I remember all the years as a young girl where the worst thing in life was to be bored.  It killed me.  I’d sigh HUGE loud sighs until my mom would notice.  “I’m so bored!” I’d say.  It was dangerous, however, to say this to my mom, as she had the best remedy for boredom….the fateful words would come out of her mouth, “Well, good, I have some things you can do…starting with cleaning your room!”  I learned quickly to keep my boredom to myself.  But it wouldn’t be any better…you all remember, don’t you?  That feeling of boredom, not having anything to do? 

Today, that feeling hasn’t happened for, well, um, since I think before I had children?  Maybe before I was married?  I would welcome boredom today.  Life quickly can become very full, if not - sometimes, overwhelming.  Add a husband, three kids, a ministry, a job, and additional relationships to cultivate and you’ve got an entire lifetime’s recipe for not being bored!

Oh, to go back to those early days of boredom.  Some of the things I’d try then to overcome boredom were:

• Put on my rollerskates or grab my skateboard (yes, I had one of those, way back then…didn’t look anything like they do today…narrow and plastic looking, but it was fun!) and head to the Mission Home (in Bolivia) volleyball court to skate the afternoon away.
• Head to the open fields nearby, lay down on the grass, or in most cases dirt, and look at the clouds floating overhead, creating shapes in my mind as they went by.
• Call up my friend Alison and see if she wanted to go on a bike ride.  We’d often do this on one bike, one of us riding on the handle bars….(Alison, remember the giggles and falling and laughing so hard that we…well, let’s just say we didn’t make it to the bathroom several miles away at home!)
• Head to the stadium with a few friends to play raquetball in the courts nearby.
• Take a “Microbus” downtown to eat ice-cream at Kivons or Zurichs or La Espania
• Grab my swimming suit and call some friends to go swimming at La Riviera or Plaza Colon
• Head out to the big palm tree in the yard with a good book to read the afternoon away
• Take a hike behind the Mission Home where we lived up into the Andes Mtns. foothills, and if I was lucky, stumble on a pack of Llamas.
• Call a bunch of friends to come play Rook in the Dining Hall – pop the popcorn and set out to win a few hands.
• Go put on my cassette tapes (back in the day we had those, ha!) and listen to the “Rock Music – gasp!” my brothers would send to me to keep me in the loop of what was happening on the music front back in the US – I’d grab a cuaderno (my Bolivian notebook) and listen to the words of the song, push stop, rewind, listen some more, then write down all the lyrics.  This was before people thought to include lyrics in the Cassette covers.  They made us work for them!  No Google-ing available back then!  Ah, the memories…Alison and I took about 4 hours to finish Boston’s song – Competition! 
• Maybe go to the Cochabamba (the city where I was born, in Bolivia) Zoo and see if just maybe the lion would roar that day- most of the times I’m pretty sure the lion was even bored…and watch out for the monkeys, they’d grab your hat right off your head if you got too close…not like the zoos in the US where you can’t get too close.
• Bake chocolate chip cookies and globs (no-bake cookies) to send in a care package to Mark who was away at the Mission boarding school.

Today if I was bored, I’d still want to do a lot of the things I did when I was a kid if I could turn the clock back.  Boredom seldom [if ever] happens now.  So, all you bored teenagers out there.  Look at boredom as a gift!  Life happens quickly.  Enjoy your boredom!  Embrace your boredom…and go do something spontaneous while you can! And if I may, avoid mindless TV watching to overcome your boredom…there’s a big world outside, explore it! 

NOTE to my readers:  What are some memories you have of overcoming boredom when you were a kid?

Many of you know that I grew up a Missionary’s Kid in Bolivia. Here’s a picture of me in the jungles, around 1967.

My parents began their lifelong mission career working with the Ayoreos in Bolivia.  What many of you may not know is that right before my parents started working with the Ayore tribe, 5 missionary men lost their lives attempting to contact the Ayores.  You can read a summary here.

My parents were in the next wave of missionaries to go in after finally friendly contact was made with the Ayoreos in the early 50’s.

I wish you all had an afternoon to sit and listen to my mom share the early days of living in the jungles with the Ayoreos.  It’s amazing and really speaks to the determination of my parents’ hearts to be willing to sacrifice the comfort of safety to live in a very vulnerable setting, willing to share God’s love with these people at all costs. I don’t get all the stories exactly right, but over the years the stories flood my memories and give me renewed courage.

