Out There with the Beams

Out There with the Beams -- October 2011

2011-10-26T14:41:00.000-04:00

Hello from Bolivia again. This isVanessa writing this month. I lovesharing with all of you how the Lord is changing us, changing our lives andchanging the lives of those around us. Assome of you know, we recently hosted a volunteer team from Brazos PointeFellowship in Lake Jackson, TX. Theseladies are obviously daughters of God, they are wonderful! They can renovate, decorate, counsel, sharetestimonies, comfort, help save lives, and be beautiful all at the same time! Unfortunately,one of the Ruth & Noemi girlsfell off a horse during our retreat, breaking a rib and bruising a lung. She spent three days in the hospital. It gave us a scare, but thankfully she hasnow almost fully recovered. Even with theaccident, we had an amazing time in Samaipata. We laughed a lot, cried a lot (it was of course, all ladies) and huggeda lot! For some of our girls, none ofthese things (laughing, crying or hugging) come easy! Even for us as the staff at the TransitionHouse, I felt like for a while we had lost the ability to cry! And would just fall into a—do, do, domode. But not up there, not after weheard all the amazing stories, of people who have been broken and restored, letdown by people or circumstances but picked up by God himself! The only response was to happily andhopefully cry. Even for me, for thelongest time, crying has been a sign of weakness, I think “strong and maturechildren of God shouldn’t cry.” Plus seeing sad things everyday sometimes justhardens you. So it was just great to cryand be held!

Also, during the retreat, one of our girls accepted Christ! Which isawesome! It is the full circle in away—for our girls to understand that all the help and encouragement they arereceiving has one reason only and that reason has a name: Jesus. Please pray for her, her name is Carolaen,that as she goes on, the hope of knowing her Savior will stick around! That shewill be strong and gentle with her little girl (Sarita) and that her needs willbe met by our God. Our Juanita, is also doing much better. She is the one who fell off the horse. She is not back to work yet, but she is getting around faster andsmiling a lot! And God is showing her(without us preaching empty words) who her real family is!

When you pray for us, please pray for our future transition into theAlfarero building coming up this next year. El Alfarero is a new ministry in Santa Cruz. It is huge and exciting. They are going to have a coffee house,Christian library, counseling center, pregnancy crisis center (Centro de Vida), nursery and conferencecenter and us, the Ruth & Noemi TransitionHouse, all in the same place. Theyare located amongst most of the colleges in Santa Cruz. Alfarero is a university student focusedministry, and the goal is to have 1000 people in and out every day! I will be waiting tables, counseling, andserving with Ruth and Noemi, and I am very excited about it. There are lots of advantages for our girlshere in this new place: job opportunities, living in community with other Christianyouth, having the easy access to the counseling center and the nursery andbeing able to serve as volunteers in the café. I believe serving others gives us significance in Christ! We do have some challenges though, one of them is that our family willgrow! We will have capacity for tengirls now! So please pray for our staff and pray that we will be able to hire anew person if needed.

Our Family: Isaiah is having apretty good school year. He has a wonderful teacher this year and we arelearning how to parent a child whose brain works at light speed and whoseemotions are proper for a nine year old. Luciana is playing soccer for her school and managing to have excellentgrades and a fun social life. Nathanielis in Dallas (man, do we miss him!) still working toward becoming a professionalcyclist. All three of them are our joyand there are no words to thank God for them. Please continue to pray for their protection, not just physical butspiritual and emotional as well.

I am still struggling to become a U.S. citizen, and having to travel toomuch between Bolivia and the U.S. Please pray I will be able to get it soon so that Luciana can go tocollege in the U.S., which is what she wants to do (that is coming soclose!) Pray for my next trip—stillawaiting the date!

Danny and Warren (our co-missionary) have embarked on yet anotherproject to create low-cost efficient housing; and are building an earth baghouse at a Mennonite women’s refuge center as a model to figure out exact costs,procedures, etc. It looks great! And it is hard work! I did it for two days and then I hurt inplaces I didn’t know I had, so if some of you guys want to come for a visit anda different type of work out please do! We would love to see you.

Another praise, after four and half years we finally have our one yearresidency visas for Bolivia (which are now only good for eight months) but wegot them! I used to think that if adversity ever met us here, like money beingshort, or paperwork being difficult, that meant it was time to go, becausesurely God would provide everything the way I wanted it and when I wanted it,but then I read “The Heavenly Man” and realized that I was wrong! All I can say now is that God specificallycalled my husband to Bolivia, to serve his people, and He called me to Him, andI want to live in his will because I love him, so for now this is where we areserving with all we have, and each one of you with your prayers, or visits, orfinancial support make it possible too. So thank you!

Blessings,

Vanessa

Contribute

2011-10-01T15:16:00.000-04:00

“So how can we help?” you may be asking yourself at this point. We are glad you asked. First, we need your prayer support. We know that with a strong prayer team behind us, God will use us in this ministry to reach many people for Him. Secondly, we are seeking ministry partners who can support us financially. The EFCCM provides the structure of a church family, prayer, and spiritual and financial accountability, but they ask that we raise our own financial support to pay for living expenses, travel, ministry expenses, etc. Please pray for our ministry and prayerfully consider your financial investment in this ministry.

We need to raise approximately $6,000 a month to cover our living and ministry expenses. We currently receive about $4000 a month in support, so there is plenty of room for additional partners. Approximately 7% of what we receive is used for EFCCM administrative costs, 93% is used in Bolivia. If you would like to designate your gift for a specific project, please include a special note stating such when you make a contribution. If you know of anyone else (a church or individual) who might be interested in this ministry, please share with them what we are doing and have them contact us.

Because the EFCCM is a Canadian organization, donations made directly to the EFCCM by U.S. residents are not tax deductible. However, U.S. residents may make tax deductible contributions to this ministry through the EFCA—Evangelical Free Church of America. All Contributions received by the EFCA will go directly to the EFCCM for the Beams support. A year-end tax receipt will be sent to the address you provide confirming the donations.

You may also make an online donation using a credit card, or set up an automatic monthly contribution by visiting the EFCA website at the following link.

Again be sure to designate the gift for Daniel and Vanessa Beams. Specify acct. #001-0116 to contribute to the Beams support account. To make a donation to the “Agua Yaku water well drilling project,” please specify that it is for acct. #001-0083, and to make a donation to the “girls transition home,” please indicate that it is for acct. #001-0141.

If you do not need a U.S. tax receipt, you can help us out by sending contributions directly to the EFCCM in Canada, and thus avoiding the 5% administration fee that the EFCA charges. You can make an on-line contribution directly to the EFCCM at the following link.

Be sure to designate the donation for the “Beams in Bolivia,” (acct. # 2-2014), Agua Yaku (acct. #2-5035), or the Ruth and Noemi Transition House (acct. #2-5033).

Old-Fashioned Mail: Use the following links to print a mail-in form to send in with your check to either the EFCA or the EFCCM.

For more information write to us at: beamsclan@gmail.com or visit our ministry blogs at: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, and www.aguayaku.org.

Out There with the Beams -- August 2011

2011-08-31T14:47:00.000-04:00

What a great, but chaotic, summer here in Bolivia. We have recently hosted four volunteer teamsin a row, and have another one from coming in a couple of weeks—and we loveevery hectic minute of it. Many of youknow we had planned on traveling to the U.S. this summer, but because ofresidency visa issues here in Bolivia, we have had to stay put for the timebeing. We did make a quick, one week,trip to Kentucky to complete some paperwork for Vanessa and Luciana’s U.S.residency and citizenship applications. I won’t bore you with the inane details, but please keep our immigrationchallenges, on both continents, in your prayers.

Just a short note—and plea—concerning our financial needs. First, thank you to everyone who hasfaithfully supported us throughout the years. We wouldn’t be here without your prayer and financial support. We know economic times are tough in recentyears. I think because of this we havelost a few faithful supporters and our donations are now below the level thatwe need to continue serving in Bolivia. We love serving in Bolivia and don’t want to have to leave thisministry. If you feel God’s leading, wewould love to have new partners supporting us monthly. It is easy to get started, just click on thebig donate button up in the corner. Nowon to more interesting news.

The Ruth andNoemi Transition House for Girls (from Vanessa)

The Ruth and Noemi House isdoing well. I don’t remember if Imentioned this previously, but the Centrode Vida (Pregnancy Crisis Center) that we work closely with has practicallyclosed its doors because of financial shortfalls. They have only kept one staff person and shehas moved her counseling office into the Transition House. So, as you can imagine, with that has come some change. We used to have capacity for six girls butnow we only have capacity for four. Although until not very long ago we had five girls and threebabies!! Two babies were recently born,praise the Lord! He is so full of mercy. These babies almost didn’t make it, but now they have been born! One ofthem was given for adoption to a very sweet Christian family. What a huge sacrifice of love this was forthe mom though. As I watched as thisyoung girl held her beautiful baby girl for the last time and then gave heraway to her new mom, I just praised God for his provision in my own life, allowingme to keep my little baby girl (who is now sixteen, can you believe it?). The other baby has now gone home with his momand grandma who came to the house and took them on good terms.

We are grateful at Ruth and Noemito have the privilege of serving God in the restoration of relationships. All of our girls have huge problems—emotional,spiritual, financial, etc., yet I can see God’s incredible love as He hasbrought them to Ruth and Noemi andthey are safe, at least for now. It is abattle talking to them about God and trying to make them understand Hisunconditional love when all they have seen is the very opposite from people whowere nearest to them. Despite that, twoof our girls have recently received Jesus in their heart! I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to all ofyou that somehow have helped us in this battle, support comes in so many ways,not just money! You have listened andobeyed and believe me I know obeying is not easy.

Personally, I am learning to hangall the problems from work on the imaginary hanger outside the house. I just give it all to Jesus, with those exactwords, and when I come in, even if there are toys everywhere and a mountain ofdishes on the sink, life is wonderful.

News from Agua Yaku—a water well drilling ministry(from Danny)

Agua Yaku continues toexpand in scale and scope, drilling lots of water wells throughoutBolivia. We recently sent a team todrill a well in the department of Oruro, high on the altiplano of Bolivia. We have now drilled wells in five of the ninedepartments of Bolivia. Our primaryfocus continues to be in the Guarani Indian communities in the Izozog regionsouth of Santa Cruz. We have had greatsuccess there both drilling wells and working in evangelization with localpastors and churches.

Soon we will begin a partnership with a sister Christian organizationthat is doing river ministry in the Beni department. More than 400,000 people live on the riversin eastern Bolivia. The only way in orout of their rural communities is by river boat. There are almost no clean water wells inthese communities. Agua Yaku has the perfect, simple and transportable, technology todrill wells and provide access to clean water in these rural communities. Visit our website (www.aguayaku.org) anddownload our recently completed manual on how to drill using the Baptistmethod. We hope many organizations andcommunities around the world can use this manual to begin inexpensivelydrilling their own water wells.

Expandinginto new ministries: As you cansee from the photos, we have been experimenting with a new building techniquethat will allow us to build, and teach others how to build, strong inexpensivehouses in impoverished areas. As it isin many parts of the world, affordable housing is a great need in Bolivia. We ran across this building technique, called“earth bag building” or more formally, the “flexible-form rammed earth” techniqueon the internet and thought we would experiment with it a bit to see if wecould incorporate it into our ministries here in Bolivia. The current project you see in the photos isa house/office we are building in Pailon (an hour outside of Santa Cruz) on theproperty of the Casa Mariposa, atransition house for Mennonite women and children escaping oppressivesituations in their colonies. If you areinterested in learning more about this building method visit: www.earthbagbuilding.com for a quickprimer on the topic.

We apologize for the recent scarceness of ministry updates. That is either a sign of our laziness orbusyness. I would like to think it isthe latter. In any event, we promise todo better. Thank you so much for yourprayers and financial support. Pleasewrite to us, or better yet, come for a visit to Bolivia.

Blessings,
Danny and Vanessa

Out There with the Beams -- April 2011

2011-04-30T14:54:00.000-04:00

Dear Family andFriends,

Greetings from way down south. Thanksfor all of your notes, prayers, and support of our ministries in Santa Cruz,Bolivia. As we mentioned in our lastupdate, we were planning on traveling to the U.S. for the summer break. The key word is “were.” Sadly, the paperwork for our Bolivianresidency visas is progressing more slowly than expected. If we attempt to travel in June, we wouldhave to abandon our current application and would lose thousands of dollars inthe process. So for the time being we will have to stay in Bolivia at leastthrough June. Pray for our Bolivianpapers, as well as Vanessa’s application for citizenship in the U.S. After so many years of immigration problemsin the U.S., Bolivia, and Peru, we feel a bit like a family without acountry.

Agua Yaku Update: We aregearing up for several volunteer teams who will be helping us drill water wellsin several Guarani communities in the Isosog area of Santa Cruz. A Canadian church team will be drilling withus next week, and then a team from Texas will arrive mid-June. We have already drilled approximately 25wells in three communities in the Isosog area and have at least that many morelined up in neighboring communities. Weare so thankful to have found a local Baptist pastor, Victor, who speaks Guaraniand Spanish and is helping us spread the word about our project and set up thework. We drilled a well for Victor andhis family with a team from Kentucky last fall. Since then he has become an expert well driller and indispensiblepartner to Agua Yaku in this area. Therehas been a tremendous response to the Christian films we have been showing inthe communities. We often set up alaptop and projector (powered by a small gasoline generator) in the eveningsand project movies on the side of churches or schools. There is no electricity in these communitiesso a movie is quite an attraction with sometimes hundreds of people turning outto watch. These gatherings are a greatevangelistic opportunity to share the gospel.

Agua Yaku is alsorecently beginning to partner with a fellow missionary in Cochabamba, with whomwe will soon begin a well drilling project deep in the jungles of Beni andCochabamba. We will be working invillages that would normally require days and days of travel overland and byriver boat; however, via a small airplane we can arrive within an hour or sofrom Cochabamba. We will try to cut downthe size and weight of our drilling equipment and pipes so they will fit in theairplane. We hope that this experimentworks out so we can bring fresh clean water to people in places that a bigtruck drilling rig could never travel.

Ruth and Noemi Transition House Update: Continue pray for Loly, the previous directorof the transition house, who is having triplets! She will have to remain in the hospital untilthe babies are born at the end of May. Also,please keep praying for decision making; we think we have found a new person toreplace Loly. This time we have hired aperson full time since now we have five resident girls—with three babies andone more on the way—and we are soon expecting the arrival of one more girl fromTarija ( a city in the mountains). Ourjewelry business is still progressing. The new girls are now learning to makethings from the girls that were previously here. God continues to teach us that the only wayto receive healing for those who have been abused is to draw near to God and berepentant, to receive a spirit of courage, and leave behind the spirit ofvictims. This is all only possiblethrough the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts. Please pray that as our girls learn basic life skills they will alsolearn who God is and who they are in His eyes.

It is so encouragingto know that you all are back home praying for us and supporting our ministrieshere in Bolivia. We could not be heredoing this work without partners like you. If you have been reading our updates for a while and have beenconsidering sending in some support, please click on the donate button andfollow the links to the appropriate information. Join us in our calling to share Christ’s lovewith the people of Bolivia.

Sincerely,

Danny

Out There with the Beams -- March 2011

2011-03-31T14:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends andfamily,

Hello! This is Vanessa writing to you now. I cannot believe March hasalready come and gone. We had a great Christmas and New Year time with myfamily and friends in Peru whom we hadn’t visited for seven years. I lovemy beautiful family and country and miss them a lot.
Nathaniel came here and went to Peru with us, so that was a very specialtreat. Also Luciana turned 16!! Can you believe it?

At the Ruth and Noemi things are going great. But I am really sad toannounce that our director Loly is having to quit after March since she isexpecting triplets and she is considered high risk. I am really sad tosee her go, please pray for her and her family, for provision and good health.She has been very efficient and loving and also has been key to starting thejewellery and T-shirt business at the house. We need your help withprayer so that the Lord will provide someone else to work at the house wholoves Him and loves the girls as well. This letter is full of prayerrequests. We need prayer as well for all our girls, we have four rightnow. Two of them have babies, one little boy and a little girl who wasborn two weeks ago, she is precious! Another girl who is new and pregnantis struggling and has said she wants to leave. And then we have our onlyone student who does not have any babies and has finished culinary school andhas started to work at a restaurant. All of them need sanity andmiracles for their lives. Such as the miracle of forgiveness,provision and families for when they leave the Transition House.
Sometimes I get depressed and overwhelmed thinking about the girls and theirlives but Jesus reminds me that they are his and not mine. Pleaseremember to pray for Marizabel and her health, she’s been struggling withseveral issues and allergies.
I would like to tell you and at the same time praise the Lord for all ourvolunteers, without them and their hard work it would be impossible to keepsanity. Our newest volunteer is Liz, she came from Canada and has been areal asset to the house. She is very caring and hardworking and supereasy going. She makes beautiful jewellery too! I just wish I couldkeep her. Oh ya, the best part is that she does not speak Spanish. Oh the things God can do that we don’t even imagine!I don’t remember if Ihave mentioned this or not but Loly, Marizabel, Angelica, and I aretraining to become counsellors. Our class, called Biblical Counselling, hasbeen hard but at the same time I have received a lot of healing throughthe class. I don’t particularly see myself as a counsellor but wedefinitely need the skills with the girls so I can be a means of healing forthe Lord.

On a personal note, we really need prayer for paperwork in general. Iwent to the US last month to renew my U.S. residency and to apply for U.S.citizenship. So pray that the citizenship is granted quickly andwithout any problems. Tonight we are all traveling by bus to Salta,Argentina for a couple of days so we can begin again to apply for residencyvisas in Bolivia. It is an overnight 18 hour bus ride from Santa Cruz toSalta. Fun!

