Our trip to Santa Cruz

So we went to a camp in Santa Cruz a while back. That was a ton of fun!! We played a lot, had some very uplifting lessons, very good food, and made more amazing friends! We stayed an extra day, because there is a mall there that has things like Starbucks, Cinnabon, and HardRock Cafe!! We also watched The Magnificat 7!! This trip was a ton of fun, despite the heat and humidity!!! 

Our trip to Trinidad!

There is a family in Trinidad, there are two sisters who both have kids, 11 a piece I believe, they live in extreme poverty. Yet are very happy and content. The two families make up the entire church there!! They have been believers for about two years.  Butch and Trish, our coordinators, go to Trinidad every 2 or 3 months to encourage them. While there we saw 4 sloths, ate a lot of food, rode motorcycle taxis, took the kids out to pizza and ice-cream, swam, picked fresh mangoes and ate them, and just had fun! 

November family camp!

The 4th and 5th of November we are having a family camp here in Cochabamba! We are having a few lessons, a good meal or a few, some fun activities such as equestrian classes, and just some good family fun! Families from all of Bolivia will be there! Which means reconnecting with some friends, AND making new friends! Prayers would be appreciated that all goes well!!!

Cometa and Camino 

Cometa is a youth detention center, which houses up to 100 young men, and 20 young ladies all ages 11-19. The volunteers AKA my team plus the director of the Spanish school and a missionary from England named Richard, go out to Cometa 2 or 3 days a week. Richard and I go three the others only go two. Wednesdays  the guys play brain games or right now we are doing renovations such as painting and DEEP cleaning. While the girls cook with the girls. on Thursday Richard and I play brain games with the young men who have received a sentence. We also paint and build walls. On Friday they guys play games such as baseball or soccer, while the girls do crafts. The last Friday of the month we celebrate birthdays, we buy them gifts which include, toothbrush and paste, a new shirt, a soccer ball, and some chips and drink or candy.  Camino is a drug Rehabilitation center. They have about 10 boys ages 11-17. We play with them on Fridays, and just have a little snack afterwards. Over the past two years volunteers have been seeking to teach life skills to the young people with the hope that they will let God transform their lives.

Prayers.

the church in Villa Parador 

The church in Tiquipaya

The church in Trinidad

the kids at COMETA  

the kids in the orphanage 

the brothers and sisters here in Bolivia

That our children of Sunshine House would grow up learning how to love others and knowing that
they are loved
Abundant patience and energy for our extraordinary caregivers  at Sunshine House

Stability and peace for our children during a season of transition 

Wisdom for our new administration
God’s provision of resources needed for our 2016-2017 budget

       Cole Rodgers: jgccarodgers@qmail.com or colerodgers333@yahoo.com also Facebook.

It’s been a while!

So while I've been out,  we went to Sucre. They got a building of their own and had all the CoCs in Bolivia over. It was a ton of fun!! Tiquipaya, a suburb of Cochabamba (ABV Cbba) just got a church of christ planted there. There has been a mission team working there. They now have 7 members I believe. I now go to COMETA 3 times a week. fFor those of you who don't know, COMETA is a youth prison. I was going 2 times but now I go 3!! Its one of my favorite things to do. the kids there are so nice and open. I teach english 3 days a week. Monday we all teach english, wednesday I teach a man named Pablo he is learning very quickly, and thursday I teach a young man named Andres he is also learning well. My coordinators get back today, I can not tell you how excited I am about that!! They have been gone for 2 months now. It felt like forever. Jordan has gone home. We are all sad about that. Her sister is very sick so if y'all could be in prayer for her and her family. 

More on Sucre!!

We bused to and back from Sucre for two reasons. 1 its cheaper than flying. 2 we don't have our passports right now they are in La Paz until we get our visas. So there is another prayer request. The bus there took us 9 hours!!! 9 windy long sleepless hours. we left at 9 pm and got there at 6 am and went to one of the missionaries there house. and sleep a little bit. then we got to exploring all thursday. that night we went to what they call El Camino. Its right across from a university and they offer free coffee and a place to study. The church there is mostly young people it was super encouraging to see. Friday we explored some more. that night they had another study. saturday they stared their festivities if y'all follow me on Instagram I posted some of the singing. it was amazing!!! Sunday we heard a preacher from the states named Paul Shero!!! Someone I have known for forever!!! It was really a refresher!!

Spanish School…

I am getting much more comfortable when talking in spanish. I have all my tenses so now all I need to do is get more fluid and have more verbs. I have prayed in church, while we were in Sucre there were lots of people from the States who didn't speak Spanish so I was given the opportunity to translate some. Sucre was a real confidence booster. 

Upcoming conference 

The 14th through the 16th of september we are having a hermeneutics conference. All of the churches are invited. We will be very busy. Also we will get to see some friends from Sucre!

