In His Hands
It's rather insane how much has happened in the past three weeks. The difference between last semester and this semester has been much more drastic than any of us expected. Besides being on the same campus, everything feels different now. I will do my best to explain.
The first change, and perhaps the most shocking news we've heard all year, is that the U.S.-based non-profit, which was founded for the sole purpose of supporting Familia Feliz, will be separating from Familia Feliz and discontinuing its support. The implications of this are rather large.
First, I am going to attempt to explain in a nutshell how Familia Feliz got to the point it is currently at. When Melissa founded Familia Feliz 20 years ago, her dream was to start an orphanage. Because of the lengthy process of making an orphanage legal, she decided to start a "school" instead, because the legalities weren't nearly as complex. Her goal, though, was to eventually make Familia Feliz an official orphanage. Over the years, she has tried to make her dream a reality, but for many different reasons, she has come to the realization that an orphanage is not possible. However, Familia Feliz is still a functioning school, so the administration here has decided to lean into that idea more. When Familia Feliz was founded, a non-profit organization by the name of Gospel Ministries International (GMI) liked what Melissa was doing, so they decided to help her out by purchasing land for her and helping her with the legalities that came with starting a school. In Bolivia, you must apply for and receive a private school license before you can officially run a private school (obviously). Familia Feliz's license was applied for and received under GMI's name. That's a really important fact that I'll come back to.
As of a year or so ago, the vision for Familia Feliz was this: separate from GMI and transition leadership and administration of Familia Feliz to the U.S. non-profit. The non-profit was formed with the goal of eventually becoming responsible for Familia Feliz. However, when the administration here on campus started pursuing that endeavor, they discovered numerous roadblocks that prevented the original vision from becoming a reality. I will not go into detail about everything we were told, partly because it's complicated but also because I still don't fully understand it myself. But there was one major obstacle in the way that made it impossible to make the switch from GMI to the non-profit in the States. That would be Familia Feliz's private school license. If Familia Feliz were to cut ties with GMI, it would lose its private school license, and therefore its right to legally operate a school. If this situation had happened 20 years ago, it wouldn't have been a huge issue. We could have simply filed for another private school license. However, the Bolivian government is doing its best to rid the country of private schools. I'm not sure why exactly, but that is what is happening. Hence, the government has stopped giving out private school licenses, and they are looking for any way they can to shut down the current private schools. I bet you can guess what that means for Familia Feliz. Separating from GMI means an immediate death sentence for the school. So just like that, the option of cutting ties with GMI was off the table. That put Melissa in a really tough spot. She had one foot with GMI and one with the non-profit. She was pretty much stuck in the middle with not much of a say in the matter. A solution had to be worked out somehow. After many meetings with the non-profit, the administration here, and GMI, a sad conclusion was reached. The non-profit would be discontinuing its support, effective June 1, 2025.
Sierra Anderson, the president of the non-profit and a previous student missionary at Familia Feliz just arrived today with her parents to visit her sister and check up on all of us SMs. I am sure she will give us her side of the story and how everything has unfolded at some point during her stay. Hopefully, that will give us some clarity on the whole situation, because it feels like a whole jumbled mess. It feels like we have been told a one-sided story from the administration here, so it will be good to hear the same story from Sierra and the non-profit's perspective.
