Hola :)

It's Monday, January 24. One more day is spent worthwhile. I've been working since 7:00AM. I cleaned a house, then brought some second hand clothes from one house to another, worked at the laundry room, kitchen, prepared a room for our new guests and did some other stuff. Time really flies by when you have so much to do.
Yesterday was a day of rest - Sunday. Church service started at 8:00AM and we had lunch at 10:30AM. In the afternoon I visited one of the Latvians -Harijs Jansons (English version - Harry Johnson). He showed me pictures from the old times and told many stories. First Latvians arrived here from Brazil riding on oxen. And he remembers times when he and other "crazy people" came here on carts pulled by 6 oxen. And the 80km (50 miles) long trip from the point where asphalt road ended till Rincon took them up to 13 days, because the road was so bad. He told about a time when  during this 13 day trip they spent the night under the open sky. One of the men took off his shirt and hung it by the fireplace to dry it. But when he woke up in the morning all he could find was the collar... ants had taken everything else away :) Then brother Harijs told about flood in Rincon. When something flows here, it takes everything away. Once the flood took all their pigs to forest. It took them several days to catch and bring back all the piggies. Another time one of the Ayoreo ladies was pregnant  and as she is walking through the flood water she feels that it's time to give birth to her child. Since everything is covered with water she climbed a nearby tree and gave birth there. She used her hair pin to cut the umbilical cord, wrapped her child in her shirt and kept walking. They both were alive and well. These and many other stories Harijs told me on Sunday with a great joy. And he was very, very happy that someone visited him. He feels very lonely because his wife Ruta passed away several years ago... even though he gets to see other villagers there is no other friend like her... so I promised to visit him again and look at the pictures and hear other mighty stories! Every Latvian here wants show and tell something to me. Usually they don't have anyone to whom to tell these stories...
Yesterday we had an evening service at 6:30PM. And that was the shortest service of my life. 25 minutes later everyone was already going home. :) I love the way they do church services here - the one who leads doesn't have a program printed out. He picks the songs they'll sing on spot. He looks at the people who have gathered and picks someone who will read the Scripture, who will pray and who will sing a solo. Yesterday they told me without warning - sister Liene will sing a solo :D But I said I need some time to prepare and we agreed that I will sing a week later. So they're very spontaneous!
The adventure of the day was that my friend Sharon took me for a walk to the real jungle!!! You can't expect more genuine jungle than this... palm trees, bamboos, lianas, cactus, grass as tall as you, all kinds of interesting flowers, bushes, rivers, horse bones, monkeys, butterflies, big birds... I walked through and was wondering but for them it's so usual... very beautiful indeed!
There is a lot of work to do here. When you feel like you have finished your work there is something else to do. This week the biggest work is to prepare everything for the new school year when 120 children will live here. We have to tidy, wash and repair all the dorm rooms, make their beds. For the past 3 months they had their summer break and everything is dusty and needs some repair... Besides the 120 children about 20 teachers will also live here. We have to prepare accommodation for them as well. So we have a lot of work. And in a week I will have many other responsibilities. I can not image what I will have to do yet. But I can smell that it will be a lot of work! And I love it. I love to be a part of the team that is doing this great work. Rincon mission is an amazing place on earth. They have built such a civilized village in the middle of jungle and established a high level school according to Bolivian standards. You can achieve so much when you make some effort. I have a lot to learn here...
And soon we will be without electricity again... I'm saying goodbye! And I really hope that I will have internet access soon so I can post all this.
Thank you for your prayers. They really work :) I can't wait to see what will happen here during school time. But at the same time I can't wait to be in Latvia again and show my pictures and videos :)
Kisses and goodbye!