Life on the island

You know you have lived on a tropical island for a year when... 
you wake up and it's 77 degrees out and everyone in your family is desperately searching for long sleeve clothing. Your seven year old tells you she can not wear pants cause they are to restricting.
and  your three year old thinks socks are the best thing ever. (he doesn't remember ever having to wear them)

House update: We have officially moved into our house! Typing this to you cannot accurately express my excitement. I am thankful to have the majority of the work done, and look forward to the honey-do list of small jobs we still have to tackle.


October 30th marks one year of living in Bocachica. As I reflect on all the memories I have, I thank the Lord for all he has taught me! I have seen my family grow in so many ways. We could not be here with out your help! Please know we are very thankful for each one of you who support us monthly, and for all of you who continue to lift our family up in prayers! We remember you all in our prayers often.

I am please to let you know Guillermo, (in the blue) our friend, has accepted the Lord into his life. We are excited
to see seeds that have been planted grow.

Please pray as he learns how to be a Godly leader of his
family and they too would give their lives to the Lord.

Please continue to pray for our friend Jaime. He asks many questions about becoming a Christian, however has not taking the step to do so! I am thankful for his honesty & openness, but I pray he will see the light and desire to become one of His.

Exciting news here on the island. Nate has researched a certain type of water filter for a couple of years now. It's a BioSand  water filter. Nate had this water filter made in Bogota that is now done and is here in Bocachica. We are hoping to assemble one in the next coming weeks. In Bocachica most people do not drink purified water. Most locals here can not afford a filter or the replacement it needs every 3-6 months.  This BioSand filter system uses mainly natural materials, is affordable easily reproduced, and doesn't use any energy and it can last as long as 10 years. This is a huge need here on the island. Parasites is one of the most common treated illnesses here on the island. Think in the year 2012 and people here are getting sick from something as simple to the lack of pure water. If you would like to donate to this project please let us know!

We were thrilled to have our friends Nathan and Julie Heafner from our church visit us on Oct 8th. They took a cruise which had a stop in Cartagena for 6 hours. They choose to spend that time visiting us! Top it off all of their luggage they brought was goodies for the islanders and our family. It is always hard to say goodbye, but the time was so special! 

I thought we would share with you what our days look like here on the island.

We are constantly busy! From Nate doing maintenance at the mission to helping out the locals with work on their houses. Electrical and plumbing seem to be the top requests.

I have started school with the kids. Many times I think to myself I am blessed to have this quality time with them!

We also are cooking up a storm here on the island. Adults to children love to cook with us.  They enjoy looking at our cookbooks and trying new things. Most common requests are pizzas, cakes and cookies. The families buy/ or pay for the ingredients and we all assemble together. Most people here on the island only have stove tops or charcoal cookers. Ovens are not common here in Bocachica. Another interest of ours is to make brick ovens here on the island. Not only will this help save cost on the charcoal they buy weekly, but this will also allow for healthier eating as well. People here fry, fry, fry.

We are also busy with English classes at our house for the locals.

Nate has had some opportunities to preach at the local community bible study held at the mission Thursday nights. He has enjoyed this time and we pray more opportunities come for him to do more.

One of my favorite things to do here in Bocachica is to fellowship with the locals. Weather we are walking down the street and being invited in to someones home or opening our house up to the many visitors who come to see us. This time I cherish. I am thankful for and love to see how our relationships with the locals here are enriched.

Prayer needs:
Please pray for us as we get our water filter system up and running and funding to help support this
project.
Our house as we get things organized.
The kids and their school work.
The electrical would get finalized at our house. 

How can you help support us? 
You can make tax deductible checks payable to:
Antioch Community Church
P.O. Box 40
Elon, NC. 27244
(write Colombia in the memo line)

Blessings to you all,
With love,
The Ariels

Water filter!

   We are moved into the house, that is a praise report! There are still a lot of unfinished details, and one of those is we have to walk a good ways to get pure water. Someone then has to haul it back, and it is all up hill. Yes, this will be one of those grandpa stories about the old days of walking a quarter mile just to get a glass of clean water, and by then it will be uphill both ways.

 The way down

















The way back up

This soon could be history now that we have our form for a water filter. It is designed after the biofilters originally made by David Manz
http://www.manzwaterinfo.ca/index.htm. We hope to get started on this project in the coming weeks, and try it on ourselves first. This will open the opportunity to help provide clean water for others on the island here. The good things about this system is it uses mainly natural materials, is afforadable, easily reproduced, and doesn't use any energy.

One of the main health concerns here on the island is parasites, and this will make a difference in Bocachica! It's is hard to believe that in the year 2012 there are still people in the world without clean water.  If you would like to help us help those in need, please contact me on funding this project. Thank you to all of you who help out so much already.
Blessings
Nate

The house so far...

Here are some picture of the house, I know it has taken a while. The house is very unfinished, but livable, and about twice the size of where we were before. In total there is about 880 square feet, before we had about 450 square feet at the apartment.

 The view from the fort of our house

 The bathroom with the tub, the other bathroom
 is being used as the temporary kitchen

 The boys room with a triple bunk bed, they really like the bed...

 The living room is the our bed room for now.

 The girls' bedroom

 The outdoor kitchen, we still need to put up the mesh on the columns so we don't have night intruders

 The utilities area, with rain collection, eventually this will also be access to the roof.

 The front of the house, we still need the front shade put on, and the rock wall finished.

Thanks for checking out the picture update.