Besides that crazy news we got, there have been other changes that have directly affected our lives here. I mentioned the cafeteria in my last post. That has obviously changed daily life a lot. Instead of spending several hours each day prepping meals and cleaning up after them, everyone just goes to the cafe to eat. Well, except for our house because Teacher Emi still wants to cook. Her cooking is absolutely incredible, so I'm not sad that I still get to eat her food, but it is a little sad that I don't have that time at meals to socialize with the other kids and teachers. But when Teacher Juan and Emi leave for their day off or for Teacher Emi's class, we get to take the boys to eat with everyone else. It works out. Anyway, you'd think with all the time saved from not having to cook or clean up that we'd have more time to spend with the kids...but not really. We've replaced that time with work/vocational education and classes. So the kids arrived a week and a half ago. School technically started two Mondays ago. We didn't have teachers yet, so these first two weeks of "school" have been different from what the rest of the school year will look like. The weekday schedule has looked something like this:
7:10 - 7:50 am: Breakfast
8:00 - 12:00 pm: Work (everyone participates)
12:10 - 12:50 pm: Lunch
1:00 - 5:00 pm: Classes
5:10 - 5:50 pm: Supper
6:00 - 9:30 pm: House clean-up, hang-out time, showers, worship, bedtime
It's definitely not an outrageous schedule, but it has taken some getting used to. Everyone works in the morning, even the little kids. For me, I have been doing maintenance work with the help of Leo, one of the older boys. We've been repairing window screens and doing other odd jobs around campus. It's been a good time, but it's tiring work, especially in the heat. The worst part of the day for me is classes. Since we have no teachers yet, the SMs have been tasked with "teaching" the kids. Woohoo! I put the word "teaching" in parenthises because it would be a stretch to call it real teaching. Here's how classes work. There are five classes every day.
1. Orientation - Teacher: Aaron, the new director
2. Physical education - Teachers: Jayden and myself
3. Health - Teacher: Sophia
4. Music - Teacher: Justin, with Jayden and Kelsey's help
5. Bible - Teachers: Matthew and Ellie, with Hope's help
Each class is 40 minutes, and all 40 kids rotate together through the classes. It's been a bit of a nightmare in my opinion. The kids aren't treating it like class because for one, they're altogether, and two, they've worked all morning, and their stomachs are full of food, so they have no motivation or energy to do anything. It's been a struggle for us to keep them behaved and quiet, much less engaged in learning anything. Thankfully, though, this is just a temporary schedule until we can get more qualified teachers here. The plan is to start "real school" this coming Monday, assuming we have all the teachers we need. All of the SMs are looking forward to that because teaching has been quite the burden on us. But we only have two more days of it, so we'll manage. Honestly, this experience of teaching PE has made me so appreciative that I did not choose a mission location that requires teaching. I would have burnt out so quickly. God is good, though. He led me here, and I am so thankful for that!
The last change I'll mention is the kids that are here, or more accurately the kids that are not here. In my house, we had twelve kids at the end of the school year. How many of those kids returned? Five! Less than half of our kids returned for this school year! We were aware that three of our boys were most likely not returning, but we had no idea the family of four brothers were not coming back. At this point, we will not be accepting any more kids, so it is looking like we will only have five kids for the rest of my time here. I have such mixed feelings about this change. Obviously, managing five kids is a much easier task than managing twelve kids. Less fights. Less discipline. Less stubbornness. Less noise. But there is another side of the coin. Less laughter. More boredom. Less kids in a safe, Christian home environment. The reality that I most likely will never see those kids again is so hard to swallow, especially when I couldn't see it coming. Who knows where my boys are now? Actually, I do know where they are. They are safe in His hands. Maybe it was His will for them not to return, but even if that wasn't God's desire for them, He can still work things out for their good. By His grace, I will see them again one day.
Please continue to pray for everything that is happening here at Familia Feliz. For the administration. For the SMs and local volunteers. And most importantly, for the kids. The future of Familia Feliz is uncertain. Only by God's power and our prayers will this place continue to make a difference in the lives of Bolivian children for years to come. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. Familia Feliz is in His hands.
Pictures
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| A beautiful rainbow appeared as we were having our Friday night worship. |
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| All of Familia Feliz loaded into the truck on Sabbath morning to attend the SDA church in town. A sister of one of the girls was getting baptized, so we all went to support her decision. It was a great experience. |
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| Selim asleep in my hammock with me. I missed this kid so much! |
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| Leo and I working on window screens. |
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| A mini banana. I needed peanut butter. |
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| Making biscuits and gravy for breakfast. No, that is not cheese. It's butter. |
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| The biscuits turned out great! |
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| I was tasked with sitting by the gate to let families in on registration day. The Flores came for a little while to keep me company. Tici mounted my fan on my face with a hair tie. It actually felt so good! |
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