4. Falling Fruit

Book 1: Journey to the Orphanage
     Chapter 2: Santa Cruz
          Story 1: Falling Fruit

We were bombarded by fruit in two ways yesterday: physically and spiritually.

Yesterday could not have gone better. We woke up in tropical Santa Cruz, finally met the Gospel International Ministries employees, had delicious food, found out Portugal won, and most miraculously, finished our visa application process!

Completing the application process for our temporary visa is supposed to take 10 to 30 days. However, our outstanding coordinator, Jimena, managed to get this done in 1 day!!! A miracle in my book! She is the coordinator at A.S.D.E.I.H., a branch of GMI. She does about fifteen of these visa applications for student missionaries a year, and is therefore quite experienced. I felt like extra baggage as we followed her all day throughout Santa Cruz as we ran our visa errands....we did nothing; she did all the talking. The only effort we exerted was a few fingerprints for the police department. In all, we went to Interpol, the police department, a photo booth place, a lawyer, and a hospital to draw blood (quite nerve-racking in a third world country!).

After our productive day, we retired to the hotel and enjoyed some pasta at a beautiful restaurant, which featured an outdoor patio containing fruit that tried to fall on your head.

A soccer jersey treasure cove!

The previous day highlighted quite the memorable experience: the Black Market (Mercado Negro). This large network of streets and shops contained everything from hammers, to potatoes, to clothing. Beware of brand name clothing, it is likely fake (hence the title of the market). However, this was a gold mine for soccer jerseys! With this large selection of jerseys you would not find in the States, I was in euphoria and could care less if they were not authentic. The most expensive jerseys were 12 U.S. dollars. One of the highlights of the trip thus far.

Chad and I can clearly see that we have been blessed and watched over during our trip. Most obvious, is the rapid solution to our visa problem. In addition, I have had extremely helpful hotel employees who spoke Ingles, incident (and accident) free taxi rides, nothing stolen, a helpful university (SAU) to answer all of our questions, and a decently adequate traveling companion; Chad (hehe, actually, I couldn't have asked for a better friend on this trip). God has undoubtfully been with us each step of the way. Our completion of the visa so quickly was obvious evidence of God's "fruitful" blessings that he sent down on us for our behalf: falling spiritual fruit. :)

We will be attentively watching out both types of fruits for the rest of our stay in this country.

We plan on flying to Rurre tomorrow (Thursday). Ironically enough, this will be the third time we attempt to land in La Paz, where we will have a connecting flight to Rurre. We miss that beautiful city.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**