So dawn goes down to day

Our time in Bolivia has come to an end. Our household effects leave us on Monday and in less than three weeks we are getting on a plane to spend the summer in "the States" as my globe-trotting kids say now. The past two months have been busy.... entertaining, finally. Gigi learned to ride her bike without training wheels. 

Our Spanish teacher (a beloved friend, really) took us on a tour of museums downtown. 

She also took Dominic to have Api, a thick, sweet Bolivian drink made of purple corn, usually served warm. It's a special treat for Bolivians on cold days to have api with pastries. 

And... we had visitors! Amy and Brandon visited at the end of March for 10 days. During that time, my cousin Fanny also visited. Our house was gloriously, wonderfully full. Full of noise, full of busy, full of hugs and tickle-fights, and people. We defied fear as the tires slipped, driving up Mt Chacaltaya's narrow roads in the snow.

We surveyed the city's central plaza from the rooftop of an 18th century cathedral. I seem to always have some child hanging over a precipice.

We descended the Andean ridge into a cloud forest as we entered the outskirts of the Amazon rainforest.

Suspended over the rainforest in Coroico, we flew on ziplines, hitting speeds of over 40 mph. 

And we chatted with elderly spider monkeys.

But nothing gold can stay. My family left and I made a chart to help us mark the weeks left till our own departure. Fourteen... Thirteen... Twelve....My sweet friend Tamara suggested I take up horseback riding with the kids while I waited. And so I did. I put all my strength into it and learned to trot before the month was over! My cook taught me how to make tucumanas (empanadas stuffed with ground beef, peas, carrots, and potatoes). I watched the film Dr. Zhivago (it had been on my to-do list for 15 years). I developed tendinitis in my shoulder. And every week I colored in another square on our countdown chart. I made another friend. This one worked with her husband in a ministry to the lustra botas here, the "shoe shiners." Shoe shiners are considered one of the lowest classes of Bolivian society. They wear masks to cover their faces. They make very, very little income from their work. Alcoholism is rampant. She and her husband minister to these "least" of society to teach them their worth, made in the image of God who knows them and loves them. She has a gift for speaking Truth into others' lives. I've seen her use this gift in a powerful way in my own life and she has become a close friend though our times together have been few. 

Tonight, I went out with my new gang of friends. One has been there from the beginning- she took us on our first adventure to Mt Chacaltaya. But the philosopher, the Spanish teacher, and the Truth speaker, they have only recently come into my life. They know me through and through because I'm an all-or-nothing kind of person. I just tell it how it is- from my opinion on 70s rock bands to my struggles with loneliness and feelings of failure. They know I have had a difficult time in Bolivia for a myriad of reasons. And so they bought me this gift.

I was struck with the poignancy of it. The cross is inlaid with aguayo fabric, representative of La Paz. Every time I see it, I am forced to come face to face with the reality that Christ was a part of this difficult journey. That my being here was part of His plan for my life, and that just as He is in the center of all things, He was present in my loneliness and my struggles here. He was always there. He is a close God, isn't he? 

I finally have the riches I yearned for: fellowship. 

My friends prayed over me. It was the closure that I needed with all of my heart. 

And so we have come to the end. 

Nothing Gold Can Stay 

by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.