What is Bolivia most famous for?

What is Bolivia most famous for? I naturally have chosen things that are similar to what I know. It's not necessarily that Bolivia is all that similar to Utah, it's just that that's the filter I'm seeing through at the moment.

For pictures, please see links at the bottom of the page.

1. Salt flats - Salar de Uyuni
2. High mountains - La Paz & Cochabamba
3. El Dorado, lost city of gold, new archaeological findings in Bolivia about this legend
4. "The Lost City of Z" book - highly entertaining. You can try watching the movie, but take my word for it, the movie was boring and the book was super fun!
5. "The Jungle" book and movie with Daniel Radcliffe. The movie is almost entirely true, based on a book by an Israeli backpacker who became lost in the jungle and survived for 3 weeks, alone, before he was rescued. Again, I'd recommend the book over the movie, though the movie was good enough.
6. Lake Titicaca - highest navigable lake in the world.
7. Red Rock formations covered in jungle
8. Death Road, one of the world's most dangerous roads
9. Jesus Christ statue that is taller than any other statue of its kind, except for one in Poland.
10. Butch Cassidy, born in Beaver, Utah, died in Bolivia.


PICTURES
1. salt flats -- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/08/03/bolivia-salt-flats-photos_n_4689867.html
2. red rock  -- http://www.periodicolaregion.com/paso-a-paso-hacia-un-robore-sustentable/

Good Choices

With the troop of kids and the piles of baggage, we of course get a lot of looks and an occasional question. Why are we moving to Bolivia?











No answer ever really seems to satisfy people. In the end, it's really just because we *can* go and because we want to.

Another important aspect about the decision to go is that I feel good about it.

It's a blessing to have a good feeling about what you're doing with your life. There are so many opportunities to choose from, and often, in comparing your life with someone else's, it is easy to feel that you don't measure up. This is how I feel a lot of the time.

Now -- though the idea of moving to Bolivia is really an arbitrary choice -- I feel confident. I feel supported by a Father in Heaven who knows the end from the beginning. He knows we could choose some other path. And if we went another direction in life, He would be happy with that choice.

This is the path less traveled by. Doubts and anxieties nip at the edges of my thoughts. It is a great comfort to know and feel that God approves of this choice, to feel faith overcoming fear and strengthening my resolve for the difficult times that surely lie ahead.

It's just STUFF

It's Thursday. Most of the furniture is gone, and most of our belongings are still sitting on the floors, every room with its own gradually diminishing pile waiting for the random movements of various family members to get it, eventually, to its final resting place.

The last 2 months for me have been overflowing with concern about what is going to happen to all the STUFF in my house. Some of it has financial value. Some has sentimental value. And some of it has pure practical value.

Many people have said, it's just STUFF. And it is. So why is it so hard to put it in the landfill, or give it to the second hand store?

Maybe God can use even my seemingly silly desires to reduce, reuse and recycle to bless the lives of people in my community. As I have changed my perspective from the financial and practical value of the STUFF, and started thinking about the PEOPLE who will benefit from it, I find peace about it all. Even the things that will go in the garbage.

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I visited a very old friend yesterday, under the pretense of giving her some of the STUFF from my house. As I climbed the front steps, thinking about how many things are still left on my To Do list, and knowing that she is anticipating a loving reunion, I thought to myself:

This isn't about YOU.

It's not about the STUFF you have to move out of your house.

Those thoughts were like a burden lifting off of my shoulders and I cried a little. What a relief! It's not about me. I can be free to do whatever the situation needs me to do, because I'm not burdened with an agenda or a To Do list.

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I read this today: "We all love when our vehicle is clean and shiny. But the car's purpose is not to stand out as an attractive machine; it is to move the people in the car."

While we may debate whether or not the car can have two different purposes, it is nevertheless the case that a car moves people. And it is up to us to choose what is most valuable, to decide where to spend our time, and who to focus on as we perform whatever mundane responsibility we have to perform.