Wonder of Wonders! Miracles of Miracles!

Pictures are a huge part of a wedding, even in Bolivia. There are not many good cameras; most are camera phones. And I really blew it that day. My ‘good’ camera takes a long time to adjust in dark situations and it sucks up the battery. By the time the wedding was to start, the batteries were shot. I also have a point-and-shoot but it also takes a long time to focus. I felt terrible since Carlos and Roberta are good friends and I wanted good pictures for them. Thankfully, my friend, Marioly, had a camera that worked better in these conditions. I arranged all the people and she took the pictures. I had had many more creative shots in mind but with the rain and all the other little glitches, none of those happened. But we were happy with what we had. Marioly has a developing machine so she developed pictures that evening and sold them at the reception. Each picture was 10 bs. – I pay 1.5 bs. in Santa Cruz. People bought them and she made a good profit which she donated to the church in Yapacani. I arranged to come on Monday morning and transfer all the photos from her chip to my camera. But when I opened her camera there was no chip! She had no idea what had happened to it. It was not in the machine or she could not have closed it. They had developed a couple of pictures in the truck when they left our place. They stopped at the corner at the church and dropped off the photos. Then they proceeded back to Yapacani, stopping at all the places they had soy on the way back. There had been five or six stops in total. The chip could have fallen out of the truck anywhere!! I was sick! I had no photos of the Carlos and Roberta’s wedding. Yes, I had some but they were not the best quality. What would I do? Go back and tell them that there were no photos? How I dreaded that! We had things to do in Yapacani so we did not make it back to Patujusal until Thursday. All week I was fretting – and I was praying. “Please, Lord, let that chip be in Patujusal – and may it be usuable.” This was soy harvest season and the church corner is a busy place with all the tractors, wagons, trucks, and the bus coming and going every day. What chance would there be that a small camera chip would be on the road and still be usable. This chip was in a small case so that would offer some protection – but protection from a truck full of soy? We arrived at the corner in Patujusal at about noon on Thursday. Jake stepped out of the truck, took a couple of steps, bent over and picked up – the chip. A truck, maybe more than one, had driven over it and the case was well scratched so now the prayer only spoke about usability. I plugged the chip into the computer. YES! All the pictures were there. A miracle – and a prayer of thanksgiving.