April Dances Bring May Flowers

April was headlined by a major school event, as well as a major life event. The second semester is always colored by practices and planning for "BOLIVIA DAY". Staff and students alike give up mornings, recess, and after school time to practice for the one day festival of celebrating Bolivia through cultural dances and costumed fun. This year the staff danced the "Morenada", which involved some interesting costume components, especially for Mark.

Despite all the practice time and commitment leading up to it, Bolivia Day is always a fun one for the entire school community. Each grade learns and performs a cultural dance and gets to perform it in front of everyone while eating local cuisine brought in from around Bolivia. The campus becomes alive, with the basketball court transformed into the heart of activity. A major highlight for us is watching the entire high school perform the "Caporales" dance all together. We watch them train so much leading up to this during recess and after school. It is a highly complicated dance that all comes together on Bolivia Day, and to watch 70+ of your students all in unison dancing their hearts out together is beyond words.

I think one of the highlights for everyone else is watching a staff of mostly "gringos" perform cultural dances from a culture that is not their own. I know this is one way we can really show how we care about Bolivia to the Highlands community. Every year the staff is the final performance, and after we perform our Bolivian dance we finish with a fun "cultural dance" from the U.S. and invite anyone and everyone to join on the dance floor. This year we concluded with the YMCA.

It's cool how everyone bonds together as a result of Bolivia Day, supporting each other and connecting over the difficulty and fun of performing these dances. It's a big part of our relational ministry that continues to grow as we pour into life at Highlands. So much of our ministry is relationally-based and we are reminded of that every day. It encourages us to pour into every opportunity that God allows in order to further those relationships and model Christ to the Highlands community. It means that last Wednesday when we have a day off due to Bolivian Labor Day we participate in a soccer tournament with the students instead of taking the day to rest (which is very tempting in the final month of the school year).

Mark and some of the other male staff played each grade in the high school. Meanwhile Audrey and the female staff played a game against a combined team of high school girls. The day finished with Mark's team being crowned champions (which always feels good when you beat the students and can lord it over them the next day in class). The true victory was being able to hang out with the students, building relationships and enjoying some food on the grill afterwards. Many alumni also showed up to play and catch up. It was exhausting by the end of the day, but well worth it as it shows the students how much we care about them.

One way in which we can deepen those relationships while at school is through discipleship times as well. We often alternate every Tuesday between having discipleship times and having chapel. While these times aren't always the most fruitful in reaching a certain desired depth, we have come to realize the importance of consistency and steady effort to show the students we are there for them and we care about them. Sometimes students will come outside of classroom or discipleship time to ask for help and talk. These times show us why we need to be consistent with every opportunity. Please pray for us in this way, both inside and outside the structured time for discipleship. We think it is a strong call for all Christians to model love consistently, like Christ did for us, and it is not an easy thing to do as humans in a fallen world.

Lastly, we teased in the introduction about reaching a major life event and that was earning our bachelor's degree in marriage on April 28th, the day after Bolivia Day. We didn't have much energy to celebrate four years of marriage after Bolivia Day, but we did celebrate God's many blessings that He has bestowed upon us in the last four years. Audrey will earn another bachelor's degree on May 10th as she will finish her degree from The College at Southeastern in missiology. This is another major thing to celebrate as she has endured quite the circumstances in earning her degree while getting married, moving to Bolivia, enduring the Covid19 pandemic, working at Highlands, and taking classes online. Praise God for his goodness and strength towards Audrey in accomplishing this major feat.

Thank you for your time and effort to keep up with our lives. We appreciate those that continue to support us through prayer and encouragement and look forward to seeing many of you as we will return this summer for June and most of July. Let us know if you would like to meet up, and we will try to make that happen to the best of our ability.