This summer we will go to the US to share with some of you guys about ourministries. If you would like us to come speak in your church or to yoursmall group, please let us know and we will put you on our schedule.

Blessings,
Vanessa

Out There with the Beams -- October 2010

2010-10-31T15:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Family and Friends,

As you can see, our newsletter has a newlook. We have made it even easiercontribute to our ministry. To make a onetimedonation or set up a monthly contribution, simply click on the “donate” button to the right and follow theinstructions. It can’t get much easier! We also want thank all of our long-timeprayer partners and contributors. Wewould not be in Bolivia working in these ministries without your partnershipand support. Thanks! Equally, if your are tired of hearing fromus, just click on the link at the bottom of the email to opt out of our monthlynewsletter. If you would like furtherinformation or would like to see pictures and videos of our work, there arealso buttons linking you to our blogs and websites.

Several weeks ago we hosted a mission teamfrom our home church, Crossroads Christian Church, in Lexington, Kentucky. Six men and three women came to help out withour ministries here in Santa Cruz. As isalways the case, we had a great week working hard and laughing together. We love to share our lives and work withfolks from back home. Let us know if youwould like to put a volunteer team together. We will make space for you on thecalendar and put you to work.

Ruthand Noemi Transition House for Girls

The three ladies from Crossroads workedwith Vanessa, teaching the girls in residence how to make jewellery. Three of the four girls now living in thehouse are either pregnant or have babies and they need skills they can use toearn money while they stay at home taking care of their babies. The jewellery the girls learned to make isabsolutely beautiful and should sell really well both in Bolivia and in theNorth America. The Crossroads team tooksome samples back with them and we hope to begin selling them soon. Let us know if you would like to sell some inyour church or community group. Part ofthe profits will go toward paying for the on-going costs of the Ruthand Noemi Transition House and part will go directly to the girls. We will also begin selling the jewellerylocally in artisan markets here in Santa Cruz. Vanessa and her team are making good progress with the girls. Continue to remember the girls and theirbabies in prayer: Juanita, Estrella (baby David), Licaria (baby Josue), andAndreina (expecting).

AguaYaku – A Water Well Drilling Project

I took the men from the Crossroads teamwith me out to Isosog, a new area where we are just beginning to work. Isosog is still in the department of SantaCruz, but in the province of Charagua near the border with Paraguay—a sevenhour drive through rough scrub brush country where there are dozens of GuaraniIndian communities along the Parapeti river. The Parapeti is actually a dry sandy beach most of the year, but nearthe river bed we are able to drill water wells relatively easily.

People living in these communities havetraditionally gotten drinking water from shallow hand dug wells, called norias in Spanish. Noriasare almost always contaminated from human and animal waste seeping into theshallow water table. Most communities nowhave at least one deep well that was drilled by the government. Some communities even have water towers andwater distribution networks. However, incommunity after community people say they receive water sporadically if at allfrom the distribution system because the local water coop does not have themoney to buy diesel to operate the pumps. The majority of people walk long distances from their houses to the fewwells with hand-operated manual pumps. Every morning and evening you can see columns of women and childrenwaiting in line at wells, filling their containers, and lugging the heavybuckets and jugs back home so they can cook, wash clothes, bathe, and givewater to their animals.

AguaYaku uses a simple inexpensive drilling technique whichnow makes it possible for each family to have their own well. With the Crossroads team we drilled two wellsin Yapiroa, a Guarani community of about 1500 people. While we were there church leaders compiled alist of the several dozen most urgently needed wells in the community:including schools, health posts, churches, wells centered around groups ofhouses, and isolated farms. We promisedto come back as soon as we finish up a few other ongoing projects in otherareas. Before we left Yapiroa word ofour project reached the ears of other community leaders. Several leadersvisited our project site to see how we were working. We promised to expand our project and to comedrill wells in their communities as soon as possible. After a quick survey on Google Earth, wefound dozens of communities in this area that also need clean easily accessiblewater. This week, we sent an Agua Yaku team back to Yapiroa and wewill—with any luck—be drilling several wells a week, but (insert plea forfinancial support), we cannot continue too much longer as a project unless we receivemore donations soon. If you like thework we are doing and have been thinking about supporting Agua Yaku, NOW IS THETIME! Yourdonation will make a huge impact on the daily lives of these people living inthis harsh dry environment. It costsabout $500 to drill a well and install the casing, a filter, and a hand pump.Perhaps your family, church, or small group would like to sponsor one, orperhaps a dozen, wells in Bolivia.

Danny and Vanessa Beams

1200 New Species Discovered in the Amazon in the Last Decade

2010-10-26T18:47:00.003-04:00

Check out this article discussing the amazing number of new species of plants, animals, and birds they have discovered in the Amazon in the past decade. I love traveling in the rain forest and seeing so many cool plants and animals. I recently got several bird books so I can identify the birds I see along the rivers.

Vogel family traveling from Alaska to the southern end of Argentina

2010-09-15T12:47:00.001-04:00

We met John and Nancy Vogel and their boys as they passed through Santa Cruz on a three year bicycle journey from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina. They have been on the road for over two years, home schooling their 12-year-old twin boys along the way. They are getting a good bit of national and international press during their journey. When the trip is completed their boys will be the youngest to have ever completed this 18,000 mile journey. The day I met them, they were even being interviewed on Good Morning America. We invited them over for a family meal and then later in the week they spent several nights in our Agua Yaku guest house. On Monday morning I accompanied them by bicycle out of town as they continued to make their way south toward Argentina. It was a lot of fun hearing their stories from the road. Surprisingly, or maybe not, they have had very few problems with robberies or violence on their trip. They even rode straight through Colombia without problems. I've always wanted to make a trip like this and really admire their courage and adventurous spirit. Maybe someday (if I can convince Vanessa to give it a try). You can follow the Vogel's on their blog at: www.familyonbikes.org.

Pictures from the Ruth and Noemi Transition House for Girls

2010-09-15T12:12:00.000-04:00

Ruth and Noemi Transition House board members, spouses and staff

Marizabel (house coordinator), Loly (director), and Vanessa (board president)

Juanita

Licaria and Josue Bernabe

Andreina is due in a several months

Estrella and David

Out There with the Beams – August 2010

2010-09-13T11:06:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends and Family,

How are you? We hope and pray all of you are doing great and enjoying God's peace and blessings. Recently God has shown me, Vanessa, how He really is in control. It drives me crazy, by the way, when I feel I am not in control, which is 90% of the time here in Santa Cruz. We recently welcomed a new baby into the Ruth and Noemi Transition House. Licaria gave birth Josue Bernabe, a healthy baby boy—our second baby in the last month. How great it is to see that these babies, who came so close to being aborted, now carry Biblical names! God is awesome! I had been so worried about medical care for the mothers and babies. Because the Transition House does not have a large enough budget for medical care, we are using a free government program. I have heard rather depressing stories about impersonal nature of the government program, but when I went to see our girl who was in labor I was happily surprised to see a brand new little hospital, very clean and nice. When I asked Licaria how she liked her doctor she said, "She is very young and sweet." As I left the hospital I was thanking Jesus for providing in all ways for this girl who desperately needs Him.

We have been hosting four girls for a while now, our youngest Dear Elizabeth,girl is 16 and pregnant. The Lord has also sent us a new director and two new volunteers, so things are running pretty smoothly. I have had more time to work on getting the manual ready, which is coming along great and soon we will have a new logo. I am learning so much. I used to just freak out and worry desperately about these girls (I still do sometimes), but now I try to go through the steps and remind myself and my staff things we have recently learned from the directors of Safe Haven in Texas. Our first task is to share the gospel with these girls, and it is not our place to judge them! I am very fast at deciding what is wrong with people but now I really have to look inside me and look again and try to figure out what I can do to help them, and not what they can do so I will approve of them.

There are two of our girls I am especially worried about. They both have families but their families are the reason they are at the house. Their moms don't want them, and both moms have both chosen their husbands over their daughters. Please pray that the Lord will give these girls a new and wonderful support system for when they have to leave the Transition House. This week I will be starting with my counselling class again. This will be the second year. Please pray for extra strength and energy.

A quick update on Agua Yaku: We have two team out drilling right now. One in the area of San Lorenzo de Moxos and another one in a farming community about four hours from Santa Cruz. We have had a number of interested visitors and teams come down to Bolivia this year to see the well drilling in action. We so appreciate all the visits and support we have received, but we are still way under-funded for the year. We would love to expand our staff and the scope of our work. Please pray for our work and witness in rural communities around Bolivia and help us raise for operational funds so we can continue the work we have begun.

As for our family everyone is doing great. Isaiah is already having a wonderful school year. His teacher said he is the best reader in the class!! Luciana is growing up too quickly and she is really beautiful inside and out. Nathaniel is in his first year of college in Durango, Colorado and he also seems to be doing great so far. We have been enjoying our little veggie garden in the back yard (lots of fun) and we love watching movies and eating the pop corn that our daddy makes.

Here are some praises: Good health care for the moms and babies in the Transition House, Warren and Jackie's precious new baby Norah, new director and volunteers at the transition house, Isaiah's new teacher, God protecting Nathaniel in the woods in Colorado and Lucy's sweet spirit.

Here are some prayer requests: Nathaniel receiving enough financial help from his school for his room and board, all the girls from the transition house—their relationship with Jesus, and for healing both sand physically, the transition house manual and all other paperwork, protection for our kids—and also their relationship with Jesus, new best friend for Lucy (I mean, in Santa Cruz), Crossroads team coming on September 24^th, more financial support for the Agua Yaku water well drilling project.

Thank you for doing missions with us. You are loved and thought of a lot! Please let us know how we can also pray for you. And do come and see us soon.

Love,

Danny and Vanessa Beams

EFCCM missionaries in Bolivia

www.beamsclan.blogspot.com

www.aguayaku.org

www.pbase.com/beamsclan

A few pictures from the BPF well drilling mission team working in San Lorenzo de Moxos

2010-08-11T13:17:00.004-04:00

Flying from Santa Cruz to San Lorenzo de Moxos

Going up river to Villa Hermosa

Breaking camp after the first night on the river

Patiently waiting for clean water

Carrying water from the swamp to begin drilling

Setting up the drill rig

Rowing till your arms drop off

Clean cool water from the well

Pirana fishing in the late afternoon

Completed well

Friendly neighbor

Out There with the Beams – July 2010

2010-08-10T14:59:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends and family,

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:3-6) Paul says it better than I ever could, but we really do appreciate your partnership and your prayers for our ministry here in Bolivia. We also appreciate your visits. It is so much fun to host teams who participate directly in our ministry and share their personal faith with people in Bolivia. Last month Vanessa shared about the great work that the Brazos Pointe Fellowship team did renovating the Ruth and Noemi Transition House. The other half of the Brazos Pointe team went with me and our Agua Yaku staff to drill a well in a remote Yuracare community in the Beni department. It was our first foray into this department to drill water wells. Logistically, it is difficult to get into this area, but the need for clean water is so great we cannot ignore it. We drove our drilling equipment in several days before the team (16 hours overland) and then flew the BPF team to San Lorenzo de Moxos in two small chartered planes. From there it was an eight hour canoe ride upriver to the village of Villa Hermosa. The river was full of crocodiles, fresh water dolphins, and thousands of birds, making the trip anything but dull. The community has eight families and a small elementary school for the children. The Yuracare are hunters, fishermen, and farmers. While they earn almost no money from their farming activities, they subsist pretty well from hunting and fishing in the forest. They do not, however, have access to clean water or medical care when they get sick. During the last rainy season their village flooded and they lost all of their planted crops. They even spent several weeks sitting on top of furniture inside their flooded homes or in trees waiting for the water to recede. They have never had a water well, but instead drinking water directly from the dirty brown river or from the swamp that surrounds their community. It took Agua Yaku and the Brazos Pointe team only two days to dig a 100 foot deep well and install a hand pump. The water came out cool and clear. The families immediately began filling every container they could with water. The kids splashed and played in the water while the women washed clothes. After the well was completed we even had time to go fishing for piranha.

One of the best outcomes from the trip were the contacts we made with other communities in the area. After seeing the clean water in Villa Hermosa, other communities in the area wanted clean water too. The first week in July Carlos and Fernando, Agua Yaku staff, made their way back to San Lorenzo and then upriver to Villa Hermosa. From there, they hiked eight hours overland to two other communities called Nueva Natividad and Santa Rosa. These communities are on a river that has dried up during the dry season and the only way in is by foot or horseback. Village members carried the drilling equipment on their shoulders (including 100 lb sacks of bentonite-drilling clay) for the full eight hour hike. While Carlos and Fernando were drilling the wells a cold front passed through Bolivia (it is our winter) and the temperature dropped into the 30s for over a week. This is unusually cold for Bolivia. This extreme cold snap actually killed most of the fish in these tropical rivers. The rivers became a carpet of dead floating rotting fish. We saw news reports that many children were becoming sick after drinking water from the rivers with the rotting fish. It will take several years for the population of fish in these rivers to recover. While we cannot do anything too quickly to resolve the problems, we will continue to drill as many wells as we can so that people in these rural communities will have access to clean well water year round. Carlos is heading back in to San Lorenzo these week to drill more wells. Pray for Carlos and for a local missionary, Natividad, who has been working in this area for decades. We want to bring clean water and share the gospel message with everyone that we can.

We have also recently had a second Agua Yaku team drilling a well in a Mennonite community about three hours from Santa Cruz. We are drilling this well for a family who is holding Bible studies in their home in direct resistance to colony leadership which forbids colony members from reading the Bible or their own or holding Bible studies outside the "official" church. This family of new believers is being ostracized by the colony and has even been denied access to water. While Mennonite colonies in Bolivia have an outward appearance of "Christianity," they are more truly a pseudo-Christian sect operating under quite strange and oppressive rules. Four EFCCM missionary families are working in the Mennonite colonies, sharing the true gospel message of Christ and encouraging change within the colonies. We hope that Agua Yaku can provide much needed water for Mennonite families and will be another way that the gospel can be shared in the colonies in a non-threatening way. Neto and Eric have been heading up this project. Both are Brazilian Christians who came to Bolivia to work in missions. Neto has been working with Agua Yaku for about a year now and has become a quite competent well driller. Eric, a mechanical engineer by training, recently moved to Bolivia to complete a course with YWAM (Youth with a Mission). His professional background will prove quite helpful as we strive to improve our well drilling technology. We hope to bring him on full-time with Agua Yaku as soon as possible. We have also had the help of several Trinity International church members on this Mennonite well. A special thanks to you guys for getting muddy with us.

A quick update on the Ruth and Noemi Transition House for Girls: We now have four girls in the house. Three of them are pregnant and came to us through referrals from the Centro de Vida Crisis Pregnancy Center. The first baby was born last week and two more will be soon to follow. Pray for these girls and their babies. They may have a lot of spiritual, emotional, and financial obstacles to overcome, but nothing is impossible in the strength of our Lord.

Family update: Vanessa and Luciana just returned from a quick trip to Kentucky—a necessary trip to maintain their resident status in the U.S., but also a great chance to visit with Nathaniel and other friends at home. We will be trying to complete Vanessa's and Luciana's U.S. citizenship this year, so please be praying that all goes smoothly with this. It is a bit complicated because we spend the majority of our time out of the U.S. Nathaniel will stay in the U.S. this year. In a couple of weeks he will be moving to Durango, Colorado where he will be a freshmen at Fort Lewis College. He will be studying sustainable agriculture and will be a member of the cycling team (which consistently wins the U.S. colligate national championship). Tomorrow, Luciana begins tenth grade and Isaiah third grade at the Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center. Pray for all three of our kids as they begin to find their place in this world and strive to grow in their faith.

Thanks so much for your commitment in partnering with us in this work in Bolivia. We covet your thoughts and prayers. Please feel free to contact us with specific questions about how you can help. We always need new financial partners. We would love to expand our reach those in need.

Blessings,
Danny and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM missionaries in Bolivia

www.beamsclan.blogspot.com
www.aguayaku.org
www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Out There with the Beams – June 2010

2010-07-01T10:37:00.001-04:00

Beloved and missed friends and family,

Wow, this has been a busy and crazy summer so far and there is more to come.
Maybe we should start by praising the Lord for his Love, Provision and Patience. He has kept us safe, well fed, alive and for the most part content!

I am still discovering who Jesus is and how He relates to me. Sometimes He is my daddy and sometimes when I really need a hug He is the wind!

I have recently read a book about prayer where the event of the cross is describe as a series of encounters and breaking ups! Encounters between God's love and justice, between good and evil, between life and death, between the desire of the devil to take us away and the reaction of a loving powerful God, encounters between human and divine! The main break-up is the one between us and the forces of evil, between us and the darkness that can sometimes drive our lives! I loved it! It helps me to see my God in a new refreshing way! His power accomplished so many things with one amazing event! I also learned that Jesus represents us in front of His Father as well as He represents his Father to us. When we pray, intercede we are being introduced to the Father by Jesus whom we belong to. I am more aware now of the power of prayer and the team work between us, Jesus and the Father! I am saying all of this because I am also 100% convinced that nothing will change here or anywhere without prayer. There is a huge load in my heart to pray for the girls from the transition house and other children and young adults who lack the faith to allow change in their lives.

Last month we had a team from Brazos Pointe Fellowship- Texas, who came and completely renovated the transition house! It is so beautiful now. The walls are bright and clean, we have colorful new curtains and the bedrooms are happy and neat! These guys worked so hard, it makes me dizzy to remember that week! We also had a training for the staff and volunteers in which we learned about how to better structure our rules and our partnership to the Centro de Vida (Pregnancy Crisis Center) The training was held by a wonderful lady from a house similar to ours called Safe Have in Lake Jackson-Texas all throughout the week this lady kept on saying: " Different people, same problems!" So please, make us one of your prayer requests, both the Ruth and Noemi Transition House and Safe Haven!