Many times there were moments of intense fear for my folks, wondering if their lives, too, would be taken.  There was also the agony of learning their culture – these people were bound in fear and due to the taboos in their tribe they had to bury alive their firstborn if it was a girl, or if the babies were twins.  After suffering through this with several women, my mom was able to work with them to let her take the babies and my parents started an orphanage where they raised many babies.

All of us six kids except Tricia lived in the jungles for a period of time.  I was there for the first three years of my life – then moved to the city of Cochabamba, but visited the tribal village of my birth, Tobite, a few times.  My older siblings lived in Tobite into their middle school and high school lives.  Mom home-schooled them all until they were in middle school – then they went to the Mission’s boarding school.  Dad built our houses – no indoor plumbing – the outhouses were “fun”.

My dad was amazing – helping the men learn to plant sugar cane crops and how to process the cane, building a mill to sell lumber to the railroads and helping sell the bags the women made in the city.  He was their doctor, lawyer, friend, mentor and teacher.  He built the chapel where they worshiped, the school house where they learned, and more.

To me, my parents were the ultimate example that if you’re willing, God supplies all that you need to do His purpose wherever He sends you.  Mom never finished high school and went to mission training after her junior year (she graduated with her GED years later with my nephew).  She married my Dad (who followed her in to training) when she just turned 18 (about 2 1/2 weeks after turning 18).  They eloped on a weekend from their mission training – she wore a borrowed Kelly Green suit, he wore a borrowed Maroon Sports Jacket.  Their first meal was bought with all the money they had – a can of pork and beans.  They had an inner strength that no one could break – determined to make it to the mission field at all costs and they served most of their adult lives there!

I’m proud to have this heritage and when I get to feeling overwhelmed today, I think of my parents early jungle life and the obstacles they overcome and realize – I’m made of that stuff!  I can handle the hurdles in my life with the same strength my parent’s had – because, ultimately it’s not their strength after all, but it comes from the Lord! (Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.)

Recently, my mom recently received an email from a good friend in Bolivia who shared something very special with her.  A picture of a memorial to these men.  Here’s the picture:

Here’s the translation of what it says:

In Memory and Honor

of the

Evangelical Missionary Martyrs

Cecil H Dye

George Y Hosbach

Eldon L Hunter

Robert W Dye

David R Bacon

All natives of the United States of America who through this route entered the jungles of the Tucavaca Valley to seek a peaceful contact with the Ethnic Ayoreos, finding death at the end of their mission.

There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

Okay, I can’t take it anymore. There’s a fly who has decided to fly into my car and live there.  It’s very irritational (you can use that word if you want).  I get in to my car, listen, smile because I think, “Hmmm, the fly must have flown.”  But no, just as I settle in, turn on the tunes, and get ready for my drive to wherever, out of nowhere comes the stupid fly!  Flitting around my face making me look like a spastic weirdo to all other drivers as I swat aimlessly around my face.  I’m bigger then this fly, I should definitely have the better hand.  Nope.  I try all the tactics I can think of. 

• Roll down my window just enough so the fly get’s purposely sucked out by the wind. 
• Roll down my window full force just when I see the fly happen to flutter over to said window.
• Randomly roll down both sides windows, hoping the cross air-ness will cause the fly to remember it’s supposed to fly outside, not inside!
• Creepily call out, “Here fly, here fly” so I can smash it if it responds.  It hasn’t responded, which is probably good since I might just smash it against my jeans or face or something and then have terrible smushed fly goop to clean up.

Argh!  I hate flies.  And, it’s reminded me of all the other creepy fly stories I’ve heard and seen over the years, like the human eating fly. 

I had friends in Bolivia who had to deal with this horrible thing – we called them borros.  It was awful!  Just to prove it happens, I found this video – NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!  Watch at your own risk.  One of my friends, Michelle, would come out from her jungle home to the city of Cochabamba because the borro needed to come out.  One time one was on her head and in the midst of playing together we smacked heads so hard and the borro popped out.  Not your recommended way of removal, for sure.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for those interested in the creepier things in life) I have way too many stories like this from growing up in Bolivia as a missionary kid.  I try not to share too many on the blog – I don’t want to be nominated for the “Gross Blog of the Year” award.  But – this time, it’s what the stupid fly in my car kept making me think of, so I decided to share.