The Secret to Killing Tarantulas

San Fernando Sept. 2011

The secret to killing tarantulas

 is #1, JUST DO IT, and #2, Do it quickly.

I used to think I needed a long heavy stick to “squash them all flat”, and some where in the process it always used to made me scream.  I also felt moral support was necessary. But now it seems like such a way of life. Just a quick hard whack with your flipflop, and they are done for. No sticks, screaming, or by-standers are necessary. I don’t know how they get in our kitchen. We don’t have a dirt floor anymore, and our adobe brick walls are now covered with cement (no helpful little holes for them to crawl through), and we have doors that close flush to the floor, so what could it be? There are openings between our screen wall and the tin roof. Do they climb up high to get in? And when I catch them in the kitchen, why are they ALWAYS MAKING a “B LINE” FOR MY BEDROOM? A little guy got in the other day. While I was standing in the kitchen, his fuzzy black body and legs just caught my eye as he slipped under my bedroom door. I instantly opened my door and found him on my little bamboo mat behind the door, and squashed him. I then decided I needed to keep a rolled up blanket on the floor in front of my door. Better yet, I need to radio the guys at the hangar in Santa Cruz, and they can buy a rubber piece to attach to my door.

VIVA SANTA CRUZ, 24TH of September

It is Independence Day of the department/State of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Whenever there is any special date, Bolivian schools have an “Acto Civio”, which is like a little assembly, where the different classes present special numbers. In this past year I’ve been here, I’ve never participated. But this time my English students sang a song in English and later I sang “Viva Santa Cruz”, which was fun. At the end we marched… all for the handful of parents who come to watch. In the afternoon there was a soccer tournament. It seemed like the whole town came out to watch the guys play. When they were done, a girls' game started, and I was recruited. I was completely unprepared… so… I played in jeans, barefoot and with no glasses or contacts. I told the girls I was blind so they would have to yell at me if they wanted the ball. It was fun. Since it was Saturday, we had our Youth church service in the evening, which Dina lead, and that went great… but more older women and children, and then youth came. Sunday evening service was my turn to teach. I was prepared to teach the 8th lesson from a book I’ve been using every Sunday night, on basic doctrines for new believers to understand. But since--surprisingly--there were more youth than adults or children, I modified the whole service to cater to them. Using songs from CD’s and my projector to show a music video and part of "The Purpose Driven Life" in Spanish to illustrate part of the lesson, “Senor de Todo”, the lesson was on how God is worthy of our everything.



If you were to ask me “how it’s going” ministry-wise here in San Fernando right now, I could not give you two thumbs up… nor down.  They would have to be sideways.