I really loved the day that we just prayed for all the girls that have gone through the house, and then we prayed for the house itself, we went into each room and it was so wonderful to hear all these voices at the same time, there were words like: Father, friendships, safety, laughter, I mean I just caught some of them, but I know God heard them all!

Since the team left we got one new girl and two more have come to see the house and are still thinking about it!

On a more personal note, Saturday was my birthday, I turned 36 and Danny's birthday is tomorrow! Praise God for life! I am thankful for mine, I am thankful for my beautiful family, for my loving husband and for the awesome opportunity to serve God.

Please remember that you guys are also part of this ministry and that you are serving hand in hand with us, as you pray for us and those we serve, as you support us financially, as you come and visit and work with us. God is using you as well!

We love you very much!

Danny and Vanessa Beams

EFCCM missionaries in Bolivia

www.beamsclan.blogspot.com

www.aguayaku.org

www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Fresh Squeezed in Samaipata

2010-06-07T23:17:00.018-04:00

Another Update on Nathaniel's trip to Europe

2010-06-04T10:26:00.003-04:00

Nathaniel's trip to Europe with the U.S. National team didn't quite go as well he would have hoped. No doubt he had a great time getting to know his teammates and traveling a bit in Europe, but the hard crash in Belgium did not set him up well for the rest of his races. His road rash and the cuts on his hands became infected making it difficult to grip the handlebars and it seemed to cause his fitness to take a tumble. After the stage race in the Czech Republic he and his did did another three day stage race in Germany. Nathaniel got caught up in a crash in the first road stage and his rear wheel was toast. After he finally got a wheel change he was not able to get back in to the peleton and ended up finishing the stage in the broom wagon. Of course because he did not finish, he wasn't able to go on to the next stage. And that was it. He never really got so show his talent in Europe. Hopefully he will be able to recoup some fitness for the summer races in the U.S. He is doing a three day stage race in the Red River Gorge in Kentucky this weekend, and then will be headed to the national championships in Bend, OR with several of his teammates.

Out There with the Beams – May 2010

2010-05-31T16:43:00.001-04:00

It's hard to believe another school year has come and gone. As Isaiah and Luciana head into a much anticipated summer break, Vanessa and I are preparing for several volunteer teams that will be visiting Bolivia in June and July. Brazos Pointe Fellowship will be returning June 12^th with a mission team that will help us both in the Ruth and Naomi Transition Home and in an Agua Yaku well drilling project. Vanessa will head up a team of seven men and women from Brazos Pointe who are coming to paint the transition home and also share their experiences working with a similar home for unwed in Texas. The transition home currently has two girls in residence, Juanita and Marina. Be praying for them and also that other young women who could benefit from this ministry will find their way through the doors. We have four empty beds waiting for new girls. It seems that after an initial interview so many girls are not willing to make a commitment to follow the house rules, and the counselling and discipleship classes that the program requires. It is a wonderful opportunity for young women to continue their education, further their spiritual development, and build a solid foundation of financial independence and emotional maturity, but because of an emotionally troubled past, so many choose the easy route of falling into the arms of the first boy who shows an interest.

Warren McCaig and I will be going with eight team members to drill a well in Villa Hermosa, a Yuracare village near San Lorenzo de Moxos in the department of Beni. We have been wanting to expand Agua Yaku into Beni for some time now, and this trip will give us a great way to kick it off. In an exploratory trip last week, Warren and I drove eight hours to Trinidad, the capital city of Beni, and then a further six hours to San Lorenzo do Moxos where we met Natividad, a Bolivian missionary who has been pastoring and starting new churches in rural communities for decades. He heard about our well drilling project and invited us to drill some much needed wells in the indigenous communities where he has been working. By night fall we were traveling up a crocodile infested jungle river in a dugout canoe. The only practical way to get into or out of Villa Hermosa is by boat. We hitched a ride with a neighboring farmer who was delivering emergency food relief supplies to Villa Hermosa. Earlier this year the river flooded and all the villages along its course lost their crops for the year. The World Food Program (WFP) is helping see them through the difficult months. The promised four hour journey soon turned into seven. We stopped on the shore and 1:00 AM and camped on the shore for the night before continuing another hour the following morning. I won't recount the entire journey here. Visit our Agua Yaku blog at: www.aguayaku.org for a more complete summary of the trip. I'm sure the team will have a great mission experience and will be helping bring clean water to a much needed area.

As we mentioned in a previous letter, Agua Yaku lost a major donor that had planned on funding new work teaching SODIS (Solar disinfection) of contaminated water. Thankfully several donors have visited our project recently and will be picking up some of the shortfall in our budget. We are moving ahead with the SODIS training as a component of our ministry. Several weeks ago we attempted to drill a well in an Ayoreo community near San Jose de Chiquitos. Unfortunately, the terrain is too rocky and we were not successful in drilling a well. We did however teach water disinfection using SODIS and will be following up with a rainwater catchment project in the community. Check out the Agua Yaku blog for a complete report.

Thanks so much to everyone who is partnering with us in our ministry here in Bolivia. We covet your prayers and your financial support. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about our ministry. If you are not already a supporter, we hope you will consider becoming one. Check out the "how to send donations" section below.

Blessings,
Danny

Danny and Vanessa Beams

EFCCM missionaries in Bolivia

www.beamsclan.blogspot.com

www.aguayaku.org

www.pbase.com/beamsclan

An Exploratory well drilling trip to San Lorenzo de Moxos

2010-05-28T10:40:00.006-04:00

Agua Yaku has a volunteer team coming from Brazos Pointe Fellowship in Lake Jackson, Texas on June 12^th. Warren and I went out this week on a survey trip to set up a place for the team to drill. Our local Agua Yaku team, Neto and Fernando, are out drilling a number of wells in a farming community near Pailon, only about four hours from Santa Cruz. We could take the team out there. Certainly a good project and well worth participating in, but I fear that might be a bit boring. Pailon is flat, dry, hot scrubby country where the wind blows our tents apart on a regular basis. Seeking an alternative location that might be a bit more fun for the team, we contacted a national missionary, Natividad Ichu, living in an isolated river community, San Lorenzo de Moxos, in the department of Beni, east of Santa Cruz. We have been wanting to expand Agua Yaku into the Beni region for some time. Beni is primarily flat and from what we have heard our drilling technique will work practically anywhere. Unlike the Chaco and areas south where there is little rainfall, Beni receives an abundance of rainfall and courses with numerous streams and rivers. Water availability is usually not a problem; however, finding clean water is a problem. Most larger communities with road access already have a descent water system, for example San Lorenzo de Moxos, with about 1,500 residents has a deep well, a water tower and a distribution system that pipes water to each home. However, many communities are only accessible via rivers. These communities are almost always small hamlets of a dozen or so indigenous or mestizo families. They sometimes have an elementary school and a teacher paid by the State. Larger communities may have a church and/or a health post. The economy is organized around small plot subsistence agriculture (usually corn, rice, bananas, yuca, etc). They may earn some cash from selling bananas, citrus, and cacao or from selling lumber. Because everything has to be brought in or taken out by river, the cost of bringing necessities in or products out to market can be prohibitive. Very few of these small communities have deep wells because it is impossible to get the big heavy truck drilling rigs back into the roadless communities. Our manual drilling technique is ideal for these areas because we can easily transport the tools and equipment we drill with in the dugout canoes and wooden barges so commonly used on these rivers. Agua Yaku has already successfully drilled a number of wells on the Chimore, Chapare, and Ichilo rivers in the eastern part of Cochabamba. Now we will be entering through Trinidad and traveling up the rivers back towards the Andes.

Even as we set out on our exploratory journey, Warren and I weren't sure where exactly we were going or how long it would take to get there. The first day we drove eight hours to Trinidad, the capital city of Beni. Trinidad is a dirty bustling city where the streets are overrun with cheap Chinese motorcycles and honking taxis. It definitely feels like a frontier town, a jumping off point on the edge of the Amazon wilderness. The Momore river, passing nearby, is the largest tributary of the Amazon River. That night we met with some local church leaders and business men. Over the best steak dinner of my life, we discussed our water project, and their Christian radio project and new church plants. I literally kept stuffing steak in my mouth until I could not squeeze in another bite. I wobbled away from the table and slept uncomfortably in the spare bedroom in the home of some generous church members. After learning that it was still another six hour drive to San Lorenzo de Moxos over rough dirt roads, we decided to leave super early before the city even woke up. By 6:00 AM we were out of town and crossing the Momore River on a ferry—really just a simple barge built out of rough hewn wooden planks and powered by a small boat with an outboard motor tied along the side.

We passed quickly through the beautiful colonial town of San Ignacio de Moxos and made our way on back roads to San Lorenzo, arriving around noon. Luckily, being the dry season, it was possible to drive overland all the way to San Lorenzo. For many months each year both San Ignacio and San Lorenzo are completely cut off from the rest of Bolivia. The only way in or out is by air or by boat. We didn't have exact directions to Natividad's house, but were told to simply mention his name to anyone on the street and they would direct us. We did and they did. Natividad lives in a humble home next to the evangelical church. Natividad pastors the local congregation and as well works as a missionary, planting churches in many smaller communities along the rivers. He set us up for lunch and a room in the home of a church member—there are no restaurants, hotels or even humble guest houses in San Lorenzo—and then went out searching for the connections that would make a community visit up river possible. Because it is the dry season, many of the rivers are too low to travel on even by canoe.

The first community he knew of that needed a well would take too many portages on the river or would be a six to eight hour hike. Ouch! When we were about to admit defeat, thinking this area would be too inaccessible for our intrepid Texas team, when Natividad met Limber, a friend and local leader from the Yuracare community of Villa Hermosa, on the plaza of San Lorenzo. Limber was in town collecting half a ton food rations being donated to his community by the WFP (World Food Program). Earlier this year Villa Hermosa and every other community along these rivers were flooded and the residents completely lost their crops for the year. Disaster relief in the form of food aid from the WFP is being distributed in these communities as a way to insure the residents do not starve until their next crop can be planted and harvested. It just so happened that Villa Hermosa needed a water well and Limber was traveling back home that same evening. We could come along in the canoe if we liked to see if a well drilling trip would be possible. We helped load the donated food into the back of our Land Cruiser and drove it down to the river "port." I say "port" but it was really just a river bank along a canal that fed from the river into a shallow lagoon about five kilometers from town. As we were loading the ten meter long dugout canoe, we met the owner, Teofilo. Teofilo said the canoe can carry about 2500 kilos of cargo. He was already headed upriver to his own farm and agreed to take Limber and the food supplies back to Villa Hermosa. We offered to contribute the 60 liters of gasoline necessary for the 120 km trip to Villa Hermosa and back. While we were loading the boat we met a group of Chimani Indians from Asunta, a village five days travel upriver. The Chimani were also collecting WFP food rations. Ten days on the river seems like a long way to travel for a half dozen bags of rice and flour. The Chimani women and children did not seem to speak a word of Spanish and acted quite fearful of the white foreigners (us). The Chimani still live primarily has hunters and gatherers. There were a number of long bows and spear-like arrows sitting round their camp. The women were roasting piranha and monkey over a campfire.

After the boat was loaded with rice, flour, beans, and cooking oil, we reloaded the Land Cruiser with the Chimani's green bananas (which they were taking into town to sell), and drove back into town to leave the vehicle parked safely in Natividad's yard. Limber and several others from Villa Hermosa said they would be traveling back home seven hours by horseback and would meet us the following morning to unload the boat. After a five kilometer hike back to the river through dark woods, we were finally on our way upriver by 7:00 PM. Teofilo had a fairly powerful 40 hp outboard, but he was afraid to give it much gas because the bearings were worn out and he could not find replacement parts. He assured us it would only be a four hour journey upriver to Villa Hermosa. We settled uncomfortably on top of the cargo and began shining our flashlights out into the underbrush. After only a few minutes of searching we had already spotted dozens of pairs of glowing eyes—caimans and crocodiles along the water's edge. Warren drifted off to sleep by nine, but I couldn't find a comfortable enough position to relax, so I listened to the hum of motor and scanned the moonlit shore for faunal movement. The hours passed slowly. Finally around 1:00 AM, after six hours on the water Teofilo pulled ashore and announced that there was too much brush in the river to continue on in the dark. We would camp along the shore for the night and continue on to Villa Hermosa the following morning. Warren and I scrambled up the muddy bank with our tent and personal gear and hastily set up camp. Teofilo, his two young sons and Felix a nephew disappeared into the woods. Only later in the night did I reflect on the fact that we might have set up our tent on the same bank that some large crocodile called home.

At day break we heard some rustling outside the tent. Teofilo was ready to get back on the river. Turns out we had camped at Teofilo's farm. Felix and the boys were going to stay behind to pick oranges while Warren, Teofilo and I continued on to Villa Hermosa. After another hour on the river we arrived at the village where we scrambled up the muddy bank and hiked the half kilometer to the village. Villa Hermosa is built on the highest ground in the area. Even so, the community floods almost every year. Earlier this year the community was flooded for weeks and they lost all of their crops. They showed me the water mark on the houses. There had been about two feet of water in the houses for weeks on end and no dry ground anywhere in sight. I asked Limber what they did during the flood. "What could we do?" he asked. "We had nowhere to go. We sat and slept on top of our furniture in our houses, ate bananas, and waited for the water to go down."

As we walked into the village a dozen dogs began barking letting everyone know of our arrival. Every member of the community came out to see who the visitors were. They knew Teofilo of course, but they didn't know what to make of a pair of tall white gringos. Limber still had not shown up on horseback so they hadn't been expecting us. We saw a half dozen stick and thatch houses loosely organized around a bare dirt plaza. The school was a thatched roof structure with open walls, a couple of benches, a chalk board, and a Bolivian flag. We met the teacher, a dozen men and women, and about as many kids. They said that nine families now live in the community, about fifty people altogether. The community walked in mass down to the river and we began unloading the heavy bags of food. The men threw the 120 lb bags of flour and rice onto their shoulders and confidently climbed the muddy bank. After everything was on shore the men shouldered the heavy bags for the ten minute hike back to the community. The kids and women carried smaller boxes and bottles of cooking oil. Ashamedly, I walked back empty-handed, mumbling something about a chronic back condition. The bulk of the food was wheat flour. About the only thing you can make with flour is bread. I didn't see an oven in the community so I asked one of the women how they would eat the flour? She said they would eat it just like it is. I didn't really understand but she demonstrated by pretending to scoop some into her mouth. I asked if they might build an adobe brick oven so they could make bread, or perhaps make fry bread in oil. She said they might.

Even though the community lost all of their crops for the year, they still have an abundance of meat and fish. Teofilo said the river and the forest provide all that they can eat. While the Yuracare are not simply nomadic hunters and gatherers like the Chimani. They do rely heavily on fish and wild animals hunted from the forest for a large portion of their diet. They eat a variety of fish as well as wild pig, jochi (a large rodent), wild turkeys, armadillo, monkey, tapir, anteater—practically any animal they can kill. They do not hunt with bows and arrows like the Chimani, but rather with ancient looking 22 caliber rifles and shotguns. They also have a few domesticated animals. I saw two cows and several dozen chickens, ducks, and pigs running around.

The school provides classes only through fifth grade. The closest high school would be in San Lorenzo. The teacher in Villa Hermosa, Juan Marcelo, is a young guy in his mid-twenties from Trinidad. He said he has been teaching in the community for three years. He said they did have seventeen students but now they only have twelve. I noticed the school has a kitchen. Sometimes the government provides food to insure that each student eats a good breakfast at school. Marcelo said they were not providing breakfast this year. Because of some confusion or miscommunication, Villa Hermosa had been left off of the list and has not been receiving food from the government for the breakfast program. Limber, the Corregidor (local authority) we met the day before still had not arrived on horseback. His wife, Regina, welcomed us into their home and quickly cooked up a heaping plate of masaco, green bananas fried in oil and mashed with a good bit of salt. We did not have supper the evening before or breakfast, so the masaco
was a welcome gift. She served it with hot chocolate made from locally grown cacao beans.

After breakfast, we met briefly with the teacher and all the adults of the community to explain the reason for our visit and the possibility of returning with a volunteer team to drill a well. They all seemed excited about the possibility of a well with a hand pump and promised to help with the labor. They are currently drinking water directly from the river, or from pools of stagnant water left over from the flooding. Now that it is the dry season, the pools have been drying up. They also showed us a shallow hand dug well about two meters deep where they draw out water with a rope tied to a bucket. The Yuracare in this community have been drinking dirty water their whole lives. I'm sure they live with endemic water-related diseases. Water from the river, from stagnant pools, or from such shallow wells is definitely contaminated with parasites, viruses and with fecal coliform bacteria from the livestock, wild animals and even their own fecal waste. A deep well with clean water will without a doubt improve the health and quality of life. If they will combine the use of clean water with proper hygiene (hand washing) and sanitation (use of latrines), they will quickly see even further improvements in health.

We left Villa Hermosa a little before noon with the promise of returning in two weeks time with the volunteer team. Back on the river with Teofilo and traveling with the current, we began making good time back to San Lorenzo. Along the way, we picked up Felix, the boys and a load of oranges and lumber at Teofilo's farm. The number of birds and other wildlife along the river was simply staggering. As the sun came out we saw more and more crocodiles along the banks for the river—literally hundreds of them. We saw half a dozen monster crocs that must have been at least twelve feet or longer. Interestingly, the Yuracare said they never, ever get in the river to swim or bathe. They only take bucket baths. I will follow their advice.