Sunshine house

The spanish school has taken over an orphanage. They are low on funds so if y'all would like to help you can contact me and ill get you in contact with Mauge the director of the school.

We did a lot but I'm having trouble remembering it all…

Prayers.

the church in Sucre

The church in Tiquipaya

thanks for safe travels 

the kids at COMETA 

the kids in the orphanage 

the brothers and sisters here in Bolivia

the upcoming conference 

       Cole Rodgers: jgccarodgers@qmail.com or colerodgers333@yahoo.com also Facebook.

It's been a While!

Okay, we flew to Bolivia the 15th of May. I have been in South America for almost two months!! We had a little scare in Miami, we were in line to check our bags before we boarded when the asked to see our visas. So we showed them, but our visas were only for 30 days and we didn't have a return ticket! They couldn't let us go! But because we were missionaries they decided to call the Bolivian Government. So about 10 minutes before boarding time they let us on!! We very quickly checked our bags and ran to the gate! We ended up sitting there for a while before we boarded. And from it was smooth sailing. We arrived in Cochabamba on time, and met our missionaries. The next night we went to Cami’s house and ate supper and played games and met the youth. 

I’ve seen Jesus!!

Or the Christ statue rather. Cochabamba has it’s own Christ statue! It is bigger than the one in Rio by 40 cm!!! The 3rd weekend here we hiked up to it! It was absolutely beautiful! There were people everywhere up there. It was a tin of fun! My FitBit said I climbed 59 flights of stairs! We took the Telefelico down, thats like a ski lift type thing. 

Spanish School…

We started Spanish school our second week here. It costs $10, American money, an hour!! we take 3 hours a day. It costs me about $600 a month!!! The classes are one on one for about an hour.  We have learned a lot! The school takes trips and goes camping, and hiking and such. There is a dog, belonging to the director of the school her name is Mauge pronounced Mow he. The dogs name is Sofi. She is super cute!!! she goes with us on the trips. 

Church.

Church here is organized a little differently, We have class, then we head down to the patio and visit, next the men go and pray for the service, then we go to church. In the service we have songs, opening prayer, more songs, the sermon, then communion ( we all stand up, go to the middle, take the bread and juice, Its all in different cups, then go and sit back down all the while singing.)  then we have the offering, then more songs, closing prayer, then the announcements. Then we stay around and chat. and after church we head out and eat somewhere. At 3ish we go play football, aka soccer. Then at 5:30 head home and get ready for evening service. At 6:30 we hop in a taxi and and go to another little church Villa Pagador they are a young church, only 1 1/2 years. Service here is very much like morning service. They are all Quechuan people, and work in the market. Sunday is a big market day so their evening worship is basically like a Sunday morning worship. 

Mondays at 5!

Mondays at 5 we teach English. It is one of our ministry right now, Butch wants us to focus on learning Spanish then jump into ministry. Right now we have 5 students, 3 girls and 2 boys. 

Prayers.

Hey guys and gals!
How have y'all been? I've been great! The men of the AIM program went on an all guys camping trip. It was pretty great! We left the apartments at three pm, and drove out to the Post area. We stayed on a ranch called The Three Gringos Ranch. They were very kind to us. We all brought our own meat to cook. I brought hamburger patties. After we ate supper we went and had a scavenger hunt. That was a ton of fun! We stared at about eight pm and were given until eleven to find the end goal. We were given three rules, 1 Don't split up, 2 Don't get off the trail, and 3 Include your whole team. After we received our first clue, we raced off! and got our second we read it and deciphered it. As we ran off to find the last clue we got off a path without realizing it! You see we were on a path but where we needed to be was just below us, so we raced over to the last clue! When we got there we took the "prize" and started running off back to camp, when we were stopped and told to put the price back! Confuzzled, we did as we were told and put it back. Then reread the clue and found a paper in the bottom that told us to put the box by a tree shown on the map. We took off and couldn't find the tree! It was almost 11pm so we went back to camp, only to discover that we didn't have to bring the box with us! The paper was left in the box from the last time they had done this! We had won!!! Or so we thought...it turns out we were disqualified for getting off the path.
Through all of this we learned that we needed to be more observant. Sometimes we aren't even aware that what we are doing is wrong, and that is when we need to step back and get perspective!

~God be with Y'all
~Cole

So I decided today that I wanted to start blogging. I am excited, yet also very nervous about this. I am excited because  I am going to post verses, bible studies, and some news about my life as a missionary in Cochabamba, Bolivia where I will be living for about 18 months. I will also post some randomness! I'm a country boy living my life for God. I am interested in Naturopathic medicine, healthy living, and becoming a self sufficient farmer/rancher. I will try to post often and give updates on everything.
      ~God be with Y'all
             ~Cole