Beautiful View in Caracas Venezuela

Here I am in Caracas, Venezuela. What do you think when you here the word "Caracas"? Do you think of poverty? Hugo Chavez? Socialism? This is only my second time to Venezuela, and I have to admit that I was a bit nervous/scared to travel here because of the "politcal issues" and the danger to American Citizens, due to anti-American sentiment, but so far I've had a positive experience. Granted I've been stuck in an office to this point in the trip reviewing expenses and dealing with property issues. But tomorrow night I will be travelling to Maturin, Venezuela to visit with National Church leaders and attend a church inaguaration on Sunday. I am looking forward to experiencing the more rural side of Venezuela. Even though we will be staying in a hotel in the city of Maturin, I will hopefully be able to visit a farm project where a LCMS missionary couple is working.

I'm staying at the mission office right now, which is also the house of Missionary Pastor Ted Krey. Pictured here:

I'm just getting to know Pastor Ted, but I think he is a good guy. He works really hard training young men to become missionary pastors. I met some of them the other night while eating homemade Hawaiian Pizza. We dug into God's Word and had great fellowship. A fun time was had by all.

Even though, things are going well here in Caracas, Heidi got sick the night that I left and went to the emergency room with a really severe headache. They gave her a morphine shot to take away the pain, and I told she had to stay home from work yesterday, which she did. From what I can tell when we spoke on the phone, she is feeling a lot better. I have to say I was a little upset that I was traveling when this happened. I wanted to be there for her. But our fellow missionaries in Panama, Arthur and Eva and Carissa took care of her. Thank you! I go back home on Wednesday, so I have a while before I get to see my family (Heidi and Sophie) again. Here is a picture so you can remember them too:

I will write more when I'm in Maturin, if internet is available! I hope you all have a blessed day!

Neither here or there

So today has been pretty uneventful, just good old data entry. I have enter in all the transactions that happen each month into this accounting program called DacEasy. It seems ancient, even though I just upgraded to the newest version! For my personal finances I use Microsoft Money. It's really helpful and keeps me on top of things. I don't have to remember account numbers to assign transactions or anything. But with the accounting software that I have to use for the mission; it just isn't user friendly. At the beginning I had to print off these 20 page booklet with all the different account numbers for each area/project/line item. What amazes me is that I don't even have the "Chart of Accounts" out on my desk anymore. I have every single account number memorized. So if you asked me what is the account number for Brazil's budget line item for the missionary training school, I would tell you.. "52100170 and don't forget to credit account number 411050 to show revenue received." Fun huh? It just makes me think about how amazing our brains are, that we can memorize things like sets of numbers. I can remember phone numbers for people I haven't spoken to in 10 years. Crazy.

It's been good to be home (Panama) for the last few weeks! But, I leave on Tuesday the 23rd for Venezuela and will be gone until Halloween. The trip to Venezuela will be quite long and there will be a lot of work. I haven't been there since February due to my other travels. I'll have to review all the books from February through October, redo their account numbering system, do an audit on Richard Ellis because of some problems we've had with them, and attend a church inauguration in western rural part of Venezuela! I'll be sure to take some pictures and hopefully post some on here. If not, they will be posted on my picasaweb site. http://picasaweb.google.com/jon.heisterkmp.


I think this is enough for now. Have a great day!

Can't Sleep

Well, I seem to have turned into an insomniac this last week or so. I can't seem to go to sleep until after 2 am in the morning. It makes me really tired for the day! I don't know what's wrong with me. Hopefully it passes soon, because there really isn't anything to watch on tv this time of night except for CNN Hong Kong! :)

Tomorrow, I have to start working on the budget for the next fiscal year which starts next July 1! I know, seems early right? Well it takes from now until July 1 to hash out any changes made to the next budget! It's a long process.

Right now, our mission in Latin America is going through some major transitions, too. Three missionary families will be returning to the states during the next 10 months. The face of World Mission in Latin America will be quite different a year from now with this change in personel.

Okay...well I'm going to try to sleep...pray that I will get good rest!

A new dawn

Hi everyone! This is my first official blog. I don't know how good I will be at keeping it up to date! I guess if I write as much as I look at everyone else's blogs it should be pretty darn updated! :)

Today I'm not feeling to well so I'm working from home. I'm suppose to be in a conference call right now, but there is something up with the technology. Go figure.

I'm actually home for a few weeks in a row now! Almost a whole month. Well, I'll write more soon!