You can see a complete photo gallery of our trip at: http://www.pbase.com/beamsclan/sanlorenzomoxo.

An Agua Yaku well drilling trip to an Ayoreo village near San Jose de Chiquitos

2010-05-19T10:38:00.005-04:00

Warren and I just returned from an exploratory well drilling trip to a small Ayoreo community near San Jose de Chiquitos in the Chiquitano region of Santa Cruz called Familia Unida Ayorea, or FUA for short. In English the name means United Ayoreo Family. The community is also called Nueva Jerusalen (New Jerusalem) by the local mestizo population. SAM (South American Mission) missionaries have been working with the Ayoreo for several decades in Bolivia. Ken Massey, a SAM missionary working in FUA, shared with us the problem of water scarcity in the area. This part of the Chiquitania is in dry forest ecoregion. The area is covered in short scrubby trees and it does not rain much at all compared to the nearby Amazon rain forest. Even worse there is almost no surface water such as rivers, lakes, or springs. Any useable water in this area will come from either wells or rainwater catchment. Most of the Chiquitania region is covered by an escarpment of granite called the Brazilian shield. Simply put, it is impossible for us to drill through the Brazilian shield with our drilling method. The only practical way to drill through the rock is with a large cable-tool drill rig. A local driller in San Jose charges $90 a meter to drill in the area and estimates that a well in this community would need to be at least 130 meters deep. A quick calculation yields a cost of $12,000—well beyond the budget or Agua Yaku or the community. We have had some success in the Chiquitania drilling shallow wells, say 15 to 25 meters that sit on top of the Brazilian shield and collect water in an aquifer on top of the rock. We didn't know what we would find in FUA, but it was our hope that we could drill an inexpensive shallow well that would produce enough water with a hand pump to supply the community.

FUA is a community of about 50 people that recently broke off from Santa Teresita, a neighboring Ayoreo community. The Bolivian government has given land concessions to all indigenous people groups in Bolivia. Unfortunately, most concessions are in marginally productive or isolated regions of the country, making it difficult and to scratch out a living. Santa Teresita, located in a 22,000 hectare Ayoreo reserve, was originally set up by the Catholic church. I have not visited Santa Teresita so I do not know anything about the history of the community. The SAM missionaries said that in order to avoid further conflict, the evangelical Christians who were living in Santa Teresita decided to leave and begin their own community. They chose to settle on top of a hill, seven kilometers up an old logging road from the highway. They chose the site because the forest wasn't too thick, making clearing the land for farming a bit easier. One critical need they did not consider was water. Maybe 500 meters from the community a small arroyo channels water during heavy rains, but it does not run even intermittently most of the year. The community attempted to dig a collecting pool in one of the depressions. They were able to collect a bit of muddy water, but it soon became the gathering place for local wild pigs and was too impossibly filthy to even consider drinking. The only other ways they have been able to get water into the community is by paying to have it trucked it in from other communities, or by collecting rainwater from the couple of tin roofs in the village. When water is trucked in they can store it in a 1000 liter plastic tank they have on the ground. The SAM mission is helping build a church and the local government is building small brick school. The family dwellings are made of local materials—sticks, rough timber slabs, palm thatch roofs, etc. When we visited the community the plastic tank was empty and there appeared to be almost no water in the community. Leading health organizations estimate that people need a minimum of 25 liters of clean water per day. Anything below this is considered water poverty. Surviving on the minimum standards, FUA should be consuming more than 1250 liters (more than one tank) per day. Now, they are doing well if they can fill the tank once a week. Just to put this in perspective, the average person in the U.S. consumes 600 liters of water each day. If FUA were populated by Americans, we would need 30 tanks of water a day.

Agua Yaku traveled to FUA with our manual drilling rig on the slim hope that we could drill a shallow well and install a hand pump that would at least increase water availability for this community. We set up the drilling rig on an embankment just above where the community had dung the water pit in the arroyo. Several dozen adults and children from the community, Agua Yaku, and SAM enthusiastically carried equipment, tools, and water down to the site. After several hours of hard work drilling through clay and thin layers of sand we hit hard rock at about five meters. Sadly, five meters is not deep enough to install a hand pump and the layers of sand where too thin to collect water through the filter. On the surface it may have seemed like a failed attempt at drilling a well, but we actually gained valuable knowledge about the geology of the area and now the community can proceed with plans for a deeper well, confident in the knowledge that a less expensive practical alternative for subterranean water does not exist. The alcaldea, local government, has promised to drill a deep well in FUA. The only question is whether this is an empty promise, or if it will actually be completed in the near future. It would not be a wise use of resources for missionaries to invest $12,000 in a privately drilled well if the government already has funds designated for the same project. We recommended that SAM invest a smaller amount in the construction of tin roofs and rainwater catchment systems for the church, the school, and each family dwelling in the community. This could supply a good portion of the communities water needs, and could be supplemented with water brought in by truck during the drier months. Perhaps in the coming months or years the alcaldea will come through with the promised deep well.

We returned to FUA the following day to clean up the drilling site and collect our equipment. First we met with the school teacher, the kids, and as many adults as were around to train them on how to disinfect their drinking water using the SODIS method. SODIS (which stands for SOlar DISinfection) is a simple way to insure safe drinking water using two liter plastic soda bottles and the sun. We explained that by simply filling two liter bottles with water and setting them in the sun for one day, ultraviolet radiation and heat will kill 100% of the organisms (bacteria, viruses, and parasites) that can make you sick. It is essentially the same as boiling water, but does not require fuel for the fire and is safer and easier than boiling water. As long as the bottles are sealed after they have been in the sun for a day, the water will remain safe until it is consumed. SODIS gives people who do not have access to safe drinking water an inexpensive and convenient way to improve their water quality. Even if they collect surface water from rivers, streams, ponds, etc., SODIS can assure them they are drinking clean water. If the water is turbid (muddy), they can pour it through a simple bio-sand filter and then treat it with SODIS. Even though rainwater may be clean when it falls from the sky, it can become contaminated as it sits in open barrels and is transferred with dirty containers and utensils. If people with suspect water sources learn to rigorously use SODIS to treat their drinking water they can greatly reduce the number of water-borne illnesses. To help put unsafe drinking water in global perspective, unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Worldwide, 42,000 deaths occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions. Children are the most vulnerable—90% of water-related deaths occur among children under five years old. Encouragingly, most of these deaths are preventable. Studies have shown that clean water alone can reduce water-related deaths by 21%, sanitation (proper disposal of excrement) alone can reduce water-related deaths by 37%, and hand washing alone can reduce water-related deaths by 45%. While Agua Yaku is committed to improving access to water for families and communities through drilling wells or other systems of surface water collection, we also emphasize the importance of ensuring that water sources are safe to drink, and that proper sanitation and hygiene is taught in schools, churches, and homes. SODIS is one component that we will be adding to all of our Agua Yaku training.

The Ayoreo students and parents all confirmed the importance of clean water and promised to begin treating their drinking water using the SODIS method. The teacher said she would follow up with the training and begin to promote it daily among the students. We left several dozen empty bottles and two SODIS tables with the teacher. Before the crowd disbursed we asked for a hand in dismantling the drilling rig and carrying the equipment back up to the community where we could load it on our truck. All of the adults wandered back to their homes and only a handful of small children followed us back down to the well site. We eventually got everything loaded and were soon back on the road for the six hour trip back to Santa Cruz.

To see a complete photo gallery from our trip visit: http://www.pbase.com/beamsclan/fua.

Update on Nathaniel's trip to Europe

2010-05-05T12:55:00.002-04:00

Nathaniel has had some tough luck since arriving in Europe to compete with the US Junior National Cyling Team in several stage races. His first race was last Saturday, a Kermesse in Belgium. Borrowed some wheels from the team that had a worn cassette. It didn't align correctly with his new chain. When he stood up to sprint and test the cassette the chain skipped cogs and jammed, sending him immediately over the handlebars and into the pavement. He got some serious road rash on the back of his hands and several other places. Needless to say he didn't get to start the race that day. Now he and the team are in the Czech Republic competing in a big junior stage race called Course de la Paiz. It is five road stages and one time trial over five days. Nathaniel's hand has been hurting him considerably. The cuts were quite deep and he cannot make a fist or hang onto the handlebars without a good deal of pain. Yesterday he was training with the team on the course and fell again on a slick oily patch on a roundabout. More road rash. Then today was the start of the stage race. Not even 5 k into the race he was involved in a crash at the base of a big climb. After getting back on his bike he tried to get back up to the peleton but never made it back to the main group. He finished in a group of about 15 other riders 10 minutes behind the main bunch. Tomorrow's a new race! Keep trying Nathaniel. Your luck will turn.

Nathaniel headed to Belgium on the US Junior National Team

2010-04-29T19:13:00.003-04:00

Nathaniel was selected for the US Junior National Team for road cycling. He is one of six 17-18 year olds who will represent the U.S. in a couple of international stage races in Europe. Today he is flying to Izegem, Belgium where he will be based in the USA Cycling guest house. He will compete in a Kermesse race on Saturday in Belgium. Next week he will travel with the team to a stage race in the Czech Republic called the Course de la Paix. In English it is called the Peace Race. It is a five day stage race contested by 20 national teams from all over the world. Some people call this the "Tour de France" for juniors. It is definitely one of the most important races on the international calendar. After that race he will be participating in a three day stage race in Germany. Then he will be heading back to the States on May 17th. We are proud of his drive and dedication to being the best athlete he can be. And we are even more proud of the his maturity and his dedication to his Christian faith.

Out There with the Beams – April 2010

2010-04-16T14:34:00.004-04:00

Dear Friends and Family,

A few Fun Facts about Bolivia:

Bolivia has the highest navigable lake in the world Lago Titicaca, on the border with Peru sits at 3810 meters (that's 12,382 feet above sea level). Santa Cruz is only at about 1000 feet, but we rode motorcycles up to 17,800 ft on the side of a volcano.
The largest deposit of salt on the planet is also found in Bolivia. The Salar de Uyuni contains over 64 million tons of salt! The Salar de Uyuni is also the world's largest deposit of lithium and Bolivia could soon become a strategic player in the world market to supply battery manufacturers.
Bolivia is located within one of the wettest zones on the planet. We get over 8000 millimeters (8 meters!) of rainfall per year.
Bolivia has 23 major eco-regions, and is one of the most biologically diverse countries on the planet—containing 40% of all known plant and animal species.
Bolivia has over 30 different native indigenous groups and is one of only three countries in Latin America to have a majority indigenous population.
59% of Bolivians are Catholic, 15% Andean spiritualists, 12% not religious, and 11% Protestant or Evangelical Christians.

While most Bolivians have been exposed to the Bible through Catholic traditions, and may say they believe in God, the vast majority mix these beliefs with other cultural traditions and do not have a personal relationship with their creator as is modeled for us in the New Testament. Bolivia is a beautiful and diverse country with a rich history and many economic and cultural resources. Missionaries, pastors, Christian leaders are sharing the gospel throughout the country, but we cannot reach everyone with the Good News unless we are backed in prayer and financial support from other Christians around the world. Please pray for Bolivia and consider what your part should be in reaching Bolivia for Christ.

We are having a good Spring (actually, it's Fall here). Many folks are visiting from our EFCC home mission office and churches in Canada. We also recently hosted a group from our home church, Crossroads Christian Church in Kentucky. They brought a team of youth and adults who worked hard building furniture and painting at two orphanages in town, Talita Cumi (http://www.talitacumi.org/index.php) and Judah Quy (http://judahquyhome.blogspot.com/) a new home for babies with special needs. Lindsey, our intern from Crossroads, was adjusting well and working hard, but unfortunately right after the Crossroads team left she found out that her grandmother passed away so she quickly returned home for the funeral before your scheduled time with us was up. We miss you Lindsey!

Ruth and Noemi Transition Home for Girls: We moved the girls to their new apartment about a month ago. We still have three girls, Juanita, Marina, and Fernanda. Pray for each of these girls specifically. Each one is struggling with finding their place in the world and understanding that they are truly daughters of a loving God.

Agua Yaku: We have been retooling this month, rebuilding our motorized drilling rig so we can drill more quickly and efficiently in the hard clay soil in the area around Pailon. We have had to drill up to about 60 meters through extremely hard clay and with our light rig it takes almost two weeks to complete one well. We hope that with our recent modifications we can reduce the time to drill each well and thus punch a few more holes in the ground.

Regrettably, the funding we thought we would be receiving in 2010 to move forward with our SODIS water disinfection program will not be forthcoming. This puts our project in a real financial bind because we have been hiring extra staff, training, and purchasing equipment with the expectation of this promised donation. We would love to continue with our plans to implement SODIS but we will need some new donors to come onboard quickly so we can continue our project. If you have been thinking about making a donation and would like to encourage us, this would be a great time to do so! We are also gearing up for a number of well drilling mission trips this summer. There is still time to put one together with your church or other group, or if you don't have your own group let us know and we can attach you to another group already planned. Just let us know.

I want to give a special thanks to all our long time supporters who have stuck with us through these hard financial times. We could not be here your prayer support and backing. It is wonderful knowing we have such a great team behind us.

Blessings,
Danny

Out There with the Beams—February 2010

2010-02-28T14:44:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends and Family,

These last couple of months I have been feeling the weight of being away from family and friends. I want to ask you to please pray for us. Pray for our marriage and pray for our children.

I (Vanessa) have been struggling with depression and have felt powerless before the pain and suffering I see here. It is easier to just go into this self made cocoon and try to find refuge there than to work through issues with God. Although I know (in my head at least) that power to change and freedom and trust come only from Him and that I have no power to help anyone or even myself, I still get into little arguments with God and struggle for control.

Update on the kids: Nathaniel just left for Lexington, Kentucky where he will finish out his senior year of home schooling with his mom and will be racing bicycles before he goes to college. He has been accepted at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado (which as a great cycling team); he hopes to become a professional cyclist and a missionary specialized in sustainable agriculture. We are very proud of Nathaniel and miss him a lot. It is amazing to me how time goes by and how our little boy is now a man! He is handsome and smart and has a heart for God. We are very grateful for this. Luciana is doing great and school—she herself has grown and changed a lot. She is quite involved in school activities and seems to really enjoy it. She will be performing in a Shakespeare play in April. Lucy has been missing her best friend Sierra who recently moved back to the US. Please pray for her as she herself and not just us the adults, learns to deal with the realities of being in an ever changing community! I am proud of her for being such a faithful friend, she has been there for her friend Sierra in hard times and even after she left, Lucy has made it a priority to stay in touch, something I am not very good at myself and for which I apologize to all my dear friends! Isaiah is growing up fast, he is sweet and funny and smart too, but has been struggling in school quite a bit this year and last. Last year he had four different teachers because our school did not receive a first grade teacher. Please pray next year he will have the right teacher or just a good year school wise, even if that means we home school him. If this does have to happen please pray the Lord will help us figure out what will need to happen during that year with the transition house for girls!! One possibility would be to hire a temporary director to take my place until Isaiah can go back to school for grade 4^th. This is still unknown to us, only God knows the answers but what I do know is that I love that little skinny, freckled face seven year old too much and he is a priority.

Ministry Update: Again, thank you for praying with us and being there for us. It is very rewarding and touching when we are in the US and friends thank us for our newsletter and tell us they enjoy reading it! It makes me feel important and loved! The Agua Yaku guys have had a couple of hard weeks because of the rain. But they gearing up to start drilling again and have several projects already planned. As for the "Ruth and Noemi" Transition House for Girls, we signed a new rental contract for a new apartment yesterday, thank you for your prayers on this! The new place is right next door to the Centro de Vida (crisis pregnancy center) and we will be moving in this weekend. Last week I went to interview a girl at Centro de Vida who is pregnant and needed a place to live, we had a good time talking and she seemed ready to move and understood what we were about but when the coordinator came to pick her up she had disappeared. Please pray for her and her baby. Also please pray for protection for our three girls, two of them are being harassed by the same parents that abused and abandoned them years ago. One mom has been threatening to beat one of my girls because now that she is working she is not giving her money and the other one's dad who abused her for years has been tracking her down to the point he even called my cell phone one night! Don't worry I let him have it! Please pray that these two people and their spouses will meet Jesus Christ and that they will stay away from my girls so that the girls can forgive, heal, and move on. Please pray that the girls' eyes and mine will be opened so they can see and accept truth about their own lives and about God and that soon they and I will be able to trust and live free of fear.

Tomorrow, and I am very excited about this, we will be picking up our friend Lindsay from our home church - Crossroads Christian in KY and she will be working with us until May! Please pray for her, for protection and for the Lord to show her how much He really loves her while she is here. Also at the end of this month we will be hosting a team from Crossroads and we will together serve Talita Cumi, the Transition House and a new home for babies with physical disabilities that missionary friends of ours are starting. Please remember to pray for this team too.

Thank you for being here with us through prayer and support. Thank you for allowing us to open our minds and hearts to you and for being faithful just like Christ is in our lives. We love you and would love to see you and/or hear from you.

Blessings,
Vanessa

Out There with the Beams – December 2009

2010-01-10T15:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends and family,

I know it's no longer December or even 2009, but we are way behind in our correspondence, so I will just go with it. We had a great holiday season visiting with Vanessa's mom who came down from Kansas and with her brother and his family who traveled from Peru. We also had a great 15^th birthday celebration (called a quinceanos and an important rite of passage in Latin culture) for Luciana on the 28^th. But I'm glad the holidays are behind us, the kids are back in school, so we can get on with the work we are here to do. We have a lot of interest from church teams who would like to come down in 2010 to join us in working with the girls transition home or with Agua:Yaku drilling water wells. Please contact us soon so we can get your teams on our calendar.

