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has been lifting the people of Cochabamba, our families, and the church launch up in prayer. Things have been a little crazy and so I apologize that I have not updated everyone earlier, but we're back in action now and so here we go :) As far as our family goes, we are all back to normal (or as "normal" as we get :) Nathan is feeling better, I am feeling better, and Gary is back safe and sound from taking the Austin Avenue group to Santa Cruz. So we are all back together in our house and happy to be feeling better.

Things here in Cochabamba seem to be calming down. The group of protestors self-destructed yesterday (meaning that the group kind of divided among themselves, made some moves to elect a new govenor, but got no national backing and so have headed home) and so things in the downtown area are calming down and returning to normal. Hopefully we'll get to make it to the post office tomorrow to pick up our mail. I love going to pick up mail, just not when it's in the middle of riot central. The two pictures below are of the group that came into town to stir up trouble and the police coming into to try and establish some semblance or order.

The "cocaleros" or "campesinos" gathering to protest outside the hotel where our visitors stayed.

The police marching, again outside their hotel.

Over the weekend, things really calmed down (apparently the protestors here in Bolivia only work M-F). So Saturday the Austin Avenue group was able to tour the city, visit the statue of Christ and pass out balloons. We had balloons made (yellow of course :) that say "Cristo te ama" or "Jesus loves you" on one side and the address to the church on the other. Well, I tell you what, those AA folks got busy :) They blew up all the balloons and went to two or three plazas here in town to hand out balloons and flyers about the launch. It was a huge help and gave them a great way to be involved. Below are a few pictures of the balloonage... (Nathan was making sure to help and show all the kids in Cbba how you do it :)

Man you talk about some good publicity :)

Nathan... showing them how's it done :)

Handing out balloons in the Plaza Principal.

Amy Hubbard handing out flyers... she knew I meant business when I said, don't come back with any :)

Sunday marked our launch day and it was beautiful... beautiful weather, beautiful message, beautiful visitors, worshipping a beautiful God. With things calmed down many of the Cochabambinos that we invited were able to come to worship with us. Our brothers and sisters from Santa Cruz and La Paz weren't able to come as they wanted to due to the blockades that were still in force until Saturday afternoon/evening. But a precious handful from Santa Cruz boarded a bus late Saturday night, traveled all night, and showed up on our doorstep Sunday morning. You cannot even imagine the joy it brought to our hearts to see their faces. The women from one of the churches there hand made and painted the most beautiful table cloth for our Lord's supper table that they presented to us during the service. Butch preached a great message on God being the only author of change, true change, in our lives'. Josh lead our worship. And we were blessed to have Vicente (read about our brother in previous posts), Freddy Vargas (a precious teenager of one of our families here) and Renan Vargas (his dad), open our worship, read scripture, pray, and lead our Lord's supper. It was a beautiful (I think I've used that word before :) blending of team members and Bolivian Christians coming together to lead worship... exactly what we have prayed for. Then we were blessed with a time in which an elder from the Santa Cruz church and from Austin Avenue were able to come forward and express their thoughts and pray blessings over the church here. All in all it was a wonderful day...

Our new church sign and what it looks like all lit up at night :) Pretty awesome huh?

This is the church building packed full on Sunday morning... we had around 140 in attendance! Praise God!

The most beautiful thing by far about the whole day was that our sister Camilla accepted Jesus as her Savior and put him on in baptism after worship. Camilla began attending worship with her mother (Aida a sister in Christ, who's family are brothers and sisters in Christ in Santa Cruz). Aida is now in the states working and Camilla is here with her dad. She expressed an interest to be baptized a few weeks ago and Katie began studying with her. She is a precious girl and we rejoice with her and her decision to take this step of faith. The pictures below are of Camilla's baptism.

Nathan... testing the water :)

Josh saying "This is true sacrifice (the water was super cold), but so worth it!"

Camilla putting on her Lord in baptism.

Camilla and her sister.

I think that pretty much sums up our Sunday. Thank you for all who were in prayer! We found out after our worship here that a group from Austin Avenue braved the ice Sunday morning to get up early and pray together over our worship services at the same hour that we were starting here (okay a little earlier... we do after all live on Latin American time that always starts at least a half hour late :) But just know that we are so blessed to be covered in your prayers. Please continue to pray for the political situation here. Things are at a calm for now... but as we have learned in the past week, can change in a heartbeat. And please continue to pray for the church here, for the contacts we have made, and for the work that God is continuing to do! God bless you all... and to close it out, a new picture of the Bull clan, thanks to Danielle Turner, one of our visitors/photographers :)

**Also wanted to let you all know that one of the visitors traveling with the AA group is a writer for the Christian Chronicle back home, so keep an eye out for his write up in the upcoming edition. Should be fun and exciting to see!