Many of you have ask about the political situation in Bolivia, so I will give you a bit of an update. In December Bolivia re-elected Evo Morales as president. Earlier last year his party also passed a new constitution. Bolivia continues to be run by his socialist government, tightly controlling the oil and gas industry. The majority of Bolivia's indigenous population supports Morales in hopes that he will help revert the great social and ethnic inequalities that have marked Bolivia since the days of the Spanish conquest. While we don't agree with everything that Morales stands for or is doing, his landslide victory in the election has given him a political mandate that has somewhat pacified the opposition parties. The Santa Cruz opposition that has been crying for autonomy the last couple of years has quieted down and daily life has been pretty calm. We do not see nearly as many road blocks, protests, or fuel shortages as in years past. In some ways it is harder for NGO's to do relief and development work in Bolivia because of new regulations, but as of now missionaries are continuing to work as they always have.

Ruth and Noemi Transition House update: We have three new girls in the transition house this year. Juana, Fernanda, and Marina have come to us from Talita Cumi. Each have turned 18 and need to leave the orphanage. Bety recently decided to leave the transition house, so we now have four girls (including Paula, who has been with us for a number of months). Marizabel, the house mother, and Sara, our volunteer from Australia continue to work closely with the girls. We have had to move the transition house out of our formal rental property because of some legal issues with the property. Thankfully, we have found a new apartment that is in an ideal location next to the Centro de Vida crisis pregnancy center we work closely with. We have temporarily moved the girls into our old house, which is now the Agua:Yaku office and a mission guest house, until the new apartment is ready on February 1^st. Please continue to pray for all of these girls, but especially for Bety as she tries to make a life on her own.

Agua:Yaku Water Well Drilling update: Warren McCaig, my missionary partner in this project, is back from a long fund raising trip to Canada. We also have a new short-term volunteer from the U.S., Greg, who will be working with us for a while. As I described in the last newsletter, we are gearing up for a new program to promote the use of a solar water disinfection method called SODIS. We will continue to drill wells where we can, but if wells are not possible because of geological constraints, we will promote the disinfection of contaminated water sources through the SODIS method.

Family News: Nathaniel will be heading back to the U.S. the first week of February where he will continue racing bicycles with his Ohio based team and will prepare to college in the Fall. He is planning on going to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where he wants to major in sustainable agriculture. And of course he wants to go there for the cycling. Fort Lewis has one of the top collegiate teams in the country.

Thanks so much for supporting us financially and in prayer. Please feel free to contact us if you would like further info on our ministries. We would love for any and all of you to come down for a visit if you want a front row seat to see how God is changing lives in Bolivia.

Blessings,
Danny

Out There with the Beams – November 2009

2009-11-30T15:38:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends and family,

Note from Vanessa: Thank you so much for responding to our letter last month. I love to read your emails and hear the latest news. It is so uplifting to know that you are praying for us. December is here and it has been crazy already. Fernando, an Agua:Yaku employee, got married and Danny and I were in the wedding as the padrinos. It was a lot of fun. I am so humbled they chose us and I pray we will be a good example. The best part was that Danny and I got to dance the waltz! I absolutely loved it! And also this month we celebrated our 12^th anniversary. How generous, forgiving, and loving is God. He has kept his promises in my life through His Son, through his Spirit and has been a loving and protective Father by giving me Danny. Danny's simple and strong faith has carried me through moments of terrible worry and pain. And his arms have been God's arms to me when I have needed comfort. I am so grateful and pray that the Lord will continue to bless my husband and will give him many more years of life.

This month also, Luciana will turn 15 – FIFTEEN!!!! Where do the years go? She is growing into a beautiful, thoughtful and loving young lady. Please pray for extra blessings for her as she starts to deal with new challenges in her life that she will continue to make Jesus her priority and that it will be God who designs her destiny and not her herself.

The boys are also doing great. It is such a blessing to have Nathaniel here with us; he is such a huge help with Isaiah and is such an encouragement to him. Isaiah loves the our new house (we now live in a gated community) and he looks for any excuse to walk around the street. Please pray for him, as his best friend Daniel leaves and then Nathaniel goes to college, that the Lord will hold him through this difficult time.

We have a new intern working with us, her name is Sara Stanford, she is a dear friend that first came here on a team from our home church (Crossroads in Kentucky). She just got here and is getting acquainted with the currency, transportation, food, etc. Her Spanish is wonderful already! She will be working at the transition house with the girls, teaching them cooking and freezing, and developing crafts that the girls can make and sell. I am sure she will also be a blessing as she shares her testimony and listens to them. Please pray that she will be safe during her time here and that the Lord will use this time to strengthen their relationship even more and will show her His amazing love.

Thank you for supporting us financially and with your prayers. God is blessing us and the people we minister to through you. You are a huge part of what happens around here. And sometimes ministry just happens any day, at any time of the day!

Note from Danny: I just wanted update you on Agua:Yaku, our water well drilling project. Our team just got back from Cochabamba where we participated in a training workshop at a local university on how to measure water quality and evaluate community water systems. The knowledge we gained will be invaluable as we continue to expand the services we offer families and communities throughout Bolivia. Water wells are a great way to bring clean water to people right in their homes, but unfortunately it's not possible to drill wells in every part of Bolivia. In the mountains we run into impenetrable rock and in other places the water it too deep to reach with our drilling rig. Alternatives to water wells include capturing spring water, rain water, or treating surface water from rivers or lakes so that it will be clean enough to drink.

We are excited about a new partnership in 2010 with a Canadian Christian NGO called The Water School (http://www.thewaterschool.org/). The Water School promotes a solar disinfection technology called sodis—a simple way to disinfect water using 2-liter plastic drink bottles, and the sun. Instead of boiling water, scientists have recently discovered that heat and UV rays from the sun are more than sufficient to kill any disease or sickness causing pathogens in water—including bacteria, parasites, viruses, etc. Water stored in plastic bottles is safe to drink after it has been exposed to the sun for one day (or two days if it is cloudy). In 2010 Agua:Yaku will begin teaching the sodis technique along with hygiene and sanitation in communities where clean water is not yet available through wells or sanitary distribution systems. Did you know that over 5 million people die from waterborne diseases each year and that the majority of preventable deaths are a result of the water they drink? Something as simple as teaching people how and why to drink clean water will save many lives in Bolivia. The task of teaching sodis will afford our Agua:Yaku team a wonderful opportunity to travel to many new communities in Bolivia where we can work with local pastors and teachers, sharing the love of Christ as well as providing clean water. Of course we will continue to drill new water wells wherever we can. I have no doubt that our work teaching sodis will reveal many needs and new opportunities for drilling wells. Pray for Agua:Yaku as we venture into this new form of ministry and sharing God's love.

Thank you to everyone who is already partnering with us financially and in prayer. I have no doubt that God is blessing your commitment to missions and ministry around the world. (Have you read a book called "The Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns? If not, pick it up for yourself this Christmas.) If you are thinking about supporting our ministry—just go ahead and do it. You probably won't even miss a couple of dollars a day from your family budget. Even a donation of $30 or $50 a month could make a lifetime impact on a family here in Bolivia who benefits from clean water and who hears about the love of Christ for the first time.

Blessings,
Vanessa and Danny Beams

Out There with the Beams -- October 2009

2009-10-31T18:26:00.001-04:00

Queridos amigos y familia,

Hello again, it is a beautiful cool morning here in Santa Cruz. We are very grateful for all our Christian family who continually lifts us in prayer and we want to thank you for that. Truly the Lord protects us here in ways that we may not see at first but that are obvious later.

We've had lots of fun with teams recently, the last team who visited was a team from our home church Crossroads Christian, in Kentucky. Danny took most of them to drill wells in the jungle and the rest of team stayed with me in the city to work with the girls from the transition house. Although we had a lot of fun, little went according to plan, but all along I could feel the Lord's provision in that team to show me and my kids His awesome love and support. We were able to have an orientation night for the girls from Talita Cumi who will be coming to live at the house next February. During the orientation, team members shared their testimonies. I am thankful to the Lord that He is who He is everywhere and not just here in Bolivia, and I am thankful that my girls from Santa Cruz were able to see that even though there is incredible pain in other parts of the world, God's amazing healing never fails! We of course also had a fun night with all the girls—a night filled with music, yummy food, movies, photo shoots and laughter!

The jungle team successfully drilled three wells in a community called "Laguna Corazon Sur" as you can imagine the wells are a huge blessing to these families who had to walk up to an hour to get water, and who had to drink from this slimy dark swamp. God is so good! Especially for making it possible that there was water to be found in the first place.

We also had the privilege to host our Crossroads pastor, Glen Schneiders who came with our dear friend John Kelly to see what the Lord is doing in Bolivia. They visited all our projects (EFCCM) and of course couldn't leave without going on one of Danny's epic hikes, those of you who know Danny know exactly what I am talking about. We are so impressed that both John and Glen jumped from a very tall waterfall! And both are still alive!

I think my favorite thing about teams coming to Bolivia is that I get to see Bolivia for the first time again through their eyes. And even though we have to answer lots of questions, it is so interesting to see what areas of this beautiful land most strike people's eyes and hearts.

Another good bit of news is that we have moved to a gated community. I (Vanessa) am very grateful to the Lord for helping us find this house. And I do feel much safer, especially when Danny is traveling. Isaiah loves being able to walk to his friend Daniel's house all by himself, Please pray for new friends for him since Daniel and his family are soon moving back to England.

Luciana and Nathaniel are both doing great, Luciana will turn 15 this December, which in the Latin culture is a big deal! I don't think we will have the huge ball though, but we will for sure do something fun. Nathaniel is taller and handsomer than ever and he has had lots of fun working alongside his dad out in the jungle, and also spending lots of time with Isaiah. Pray for Nathaniel as he goes off to college that the Lord will provide a good, fun, loving church for him and He will protect Nathaniel in all His ways. And pray that Luciana will continue to make Jesus the center of her live as she steps into this new year of her life.

At the end of November we will all be going to Cochabamba. Danny is taking his water project team to a training on water purification and the kids and I are joining since they will be out of school.

Again thank you for all your support, for taking time to read our letters, and for your invaluable prayers for our family. We love you very much, and we would love to hear from you and see you, so please come and visit!

Con mucho amor,
Vanessa

Out There with the Beams – September 2009

2009-09-30T11:35:00.001-04:00

Dear friends and family,

News from the field: We just finished up a great week with a mission team from Brazos Pointe Fellowship in Lake Jackson, Texas. If you would like to see more pictures, visit our photo blog at: http://w ww.pbase.com/beamsclan/bpf_2009. The team, along with the Agua:Yaku staff, took a river trip down the Rio Ichilo in Cochabamba to drill a water well for a new boarding school for indigenous children who live in isolated communities along the river. The school is located in Nueva Capernaum, about a four hour boat ride from the nearest road. Sixty kids (1^st through 8^th grade) and six teachers study and live at the school during the school year. How would you like to send your 1^st grader off to boarding school for nine months a year? It is hard on these parents and children as well, but this is one of the few options to these families who live difficult lives hunting, fishing, and selling timber along these inaccessible rivers. If the parents dream of a better life for their children, they need an education so they can find work outside of the traditional subsistence lifestyle. The kids come from a mix of Yuracare, Yuqui, and Trinitario communities where they speak distinct indigenous languages in the home. They learn Spanish at school and also learn about Bolivia and the world outside of their isolated river communities.

The kids and teachers are responsible for carrying out all the daily chores; which includes carrying water, collecting firewood, cooking on a wood fire, washing clothes, sweeping, etc. Every morning they have to carry water up from the river to drink and to cook with and in the evening they bathe and wash their own clothes in the river. The government provides basic food supplies for the children, but it is not enough. The teachers still have to look for food donations from NGO's and they even hunt and fish to bring meat into their diets. Until now they have been drinking dirty untreated water from the river. Along with help from the community, our team drilled a well 160 feet deep in search of clean water. When we left we were still not able to get much water out of the well, but if the water flow does not improve over the next couple of weeks we will go back and drill another well, placing the filter in a different aquifer. If we cannot get a good well in this area, we will help them construct a rainwater capture system and then filter the water for drinking.

While we are certainly concerned with the physical well being of these kids, we are even more concerned about their spiritual development. The children are in classes from 8:30 to 12:30 Monday through Friday. The remainder of their time is taken up with daily chores, homework, soccer, and free time. Because they do not have electricity, the kids finish up dinner by six in the evening and are in their bunks going to sleep by seven (since we are near the equator it gets dark around 6:00 PM year round). This is a government school, so the teachers do not train the students in moral or spiritual disciplines. It would be so great if we could find a national missionary couple who could live near the school and lead Bible studies, teach music, provide recreational activities, and be a Christian light for these kids so far away from home. Please be praying for this great need.

I want to thank everyone for their interest in the Agua:Yaku water well drilling project. We are scheduling a number of mission teams to help us drill wells in the coming year. While we certainly appreciate volunteers, we also need monthly support to pay salaries for our growing staff, travel expenses, and material costs for our ongoing well drilling program. We are expanding our program into four of the nine departments in Bolivia—Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, and Beni. It seems like for every well we drill, we hear of ten more families who need water. We now have two teams out drilling full time. Two new Agua:Yaku employees, Irai and Netino, are both from Brazil and have been trained as missionaries with YWAM. They are both quick to share their faith with everyone they meet and are a great addition to our team. It would be such a blessing if you would consider making a monthly commitment to our ministry, or if you would like to sponsor individual wells—they cost about $500 each.

Agua:Yaku is also excited to announce a new partnership with a Canadian Christian NGO called The Water School in 2010. Warren McCaig (my EFCCM partner in Agua:Yaku) and I will begin implementing a water disinfection program called SODIS in many communities around Bolivia. SODIS is a simple method developed by a Swiss NGO to disinfect contaminated water using two liter plastic bottles and the sun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection). This is an inexpensive way to treat contaminated water in places where we cannot drill wells—where the water is too deep, or the soil is too rocky to drill. People can get water from surface sources such as ponds, rivers, springs, or rain runoff and can disinfect it before drinking. This is much simpler and safer than boiling, filtering, or chemically treating water. If the water is turbid we will also teach families how to make inexpensive bio-sand filters out of two five-gallon buckets. The water school will provide the funding to implement this new program. Our goal is to see 25,000 people using SODIS by the end of 2010. This will also give us a great opportunity to survey the water needs of Bolivia and begin mapping out where it would be appropriate to expand our well drilling program.

I know this is a long newsletter this month, but I also want to update you on the progress of the girls transition house, now officially called the Ruth and Noemi Support House. The house currently has two girls, Betty and Paula. Please pray for them as well as for the live-in coordinator, Marizabel. A team coming from Kentucky next month will work on some landscaping, interior decorating, and will throw a dinner for girls in Talita Cumi who will be coming to the home next year. Also remember in pray, Rudy Friesen, our missionary colleague with the EFCCM who had a heart attack yesterday and will be in the hospital for the next five or six days.

Blessings,
Danny

Our Kids Having Fun

2009-08-30T23:04:00.003-04:00

Out There with the Beams - August 2009

2009-08-30T22:58:00.000-04:00

Dear friends and family,

Hi to all! I cannot believe the summer has come and gone and we have been back in Bolivia for three weeks. We had a super fun time in the US seeing some of you and being with our families. I would like to say that I am humbled by the Lord when I see the way people have helped us in so many ways! Either by lending us vehicles, hosting us, or giving us haircuts. Even surprising us by paying for our supper!! We have felt loved and well taken care of and I am so happy to belong to a community of believers who live like Christ. I think for me the highlight of the summer was of course to spend time with my dear friends and to be near water a bunch!!! I even got to drive a jet ski for the first time!!

Luciana and Isaiah are again attending school at the Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center (SCCLC) and Nathaniel is doing school at home and working with his dad. It is such a blessing to see our three kids playing and sharing life together again! The other day as I did a little gardening, Isaiah and Nathaniel just laid on the grass laughing at something and I just loved it. Thank you Jesus. Luciana is back to playing soccer and as a ninth grader (I know, I still can’t believe it!) she has a lot of homework every day.

Being back in Bolivia is both great and sad. It has been sad because we really miss all our friends and family back in the States and I really miss the beautiful dustless and organized roads!

Living as a missionary family can be very weird sometimes, as people we love come and go and we have to say good bye to our friends all the time. So I would like to ask for your prayers for our family in that area as both Luciana and Isaiah had to say good bye to some really good friends lately and for all of us as we learn to live this way.

The transition home is going well. We had three girls until last weekend but now we are back to two. It seems like our place is not for everyone but for those who really care about their future and want to let Jesus rebuild their lives. The two that are with us now are doing great, their names are Betty and Paula, they are both attending college at the moment. Betty is studying tourism and hotel management. This is her first year and she has a scholarship for half of her tuition costs. She is attending counselling at the Centro de Vida, and she is applying for a job at a grocery store. Please pray about this. Paula is in her third year of college. She is studying environmental engineering at the public university here in Santa Cruz and works weekends for a company that does survey work. Both girls have come a long way emotionally and both now know the Lord Jesus Christ. We needed a lot of prayer for both of them to win the spiritual battle they both are in right now as they try to follow Jesus and not look back as well as for their physical, emotional and spiritual healing. Please help us pray for individual supporters for each girl so that we will be able to help them with their studies and medical costs; as well as supporters for the Casa de Apoyo Ruth y Noemi ( that is what we have named the transition house). We welcome financial and prayer supporters as well as visitors!

Danny is out of town today looking at a community near Pailon (a town close by) that needs a well. He has been busy trying to meet with everyone on his well drilling team and is excited that Nathaniel is here to help him. We really appreciate your continual prayers for his safety and good results with his work.

Please know that we think of you often, we miss you and you are in our heart. And thank you for sharing life with us just by reading our letters!

May Jesus bless you in a huge way today!

Vanessa (for all the Beams)

Out There with the Beams - June 2009

2009-06-30T14:05:00.000-04:00

Dear friends and family,

Greetings from Houston. As we mentioned in our last newsletter, we are spending the summer in the U.S. catching up with family and partners of our work in Bolivia. We will be in Texas until the end of June and then in Kentucky until August 7th. We would love to spend time with as many of you as possible. Our U.S. phone number during our U.S. visit is 859-492-9294. Please give us a call or send us an email so we can find a time to get together.

We have left our projects in capable hands while we are gone, but please continue to pray for the Girls Transition Home and the Agua Yaku water project this summer. The Girls Transition Home is now furnished and we have several girls living in the home with the director, Marizabel. These girls have already lived such a hard and uncertain life by the time they are eighteen. We hope this home will be a refuge from past hurts and disappointments, and a springboard to a new life in Christ. During this transition time we hope to teach these girls life skills and Biblical values that will empower them to make good decisions about their future and succeed in living independently.

Agua Yaku is continuing to have an impact on the lives of many people who need clean water in Bolivia. Just before returning to the U.S. we made a trip to drill a well for a national missionary family working with the Guarani Indians in Iguembe, a community in the mountains in the department of Chuquisaca, Bolivia, about 8 hours drive from Santa Cruz. The well was a success and we hope to return again soon to the region to drill more wells in remote communities in this arid region. We have recently expanded our Agua Yaku team. Warren McCaig, a fellow EFCCM missionary from Canada, is working with us almost full time, as well as Irai, a Brazilian pastor who wants to work in rural social and evangelical ministries. Both he and Warren will be focusing on bringing the gospel to the people of the communities where we are drilling water wells. Also pray for the training that we do with other organizations. Many other groups have shown an interest in learning our drilling techniques, but it will take a much larger budget before we can travel to other areas and countries to train others in these techniques.

We want to especially thank all of you who have been faithfully supporting our ministries through these difficult economic times. We know you are making a sacrifice to support this work in Bolivia. If you have thought about supporting our work but haven’t done so yet, this would be a great time to get started. Giving has been down in the last six months. We want to continue investing in these projects, but we cannot do so without the financial support of our partners. At the end of this letter you will find the directions on how to make donations. Please pray about God would want you to partner in this ministry. If you would like us to personally come share with you or your group more about our work, contact us quickly so we can fit you into our summer schedule.

Blessings,
Danny

Out There with the Beams - April 2009

2009-04-30T14:04:00.000-04:00

Dear friends and family,

Thank you so much for reading this letter and continually pray for us. I (Vanessa) am very happy to say that we will see you soon! We will be leaving Bolivia on May 24 and will be in the U.S. until August 7th. We are excited to see you all and to be in your beautiful country again. Please pray for our trip, especially for our flights since I don’t really enjoy flying.

It is also exciting for me to tell you that the girls transition house is already in place. We found an affordable house which needed only a few repairs and we have opened it to girls in need. This house will be used as a safe transition place for girls from the Talita Cumi orphanage who are too old to continue living there but who would like to continue to study and work. Also, it will be a refuge for women who are pregnant but have no place to go to, so that they will make a decision to give birth to their babies. We have three bedrooms, so we hope to be able to host between 6 to 9 girls. The Lord has shown me that even when one is sick, tired and unsure, He can accomplish the things that seem impossible to us. I was recently very sick and thought this house wasn’t going to happen before we left on home assignment! Also, God led us to someone who will live permanently with the girls and help disciple and mentor them. Her name is Marizabel and she is a wonderful single Christian lady who is willing to serve the Lord in any way she can. Please also pray for her as she starts this new stage in her life and pray for the Lord’s provision and protection both for her and for the girls.

Another very important prayer request would be for the girls themselves. They are going through an incredible time deciding whether or not they want to live in the transition home (although they had said yes to me before). All I can say is that the devil can seem very smart at times. We can clearly see the Lord’s hand in this and His plan for these girls but sadly a lot of them don’t see it! I know there is an invisible battle going on. Please pray the Lord will win their hearts all over again and that they will yield to Him so that their lives will be healed and restored.

Danny has recently been in several trips out of town drilling wells with his team of workers and I praise the Lord every time he comes back home safe and sound! You all know I am the worrier. I am learning to trust God and as I go I feel so honored that He would let me serve Him. Thank you all who pray for Danny’s protection, the Lord is listening!

Our children are doing great! Isaiah just turned 7 two days ago. I can’t believe it! He is so big! He has gone from being this very cautious, talkative little guy to being a very active—climbing roofs and cabinets, mixing toothpaste and hand sanitizer tornado! He is fun and keeps us in shape! Luciana is just beautiful. She is my right hand at home! She is also very excited to see all her friends and cousins in Texas and Kentucky.
Nathaniel is doing really well with his racing, as most of you know he is a cyclist just like his dad. He has won a couple of races this spring and trains incredible lengths of time and distance everyday! We are praying for him right now as he decides whether or not he will come here for his senior year. Please help us pray the Lord will show him what the best decision for his life will be.

Again thank you for being our partner in ministry. All the successes in ministry here are yours too! We love you and appreciate all you have done for us and all you have given to Jesus by giving to our work.

Love Vanessa (for the Beams)

Out There with the Beams - February 2009

2009-02-28T13:06:00.000-04:00

Dear Prayer Partners,

Fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore back, skin rash, stomach problems – these are all symptoms of Dengue Fever, a illness that is running rampant through Santa Cruz right now. As many of you found out through Vanessa’s postings on Facebook, I too suffered through this for about two weeks. Thanks for your prayers and notes. They say about 50,000 people have contracted the disease in Santa Cruz over the past couple of months. Thankfully I had a wonderful wife to look after me and a nice bed to lay in. Please remember in prayer the many people who live on the streets and don’t have anyone to look after them when they fall ill.

All considered, we are doing well and charging ahead with our projects. Vanessa is still working to get the Girls Transition Home up and functioning. We are waiting on just the right house to become available. Last month, I helped facilitate getting three little Yuqui girls out of their village in Bia Recuate (where we have been drilling water wells) and into the Talita Cumi home here in Santa Cruz. They were living in extreme poverty and in abusive situations in their village so it was encouraging to know that in Talita Cumi they would be well fed, educated, and taught God’s Word. They have been in Santa Cruz for several weeks now and are adapting well. Unfortunately, family members back in the village have called recently and said they want the girls to come back to Bia Recuate. I’m not sure of the motivation behind this request. Please be in prayer for Sonja, Mirian, and Katarin. You can see pictures of their village at: www.pbase.com/beamsclan/yuqui.

We are really looking forward to the arrival of a team from Crossroads Christian at the end of March. They will be going with us to drill a water well in Vida Nueva, a community on the Chapare River in Cochabamba. We will be drilling a well for a missionary intern school where kids from 19 different Indian communities go to live and attend school about six months out of each year. Right now they drink rain water, or when that isn’t available, they drink directly from the muddy river. Because the school is only accessible by river, they have never been able to bring in a big truck to drill a water well. We will bring in our manual drilling rig and tools by boat and drill a 150 foot well that will provide clean drinking water year round. We look forward to getting to know the local Yuracare community leaders as well on this trip so we can set up future well drilling projects in many more of the isolated communities of this region. We still need supporters for AguaYaku (our well drilling project), so if you or your group would like to sponsor a well, installation costs about $300 for each one. We also need our own boat to drill bring tools and materials into these river communities. So if you have $10,000 sitting somewhere not being used… we can put it to good use here in Bolivia.

We are excited about our visit to the States this summer. We will be in Kentucky and Texas mostly, but are willing to travel elsewhere as well. We would love to visit as many friends and churches as we can over the summer vacation so we can share with you our work, and to just hang out with friends. If you would like us to come by, please let us know so we can begin arranging our schedule.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support. We would not be serving in Bolivia if not for the support of our precious friends and family back home.

Blessings,
Danny

Three Yuqui Children in Talita Cumi

2009-02-25T17:53:00.002-04:00

Today we helped get three Yuqui indian girls into Talita Cumi. Sonia (10), Miriam (9), and Katarin (6), came from Bia Recuate to live at Talita Cumi. Sonia's mother died several years ago, and her father doesn't have the means to take care of his children. Pray also for Sonia's sister Miriam (14), and brother Isaias (6). Miriam and Katarin are sisters. Both of their parents are living, but the father cannot work after a machete injury. They have five kids, but cannot take care of all of them. So, now that they are being cared for at Talita Cumi they will go to school and get three meals a day.

Water Well in Tres Islas

2009-02-12T15:38:00.005-04:00

Click on the title above to see a gallery of pictures from our recent water well drilling trip to Tres Islas, a community of Yuracara on the Chimore River in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Yuqui Girl from Bia Recuate

2009-02-11T22:44:00.001-04:00

Out There with the Beams -- January 2009

2009-01-31T14:46:00.003-04:00

Dear Friends and Family,

This is Vanessa writing this month. It is a beautiful day here in Bolivia. It is cloudy and windy and we haven’t turned our air conditioning on because it is finally cool enough!! We pray that you too are enjoying a nice day and that you are blessed with loving and healthy family and friends. The Lord is faithful and good. Despite the somewhat complicated political circumstances, we have been able to continue to work and have a very normal life here in Santa Cruz. We would like to ask you to pray for Bolivia and its new Socialist Constitution. We are concerned about the effects this may have in our work as Christian missionaries and in our personal lives; for example, we don’t yet know exactly how the new Constitution will impact the school that our children attend.

We do have a lot to praise the Lord for. The water well project continues to progress and more and more people continue to benefit from the project. Last week, Danny and his “Agua Yaku” team, our Bolivian pastor, and a team from YWAM (Youth with a Mission) went to a Yuracare Indian community in the jungle called Tres Islas and successfully drilled a well for them. The only access to these communities is by river. Danny takes the drilling equipment in on dugout canoes. Because it is impossible to even get the larger truck drilling rigs into these parts of the jungle, these are the first water wells these communities have ever had. The pictures Danny took are absolutely beautiful and you will soon be able to see them on our web page www.pbase.com/beamsclan.

Danny and I have been attending a marriage course. I love it! It is difficult sometimes but it is good stuff and I thank the Lord for providing an opportunity to refresh our relationship, heal our wounds and strengthen our bond together. We have been married for 11 years! And I want to make it public (since Valentine’s is coming) that I love my husband with all my heart! He truly is the man the Lord had for me, and through him God has showed me what it means to love unconditionally and patiently.

Luciana went to Junior High camp last week too. The Lord protected her. When I picked her up she sat next to me in the car, with her little sunburnt face and she talked and talked nonstop until she sat on the floor and I sat on the couch and then all of the sudden she stopped! When I looked I realized she was fast asleep and remained like that for two days!

During Danny’s and Luciana’s trip, Isaiah and I had a lot of fun. We went swimming and had a sleep over, we read a lot together and as a special treat we went to Burger King together with some friends.

Plans for the Transition/Refuge House are still going despite few setbacks. We had a meeting with seven Bolivian friends who are considering being part of the board, so please pray for them as they make a decision. And I would like to thank (I would hug you if I could) to all of those who have already been donating money towards this new project. You guys are part of the confirmation that the Lord has given us to do this. Please continue praying for the girls: Gaby, Teresa, Viviana, Julia, and Betty (pictured above lt. to rt.) to remain in Jesus, for the Lord to protect their bodies and minds, and to show them clearly that He does have a plan for their lives.
We are now looking for a house (that we can afford) where we can begin for the first year. We also need a name for the ministry, so if you think of that perfect name, please let me know.
I praise the Lord that in Him, despite circumstances all around us, we are not hopeless!

As special prayer requests please pray for Danny’s dear uncle Alan who is battling illness and also for my beloved aunt Jacinta who is in the same situation.

Thank you for always being there for us. Thank you for not just being our financial partners but our true and faithful friends and prayer warriors. You mean a lot to us. We love you.

Vanessa for all the Beams

Out There with the Beams -- December 2008

2008-12-31T14:55:00.001-04:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Wish we could celebrate Christ’s birth with all of you at once. That would be such a great reunion. One of the hardest things about being missionaries is the long stretches of time away from friends and family. It feels even less like Christmas in Santa Cruz in December because this is the hottest month of the year. Rather than throwing snow balls and drinking hot chocolate, we are laying by the pool, working on our tans, and drinking ice cold lemonade.

I know this has been a tough year financially for many of you and that your priority should always be your family’s immediate needs, but we also pray that in the coming year you will renew your commitment to support God’s work here in Bolivia. I have no doubt God will reward your faithfulness and multiply your investment in His Kingdom work. I am not preaching prosperity theology, saying you will be wealthier if you give—I’m just saying a financial sacrifice and a gift to His work in Bolivia can make a huge impact in the individual lives of less fortunate people in Bolivia. We pray that you can continue with a monthly commitment to our ministries, or if you prefer, make a special year end gift. Our two primary ministries are the Agua:Yaku water well project and the Girl’s Transition Home. If you would like more details about these projects please visit our website at: www.aguayaku.org, or write us an email with your questions.

You can donate a water well for a needy family for as little as $300. Agua:Yaku staff train people in rural communities how to drill their own water wells, and build and maintain simple hand pumps. A typical professionally drilled well costs anywhere from $2000 to $10,000. But by using our manual drilling system and local labor we can install a well for as little as $300 (the cost of materials). Additionally, the Agua:Yaku project would like to expand into new areas in the Cochabamba and Beni departments (two other eastern Bolivia departments bordering Santa Cruz) in 2009. It would be great if several people could contribute larger gifts to help us equip additional drilling teams in these areas.

As well, the Girl’s Transition Home needs a good bit of capital so we can get cranked up for 2009. So many missionaries and other people in Santa Cruz are asking us when the home will be up and running. There is a huge need for a place where older girls can transition out of orphanages, but still have a safe place where they can study and work and begin to stand on their own two feet.

So if you feel God is leading you to give a gift to missions this year, we hope you will consider one of these two projects. Also, please don’t forget that we need support as a family as well. We need to raise about $5000 a month to cover our salary, insurance, travel, and administrative costs.

God has blessed us with wonderful partners over the past couple of years. Thank you so much for your prayers, sacrificial giving, and visits. We enjoy hosting mission teams and look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones in the coming year.

Please note that we have recently changed how we accept donations. Because my father, Ronnie Beams, retired as pastor of the Owingsville Baptist Church, we will not be channelling our donations through OBC. Instead, we ask that you begin sending your donations through the EFCA (Evangelical Free Church of America) if you need a U.S. receipt for tax purposes, or if not, please submit donations directly to the EFCCM (Evangelical Free Church of Canada Mission), our primary sending agency. We save a substantial amount on administrative fees when donations go directly to the EFCCM. The details of how to make donations are included in this mailing.

Love and best wishes during this Christmas season,

Danny, Vanessa, Nathaniel, Luciana, and Isaiah

Out There with the Beams -- November 2008

2008-11-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We trust you all are doing well during the holidays. Thank you so much for praying for Isaiah. If you did not hear, he spent about six days in the hospital being treated for a bacterial infection. It was quite serious for a couple of days, but the combination of prayer, good doctors, and medicine saw him through. We are excited about the Christmas break coming up and visits from Nathaniel and several other friends. The volatile political situation has eased a bit in these past weeks and we are so thankful for that, but please continue to pray for Bolivia and for peace between highland departments and the eastern lowland departments.

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to two couples who have been volunteering with the EFCCM the past several months, Steve and Rhonda Bill, and Roberto and Emilie Morano. Pray for them as they head back to Canada and begin making decisions about careers and where God would have them serve.

Just a quick update on our projects: The Agua:Yaku water well project is growing by leaps and bounds. We have three full time staff, Carlos, Fernando, and Marcos, as well as several EFCCM missionaries now working with us or planning to come in the near future. If the weather and politics cooperate, we are planning to drill a lot of wells in the coming months. Please pray for the Yuqui people on the Chimore River and especially for Mariano and Leonarda Ichu (Bolivian missionaries working with the Yuqui). The Yuqui now have good clean water to drink, but they are still facing many obstacles in understanding the love of God and what that love can mean in their lives and for their families. Agua:Yaku and our local church, Trinity International, are helping Mariano plant five acres of cacao (chocolate) as a way to finance their ministry and to teach the Yuqui how to plant and manage cacao themselves. Sadly, violence has recently broken out in the area between Quechua colonists and government forces trying to eradicate illegal coca production (from which cocaine is derived) and it may not be safe for us to go back to this area for while. Pray that we will be able to re-enter this area soon so we can begin drilling wells for the Yuracaré Indians who live in several villages further down the Chimore River. We have a new project website at www.aguayaku.org, so check it out if you have a few minutes.

Vanessa is working hard to get the girls transition home up and running. She is teaming up with another ministry called “El Alfarero,” which will be working closely with university students, providing counselling services, a crisis pregnancy center, a transition home for unwed mothers and girls transitioning out of orphanages. The center will also include a restaurant and conference center. The El Alfarero ministry hopes to purchase a building for the transition home (or albergue in Spanish), but in the mean time we would like to begin renting a place and hire house parents who can look after the girls. We need donations for rent, set-up costs, and for salaries.

We hope you will prayerfully consider making a special year-end donation to either the girl’s transition home or to the water well drilling ministry.

Thank you so much for your on-going support of our work and ministry here in Bolivia. We could not do what we are doing without the prayers and support of fellow believers back home.

Blessings,
Danny

2008-11-03T20:14:00.002-04:00

A fresh Jaguar skin from a recent hunt in Bia Recuate. I didn't feel so safe camping out in my tent after knowing that these big cats are roaming the forest at night.

Some kids from Bia Recuate

Out There with the Beams – October 2008

2008-11-03T20:09:00.001-04:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello! Boy have I miss you guys a lot lately. Recently in Bolivia there have been times when I just wanted to run away! It was partly due to the political situation, and partly because I am chicken when it comes to serious situations like that. But, I also want all of you to know that after the worst night or worrying for me I prayed a lot and I think there must been a lot of people praying for us too because the next morning the fear was gone! I decided I had to keep living and making our home a happy place for our kids. Surely this is a miracle because I usually don’t work like that I really believe the Spirit over took me!

Thank you to our dear family and friends who were constantly praying and thinking about us! I want you know that the Lord not only protected us from harm but he also protected our eyes from even seeing anything bad. I know some things happened even here in our own city but the Lord kept us and our children safe and for that we are grateful. Please continue to pray for those here who have lost dear ones, for all those moms and dads and children. Pray that more and more people will come to the Lord, will receive his forgiveness and grace, and that more and more adults will have the courage to live out their faith.

Last week, Danny and a team of men from our mission went back to the Yuqui village to drill another water well. I think you all know Danny, he is tall and handsome and strong. Yet the realities of this country, especially of the Yuqui village tend to break his heart. Lots of children are living in absolute filth and neglect. We meet little girls whose parents sell them into prostitution in order to earn money for medication or food. Praise the Lord that even in some of the world’s saddest situations, He raises his most loving, bravest people to show His love to those who desperately need it—I am talking about a Bolivian couple, Mariano and Leonarda, who have lived among the Yuqui for 28 years. They have 9 children of their own. Their three youngest (11, 18 and 20) live by themselves here in Santa Cruz, so they can go to school. This couple not only takes care of our teams when they go there but have saved the lives of so many children throughout the years by providing food and care for them when their parents practically abandon them. Leonarda, encourages the parents to be good parents and when all her efforts to educate them fail she encourages them to leave the children at the village when they go into town to beg, seek medical help or find some work. In that way, the children are better off, she says, at least they won’t be sold into prostitution if they are here with me.

I don’t know how you feel about this, but there are days when it all just seems so overwhelming to me! Every way we look here in Bolivia there are children being abused, sacrificed and robbed of life. A life that was give by the Almighty Lord! Dear friends, please pray for this country, help us to pray for all of these children, pray for more workers of the Lord to raise and go, for more safe places for them, for forgiveness and healing of relationships!

I am thankful I have the freedom to talk about these things with you and the trust that you guys will all pray with us! I am grateful we have such an amazing support system. I am grateful that the Lord put us in your lives and you in ours! Please don’t think for one second that there is nothing you can do! If you are reading this letter and your thoughts are lifting these people up to God, you are already a warrior of His in action! Thank you.

Danny is leaving on a three week trip with a bunch of other missionary friends. They are going into the most distant and beautiful parts of Bolivia to see them and to discover new places where new projects can be started. Please pray the Lord will protect them and bless them with amazing sights and people they will encounter along the way. Also pray there will be enough fuel for their motorcycles and truck. And last but not least pray for all of us moms and wives who stay behind raising our children!

Some friends and I want to start a halfway house-refuge. There is a wonderful opportunity for us to partner up with some guys who are starting a big ministry called “El Candelero” which will involve a coffee house, a counselling center, a pregnancy crisis center, a conference center and a half way house/ refuge place! They are in the process of raising money and so far I feel like this would be ideal! The thing is, it would take about 2 years to raise all the money for this. Danny and I feel that the need for a half way house is now! So, while he is gone on his trip, I will be meeting with this couple, the Friths (the ones starting El Candelero, which means the light holder), and they are going to help me put the proposal together! Please support us with prayer during this time. So that the Lord will appoint the right people for this ministry, such as: board members and house coordinators. Also pray that we will be able to find someone who will be willing to celebrate birthdays for the Talita Cumi children since I will be pulling out of all the other ministries so that I can continue to be a wife and mom (#1 ministry).

Our children are doing great! We are very excited because Nathaniel is coming here for Christmas and we are all just dying to see him. He has been homeschooling and riding his bicycle all over Lexington, not interested in buying a car at all! Luciana is doing great at school and at home, she is so grown up and beautiful. She has also become a really good soccer player, she is very fast we are trying to convince her to run track but she won’t do it! Isaiah is reading a lot! And he is still very cute! It is so hard to see our children as growing up human beings and not as babies any more. Isaiah is extremely laid back just like his dad!

Danny and I are doing great (doesn’t mean perfect!) We try to keep our time with each other a priority and I am so very much in love with him. I am trying to focus on health rather than worrying so I exercise regularly and rest enough. I recently read “The Shack” and although I found it very difficult to read and understand sometimes. There are lots of things in it that have made me long for time with God alone! I just want to be held by Him!

I miss you so much I pray that we will be able to see you again soon. Until then I pray the Lord will protect your heart and your life. That He will heal you and show you grace!
Lots of love,
Vanessa (for all the Beams)

Daniel and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM -- Casilla 3740 -- Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com
Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Newsletter Signup

2008-10-26T13:45:00.000-04:00

Out There with the Beams – September 2008

2008-10-02T20:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Family and Friends,

I think it has been a tough month for everyone in North and South America. We are closely watching the news about hurricanes and financial crises up north and are praying for all of you that are affected in one way or another. If you have watched the international news lately you may also be aware that Bolivia, and specifically Santa Cruz, has been suffering through a good bit of political tension and turmoil over the past month.

I don’t want to delve too deeply into the details, but for a number of years now the department of Santa Cruz and three other eastern departments have wanted greater autonomy from the central government in La Paz. Since the election of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, many non-indigenous Bolivians in eastern Bolivia have rebelled against MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo – Socialist Movement) government reforms and attempts to redistribute wealth in Bolivia through agrarian reforms and nationalization of the oil and gas industry. The politics are not at all transparent, nor is there much honestly or good will on either side. Add to that, strained relations with the U.S. government, and it all adds up to daily tension, turmoil and occasional violence in the streets of Santa Cruz. Several weeks ago the Autonomista provincial government in Santa Cruz took control over several dozen federal institutions in the city of Santa Cruz. A number offices and pro-indigenous institutions were looted and burned. We certainly did not venture down town from a couple of weeks, but from what we saw on the local news it looked like a regular war zone. Pro-government indigenous supporters came down from Cochabamba and La Paz and surrounded the city for several weeks. As many as 20,000 people blocked off all the highways leading into and out of Santa Cruz. They threatened to march on the city if the government offices were not returned. Food prices soared and fuel cars and buses became scarce. Several dozen people were killed in clashes between opposing groups.

To shorten the story, the occupied offices were returned to the government, the blockades have been lifted and life has returned pretty much to normal. The MAS government and the eastern provinces seeking autonomy are now in talks, and are trying to make compromises in the new constitution that will be agreeable to all parties. The president wants to bring the new constitution before the people for a national vote on December 7th. In the mist of all this, Evo Morales accused the U.S. Ambassador of collaborating with the opposition in an attempt to overthrow the government, so he kicked him out of the country. During all of this turmoil, the U.S. embassy and consulates were closed, and international flights cancelled.

While life in Santa Cruz is a bit stressful, and a few mission organizations have decided to pull out their missionaries, we are staying for now and hoping that everyone calms down and thinks about the true devastation that civil war could bring to Bolivia. Our water well drilling project was pretty much shut down during the blockades and protests, but now that the highways are clear again, we are leaving tomorrow morning (Oct 2nd) on a mission trip with our local church, Trinity International, to drill water wells in a Yuqui Indian village on the Chimore River. Please pray for our success and safety on this trip. Pray also for a mission team from Crossroads Christian, our home church in Kentucky, scheduled to come down on a well drilling trip at the end of October. I think everyone involved would be awfully disappointed if we had to cancel this trip. But above all, pray for peace and unity in Bolivia. The racial tension between the indigenous western half (the Collas) and “white” eastern half of Bolivia (the Cambas) is centuries old and deeply entrenched, thus making political conflict extremely difficult to resolve.

Thank you for your continued support of our ministry here in Bolivia. It is so exciting to see how God is working in our lives and in the lives of Bolivians around us. I don’t think spiritual transformation happens to a country overnight, but rather it happens in individuals lives one at a time. We pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to transform people here from the inside out and that we can be a part of that.

As you may have noticed, we are changing how we collect support for our ministry. If you are still sending support through Owingsville Baptist in Kentucky, we are now asking you to please send your support either through the EFCA (Evangelical Free Church of America) or directly through the EFCCM (Evangelical Free Church of Canada Mission). The details of this transition are outlined below. If you would like your gift to go specifically to the water well drilling project or the girl’s halfway house, please let us know.

Blessings,
Danny

Daniel and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM -- Casilla 3740 -- Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com
Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Out There with the Beams – August 2008

2008-09-01T20:12:00.000-04:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Hi! This is Vanessa writing this month and I want to share with you about our family and kids. Nathaniel is back in KY and he is being homeschooling this year for grade 11th (first time ever!). He is working at a bicycle shop and has been riding his bicycle for at least forty miles a day!! Isn’t that incredible?? I don’t know what that kid is made out of! But I am really proud of him and miss him lots.
Luciana, my baby girl, is now in grade 8! Can you believe it? I keep on thinking and saying she is in 6th or 7th! She also doing wonderful already. She is also more serious about playing soccer and she scored her first goal last week! It was beautiful! And both Danny and I were there to scream and jump up and cry! Lucy is also going to start guitar lessons with a friend from our mission. Isaiah (a.k.a. Ishi) is loving first grade and doing homework. He is getting along much better with all his friends and loves to read and be read to everyday. He has started the year with lots of energy. This is the first time he has to go to school from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. and when he gets home he doesn’t even want to take a nap. Thank you for praying for our kids! That alone is worth so much for us. If you have been praying for them, for the protection of their bodies and souls, please keep doing so. It does make a huge difference.

Danny and I are doing great. He is really busy getting a work team ready to go back to the Yuqui village next week. A lot of men from our church are going. They are going to drill a well for the national missionary family that lives out there. Our goal is to strengthen them and encourage them, so that they can provide a good example of agricultural and spiritual development. Later, they will also drill wells for the Yuqui.
The team will be gone from Sept. 8th to the 13th. Please pray for good weather and also for protection on the road and while at the camp. Also please pray the cars will be safe. Since they will have to park the vehicles and do the last hour of the trip by boat. The boats are these huge dugout canoes! So now that I think about it, please also pray for safety during the river trip.
I know I always get attacked by this terrible fear every time the Lord calls us to something outside our comfort zone! But He has been so good in helping with that by providing me with a husband who looks at everything as a wonderful opportunity for adventure! And I can tell you honestly I have never been let down by Jesus even when circumstances have been overwhelming and scary. He has always given us a way out!

I need prayer for my foot. I am laughing as I write this because it sounds funny! But really I think I have broken a little bone in my foot and it hurts a lot! I think if the doctor says I can’t do aerobics or wear high heels I will be a little depressed but I will find a way to continue to exercise and stay in shape. Other than that I feel great physically. Not so much emotionally. I have recently found out that three really close friends of mine were also sexually abused when they were young. News like that send me back into a dark pit sometimes. Please pray for my old wounds to continue to heal. Pray for the Lord to do a huge miracle and give me amazing grace, courage and forgiveness and please pray for my friends. Although you do not know who they are, God does, right? All three are amazing Christian women, who lead other women to follow Jesus daily. Pray for strength and healing! I have been really busy organizing the children’s ministry at our church here in Bolivia. Also translating our mission’s Child Protection Policies into Spanish so we can train our workers. But guess what, a virus attacked our computer last week! Frustrating!

Danny and I have decided to start the girls half-way house ministry by renting a house so that the girls who need to move in there will have a place soon. But of course it sounds easy to do but is not really that easy in practice. I need your help to pray that the Lord will show us a group of people who could become the board of directors for this new project. That way when we are no longer here the half-way house/coffee house will continue without us! After that, we will need to find a Christian couple who would be willing to live with the girls and just monitor the activity around the house. And as always, please pray for the Holy Spirit to just take over these girl’s hearts! Pray for healing and an unbreakable faith to believe in Jesus when He tells them that He loves them! Abuse can be so tricky, although it could have taken place many years ago, it holds us prisoner at crucial times in our lives, even after we know Jesus. Pray for Jesus to break the cycle in our girls’ lives and in mine! If you have ever gone through something similar. And if you are ready I would love to know, just so I can pray for you and in a weird way be closer to you in Jesus!

Really good news—Fernando (one of our Water project’s workers) received Jesus today! Please pray for him and his new life. Danny and Warren (a fellow missionary from our mission) get together with the project’s workers and have a Spanish Bible study every Monday morning. I will give you their names so you can pray for them whenever you can; Danny, Warren, Marcos, Carlos, Fernando, Steve and Rodrigo.

Here are some names of girls that I think would really benefit from a half way house: Estela, Gabriela, Ana Maria, Gaby, Betty, Viviana, Teresa and Teofila. Please pray for these beautiful sweet girls.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our letters every month. You bless us every time you read them and pray for us! Also, thank you for all your contributions that make our life here in Bolivia possible! And remember that if you need to come hang out in South America our doors are wide open for you!

Lots of love from all the Beams,

Vanessa

Daniel and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM -- Casilla 3740 -- Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com
Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Pictures of the Yuqui in Bia Recuate

2008-08-15T17:30:00.002-04:00

Here are several images from our recent trip to visit with the Yuqui in Bia Recuate. To see more on my photo gallery click on the above title bar.

Out There with the Beams -- July 2008

2008-08-15T17:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Okay, I know it isn’t July anymore, but this is still our July newsletter. We have been super busy with teams and visitors all summer. Now that our kids have returned to school things are starting to get back to routine. We had a fantastic week with a huge (28 people) Crossroads Christian Church mission team in July. If felt like the whole church had come to help with our ministry here in Bolivia. I just want to thank them again for coming and to thank all of our Crossroads family for supporting us so much in our ministry here. And while I am at it—thanks to everyone who prays for us and supports us. We have been overwhelmed this year with the interest in and support of work by our partners all over North and South America. The Crossroads team worked on three different fronts while they were here. One group finished the interior work on a Bakery/Café at the Cristo Viene girls home here in Santa Cruz, a second group of two doctors and assistants held five days of health clinics in churches and orphanages around Santa Cruz. They attended several hundred patients per day. And finally, a third group built a storage room and some shelving and work benches at our water well drilling workshop here in town. You can see pictures of the team’s visit at: www.pbase.com/beamsclan/ccc0708.

During the medical clinic we met a New Tribes missionary from Santa Cruz, Steve Parker, who came to Bolivia in 1982 to share Christ with the Yuquí, a group of indigenous hunters and gatherers who lived in the tropical forests of eastern Bolivia and who had had very little contact with the outside world. He shared with us that in 1985 he and two other missionaries attempted to befriend a group of previously uncontacted Yuquí on the Rio Víbora. He thought things were going well. They spent the night near their jungle camp and where invited to go on a hunting excursion early the next morning. While on the trail, the Yuquí shot a six foot arrow through his back, which punctured his lung and came out the front of his chest. I don’t have the space to recount the whole story, but he did survive the attack and went on to work with the Yuquí Indians for many years afterwards. The man who shot him also came to know the Lord before he died of tuberculosis several years later. Through our conversations with Steve, I found out that all the Yuquí now live in a community founded by the New Tribes mission called Bía Recuaté.

In Bía Recuaté, they do not have any clean drinking water. They drink from the river, collect rain water, or drink from a contaminated shallow well. Since we are in the business of drilling wells, I and three friends traveled to Bía Recuaté to meet, Mariano and Leonarda, Bolivian national missionaries living and working among the Yuquí, and to see if we could drill a well or two. It would be an understatement to say we were shocked to see the conditions in which the Yuquí are living in Bía Recuaté. The poverty and their social and political context within larger Bolivia is complicated and difficult to sort out. As well as sharing the Gospel, New Tribes and other Christian and secular organizations have tried for decades to help the Yuquí adjust to living as citizens within a connected Bolivia—to protect them as a culture and people group, to educate them, to address health issues, and to help them earn a living within economic reality of Bolivia today. If you take a look at my photos from the trip (http://www.pbase.com/beamsclan/yuqui), you may question the effectiveness of any contact or intervention over the past 40 years. Many of them live in houses without walls, or just under plastic tarps. They cook fish or an occasionally monkey over wood fires. Their yards are littered with discarded tattered clothes and toys that have been given to them by many well meaning mission teams. With the money they earn from selling bows and arrows, or hand woven bags to tourists, they buy cookies and soda for their kids.

The Yuquis may be on the verge of extinction. In the last two years the number of families has fallen from 70 to 52. There are currently only about 215 people who still speak their language, a dialect of Guarani. In the last year alone 20 people have died from pulmonary mycosis, a fungal lung infection. 115 people are currently receiving treatment for this disease.

We are going back in September to drill a well with a mission team from our Bolivian church, Trinity Union. We hope to establish a working relationship with the local missionaries and with the Yuqui people that will share God’s love and help them overcome their social and economic struggles.

We also visited two other indigenous communities of Yuracaré on the Chimoré River who need clean drinking water as well. So pray for us as we strive to bring clean water and share Christ with these people.

On a technical note, we are changing how our partners make donations to our ministry. My Dad retired as pastor of Owingsville Baptist, so now we are asking that supporters send contributions to the EFCCM through our sister organization in the U.S., the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA). This will insure that our U.S. supporters receive tax receipt. The lower portion of this email has the new address and details. We will also continue receiving donations made through Owingsville Baptist through the end of the year.

Thank you so much for your prayers, support, and encouraging words.

Blessings,

Danny

Daniel and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM -- Casilla 3740 -- Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com
Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Out There with the Beams -- June 2008

2008-07-01T16:17:00.000-04:00

Hi Folks, Do higher gas prices have you down this summer? Well you can still buy a gallon of gasoline for about $2 here in Bolivia. Just thought you would like to know.

We trust you are having a wonderful summer. We have had a great time hosting teams and visitors from back home over the past month or so. A team from Brazos Pointe, my brother’s church in Lake Jackson, TX, came down and helped drill water wells in several rural communities near Yapacani. We had a great week and completed three wells. The team even stayed up and worked almost all night to complete the last one. On our return trip to Santa Cruz we were caught behind a political road block that prevented us from driving back to Santa Cruz. At first we attempted to drive “the long way around” through Cochabamba, but all the gas stations were out of gasoline and we could not have made it around the 20 hour detour. We spent an extra night in Buena Vista and the following day we tried to drive our rented bus over some slippery mountain roads that went around the road block. On each climb everyone had to get off the bus and help push it up the slick clay. After about 6 hours of pushing and pulling the bus the 40 miles to Santa Cruz, we finally made to back to civilization. That was one trip we will not soon forget.

At the end of this week we will be hosting a team from our home church, Crossroads Christian, in Lexington, KY. Pray for this team as 28 people are coming to work on three different projects. One group will complete construction and decorating of a bakery/coffee shop at the Cristo Viene girls home here in Santa Cruz. The older girls in this home have learned how to make bagels and other baked goods and will soon be opening this coffee shop to the public. A second team of doctors will host several medical clinics in neighbourhoods around the city. Each clinic will be hosted and assisted by a local church. Church members will invite neighbors to the clinic and it will be a great opportunity to share Christ with those who participate. Finally, a third group will help with several construction projects at our water well drilling workshop and training center.

So pray that this team has a great impact on the people they are serving this next week and that each member of the team carries home with them a greater appreciation for mission and for what God is doing around the world.

Also continue to pray for a number of the older girls who have recently left Talita Cumi and Cristo Viene. Especially for Vilma, Shirley, and Lily. Vanessa is excited about her vision for a halfway house and coffee shop where a number of the older girls can live and work after they leave the orphanages. We are starting to raise funds for this project so if you would like to contribute to this or want to know more about it, please let us know.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support of our work here in Bolivia. We have been here over four years now and we love being the hands and feet of Jesus here in Santa Cruz. We could not do it without you all at home supporting us as well. If you haven’t already done so, please consider making a monthly pledge to support our efforts. I know there are many pressing financial needs at home, but sacrificially giving to God’s work will pay a higher return than any earthly investment.

Blessings,
Danny

Daniel and Vanessa Beams EFCCM -- Casilla 3740 -- Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Out There with the Beams -- May 2008

2008-05-23T00:26:00.001-04:00

Dear Family and Friends, It is so much fun to be able to communicate with all of you. Especially because I know that you guys are always reading our letters and praying for us. We have started a very busy but at the same time very fun time of the year. So far it looks like we will be hosting four missionary teams and several friends are also coming to visit!!! We are all excited and can’t wait to see you, hug you, and take you out for some good Bolivian food! I hope each one of you all is doing great and enjoying the beautiful season! We love hearing from you and praying for you. I always feel like we are covering each other’s backs when you guys let us know how we can pray for you all. As I write this letter, Danny is frantically trying to pack for a mountain trip he and Nathaniel are taking together as a special time before Nathaniel has to go back to the US for a whole school year. Please pray for them, for safety and fun. Also pray for all five of us as we again have to say good bye. Today was also Nathaniel’s and Luciana’s last day of school. Isaiah has officially graduated from Kindergarten. He is not very excited about first grade, instead he wishes to go back to KY. I think this is due to some comment about the new principal being really mean (not true). Thank you so much for praying for our kids. We are very proud of them, we are proud of the people they are in and outside the school. Nathaniel is now a Junior, Luciana is an 8th grader and Isaiah a 1st grader. Wow! Time flies! During the time that Nathaniel and Danny are gone. I will be working as an interpreter for a wonderful lady called Bernadette Todd. She has a very touching testimony about the healing power of God. She is from Jamaica. We will be going to the local jail (men’s and women’s), also to a factory, a couple schools, three churches and several ladies meetings. My two other kids will be home with a sitter. So please pray for them and for me as we pull through this coming ten days. Right after Nathaniel leaves we will be getting our first team and heading for the jungle to drill some wells. I will be cooking because I still don’t know how to drill wells and to be honest with you I don’t really enjoy playing in the mud! My dear friend Erna Friesen and I have a dream. We have felt and seen a huge need for a half way house for girls who are too old to stay in the orphanages but not totally ready to get out into the world on their own. This is the dream: To somehow purchase or rent a building in a good central location where we could use the first floor as a coffee house and a big apartment on the second floor where about three to six girls could live with a couple of house parents. Erna is a wonderful chef. So she would train the girls in culinary arts while I would in managing and dealing with clients. The girls would have to attend a technical school and work at the coffee shop, pay rent and pay for their own food while they have a safe place to come home to. Through this project the Lord would also be providing a really cool and safe place where both Christian and non Christian youth could hang out without having smoke blown in their faces (hard to find here in Santa Cruz). We would have games, books, ping pong, yummy foods and snacks…I even thought of some dancing classes with Christian music of course. And of course we would link all the people who came here to our church that will be by then bilingual. As you can tell I am really excited! That’s it so far. I am sure there is a lot more to it. Erna is going to Canada on furlough for six months so we (us and all of you) have that time to pray, plan and pray again! Two other ladies from our mission have a very successful coffee house in Tarija, another city in Bolivia, that would serve as a model for ours. So the first step would be to visit Tarija as soon as Erna gets back. I better let her know! I know that I can always count on your prayers so here are some requests:Please pray for the safety and protection of all the people who are coming here to work with us.Please pray for Danny and Nathaniel on their trip.Lift up Nathaniel as he readjusts to the USLift Luciana and Isaiah when the miss their big brother.Pray for Lily, Fernanda and Shirley. All three of them have recently made really poor choices which the Lord has used to show me the huge need of a half way house!Pray for Bernadette and I as we share her testimony. And for the Lord to open the hearts of those who are not safe yet who will hear her message.Pray for protection for our family in general ( traffic, robberies, etc)Pray for our friends Lucy and Pedro who are going through really tough times in their lives right now.Pray for the coffee house dream to come true! Thank you so much for your faithful support of our ministry. We could not be hear without you all backing us up. We are still a somewhat short of meeting our budget each month. If you would like to make a monthly pledge or send a one time gift to help support our ministry, please print out the appropriate attachment and send a check to our mission office. Blessings,Vanessa Daniel and Vanessa Beams EFCCM -- Casilla 3740 -- Santa Cruz, BoliviaEmail: beamsclan@yahoo.comBolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.comPhoto Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Ayore in Pozo Verde

2008-05-06T21:04:00.001-04:00

Here are a couple of pics of an Ayore girl from Pozo Verde.

Out There with the Beams -- April 2008

2008-04-30T21:02:00.001-04:00

Dear Family and Friends,

I would like to relate an experience I had while out drilling a water well yesterday in a community of Ayoreo Indians a couple of hours from Santa Cruz. This tale is a bit longer that what I usually share, but please take the time to read this. We want our supporters and ministry partners to understand the reality of life in Bolivia so they will know how to pray for the people of Bolivia.

This week we are working alongside, Charles and Hannah, friends and fellow missionaries from SAM (South American Mission) who have a ministry with the Ayoreo Indians in the community of Pozo Verde. We are drilling a water well for a national missionary couple, Cesar and Myrtha, who live in the village and who and pastor the local evangelical church. This was my first time in an Ayore village. While I was at first shocked by the humble and filthy living conditions (mud and stick huts with tin roofs and dirt yards full of trash), what truly disturbed me was the story of cultural bankruptcy—I don’t know what else to call it— that Hannah shared with me later.

Although not many tourists end up in Pozo Verde, which is quite a ways down a dusty bumpy dirt road, the local women and girls quickly find any visitors and offer to sell them hand woven bags made from the fiber of cactus plants. Although they all dress in Western style clothes, the Ayore have distinct facial features that set them apart from their Quechua and German Mennonite neighbors. The children are extremely cute with big round faces and sparkling eyes. They chat excitedly among each other in their own language, of which I do not understand a word. The kids practically mobbed Hannah as she taught them a Bible story and let them color a hand-out depicting the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den. Because of the hard life in the hot scrub country where they live, the adults, especially the women, age quickly. Women in their thirties and forties are already grandmothers, and they look like they are in their fifties and sixties. I noticed that several of the community elders had fingers twisted and curled with arthritis. One of the older men in the community, and an elder in the church, was permanently crippled from a jaguar attack. Yes, there are jaguars here in the bushes.

There used to be about thirty-five families living in the Pozo Verde, but now there are only twenty-two. Yesterday most of the men were absent from the village because they were out cutting sugar cane on the large plantations several hours to the east. They will probably be gone several weeks, just long enough to get a little money in their pocket. The women and older men stay at home in the village to take care of the kids.

I read that there are currently about five thousand Ayore Indians in Bolivia. They have traditionally occupied the Gran Chaco area of southern Bolivia and Paraguay. This is a hot dry scrub brush country that is sparsely uninhabited because of its inaccessibility. The best lands of the Ayore have been settled Bolivian and German immigrants over the past fifty years. Large tracts of Ayore land have been designated for German Mennonite farmers and as well for highland Quechua Indians who are leaving poor soils of the Altiplano and coming to Eastern Bolivia to start a new life. Before these settlement schemes began, the traditional territory of the Ayoreo in this area covered hundreds of thousands of acres. Now the Ayore of Pozo Verde are confined to an reserve of only about 3000 acres. They have been living in Pozo Verde for about forty years now. Traditionally the Ayore were nomadic hunters and gatherers who moved their villages depending on the seasons and the abundance of game. Evangelical missionaries first attempted to contact the Ayore in the early 1940s when a group of five missionary men went deep into their territory near Robore, Bolivia. They attempted to befriend the Indians by leaving gifts for them in their camps. The missionaries never came back out of the forest. Their families finally learned in 1950 that all the men had been murdered because one particular Ayore didn’t like his gift.

Over the past fifty years the Ayore have either come to live in settlements on the periphery of Bolivian society or they have moved deeper into the bush to avoid all contact with the outside world. As recently as 2004 a group of seventeen previously uncontacted Ayore came out of the bush. They said they could no longer survive in their traditional way because ranchers have encroached on their territory and taken control of all of the water sources for their cattle. It is probably a safe assumption that these were the last of the “wild and free” Ayore Indians.

Although the Ayore in Pozo Verde appear “poor but happy” on the surface, a darker sadder reality surfaces as you begin to understand more about their culture. The men continue to hunt and fish—this is a big part of their identity. They also raise some livestock and farm a bit. Although farming is not an activity they particularly excel at or put much effort into. Most men only work enough to earn a little money to buy food for the day or week and do not think about a better or more secure future. As Hannah explains it, the women are the dominant leaders in the family. They control the men, the children, and the finances. Women sit around for many hours each day weaving the rough fiber hand bags they sell at the tourist shops in Santa Cruz. After sending a month working on one bag, they might be able to sell it for about 50 bolivianos (equivalent to $7.00 US). Because this is not enough to live on, the women have begun going into the regional town of Pailon to sell their services as prostitutes. Hannah estimates that 90% of the women in Pozo Verde work as prostitutes. Mothers even take their daughters to town when they are 13 or 14 and introduce them to the business. Women continue in the sex trade well into their fifties. Working as prostitutes, women can earn as much in one hour as they might earn in a month or more weaving baskets. I assume the men tolerate this practice because the women bring home a fist full of cash. Hannah said that if the husbands complained the women would abandon them. Although the practice is not discussed in the village, everyone knows what is going on. It is like the big white elephant standing in the middle of the room that no one wants to talk about. Hannah said the girls will often get their clients drunk and then steal their wallets. Several weeks ago a Mennonite boy came into the village looking for his wallet. The men and boys of the village came out of their houses and beat the living-day-lights out of him. He went home empty handed.

Needless to say, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, abortion, and child abuse are all rampant in the community. So is drug and alcohol abuse. On my walk around the community I saw discarded plastic bottles of rubbing alcohol and cans of rubber cement. Yes, they drink rubbing alcohol and sniff glue.
So now I think you understand why I used the term “cultural bankruptcy” to describe the Ayoreo Indians. It is hard to point a finger at any one thing and say “this caused their problems.” Certainly the loss of their traditional lands and the loss of their cultural identity has a lot to do with who they are today. But they have to take some of the blame well. If you don’t count the emotional scaring across generations, prostitution is certainly an easy way out of a bad situation. Then again, you cannot blame children who are forced into prostitution by their parents. The cycle of abuse and depravation perpetuates itself. The only hope I see is though grace and truth of Christ. Although there is an evangelical church in Pozo Verde and many Ayore claim to believe in the truth of the Bible, they continue in the same patterns of sinful behavior.

Pray for true spiritual transformation in the lives of the Ayore in this community. Pray that Cesar and Myrtha can lead the church towards renewal and spiritual growth.

We hope to continue drilling water wells and sharing our faith in this community. After we finish the well at the missionaries home we plan on drilling some other wells with several of the Ayore men who have shown an interest in putting in some wells for their livestock and garden plots. Pray that we can make a positive spiritual, social and material impact in Pozo Verde.

Thanks so much for your partnership with our ministry in Bolivia. We appreciate your faithfulness in praying for and supporting this work. We love hearing from you, so please write when you get a chance.

Blessings,

Danny

P.S. If you would like to see some pictures of Pozo Verde, please visit our photo gallery at: http://www.pbase.com/beamsclan/sanjulian. I have a couple of pictures up already, and I will have a few more in the coming days.

Daniel and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM
Casilla 3740
Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com
Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan

Barrio Nueva Esperanza

2008-04-23T17:19:00.001-04:00

Click on this link -- Barrio Nueva Esperanza -- to see a gallery of pictures from our recent work in this refugee community near the town of Cuatro Canadas, about 3 hours from Santa Cruz.

Mennonites in the Market

2008-04-23T00:01:00.003-04:00

I went out with Rudy Friessen yesterday to take picture of Mennonites in the Los Pozos market here in Santa Cruz. Click on the title to see a few more pics. Rudy and Erna wanted some pictures of the Mennonites in the market to take back with them on furlough to Canada. I was a little concerned that they might get upset with me taking candid pictures. But I didn't have any trouble and we had some good conversations with several of them.

Out There with the Beams -- March 2008

2008-03-31T17:33:00.000-04:00

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello from Santa Cruz-Bolivia. This is a special letter because Danny is dictating to Vanessa due to a broken hand which happened last Thursday at a well site. Praise the Lord he is fine and does not need surgery at the moment although he is not able to type, drive, write, ride his bike, tie his shoes, button his shirts or spank our kids for the next six weeks. He needs me and I love it!

We have enjoyed working in the community of Nueva Esperanza this last month where we have drilled three water wells and are helping get a church started. Nueva Esperanza is a community of about 120 families of flood victims from flooding in 2006. They all come from nine different rural communities along the Rio Grande River where they were all peasant farmers. The flood waters took away their homes, animals, crops, schools and churches. The town of Cuartro Canadas gave them some land to build a new community, but these are only small lots so they cannot continue to farm for a living. Each family has been given a small garden plot, but these are not nearly big enough to support a family. Several have tried to return to their flooded farms to begin planting again but the old communities flooded again this year. Most men are now having to spend weeks or months away from their families looking for wage labor jobs on big farms or in the cities. They first lived in tents but soon built one room wooden structures. Now through the help of a Spanish charity they are building small brick homes. They hope to soon have electricity and water in each house. Nueva Esperanza is now overflowing with kids. The new elementary school has 180 students. They do have a nice health post (where the nurse took care of my broken hand). And now an older gentleman named Juan, is meeting with a group of believers in his house. They will soon begin construction on a church on the plot of land we bought with a donation from a Bible study group of some faithful supporters in Texas. We were also able to pay for the wells with several designated gifts from supporters in Canada. This is truly a team effort. If you would like to see some pictures from the community and the work please visit our photo galleries at http://www.pbase.com/beamsclan/nueva_esperanza. I will continue to add to the gallery as the work continues.

Prayer Concerns

Our EFCCM mission family is meeting this week in a conference (April 9-12) with a team of directors and staff from the home office in Canada. Pray for a great time of sharing, planning and spiritual renewal.

Two volunteers are in Santa Cruz this month learning to drill water wells using the manual percussion method. Jake is well driller from Canada, and Mario is a mission volunteer from Sonora, Mexico. Pray that these men can use these skills to provide water and spiritual enlightenment for thirsty people around the world.

Continue to pray for the girls that Vanessa is working closely with, especially Fernanda, Shirley, and Lily who are all leaving the shelter of the Cristo Viene home and beginning to live on their own and to make critical decisions about the direction of their future.

Danny’s grandmother, Margaret Beams, passed away last week in Texas. Pray for his family as they grieve this lose. His grandfather, Blackie, passed away a little over a year ago. Both Margaret and Blackie were wonderful grandparents and were such an encouragement to me through their examples of Christian commitment, love, and courage. I am so glad they have now been reunited in heaven, but I will miss them dearly here on this planet.

Blessings,

Danny

Daniel and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM
Casilla 3740
Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com
Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan