The Lord's Teachings

I have now been in Trinidad for six weeks and three truths have stuck out to me:

• God is faithful
• God cares for His people
• God transcends boundaries

Ever since arriving the Lord has been so faithful to me in helping me to settle in to life here. I have been able to reestablish the relationships of those people I knew before and also made some new friends. My Spanish is surprising me more and more as I am beginning to understand morning devotionals, church sermons and am breaking through to the advanced levels of the language. I have received so many compliments on my Spanish and how my accent is so much better. I have formed close relationships with the leaders of the project. The Lord has even given me a little extra money I didn't count on that will be very beneficial in transforming the computer lab. I have also seen the Lord working in providing funding for both the new health center (under construction) and the new retreat center being built out at the Chaco.

I have also seen just this past week that God cares for His people. I shared briefly about a girl from the school who was hit by a car on her motorcycle and was hospitalized for a week. What I didn't tell you is that as soon as this girl was hit by the car, the driver took her and rushed her to the hospital. This is in a country where a lot of people would drive off so as not to be implicated. Then, at the hospital, the doctor on duty who performed the surgery to repair the tendon in this girl's foot, happened to be a young man who grew up going to La Palmera and had worked for awhile in the La Palmera health center. He immediately recognized this girl as a La Palmera student and worked hard and fast to repair the foot. Later as Lucho and I were talking to him, he said ten minutes later and the tendon would have been lost and the situation complicated. He was successful in repairing the foot, forty stitches and one week later she is now at home and healing. The other part of this is that normally doctors try and charge extra for their services, but the doctor said the family would only have to pay 200 Bs ($25) if the girl was found to be at fault, but if the driver was at fault then he would have to pay $200.

This past Saturday night, we had a festival for King's kids, a choreography group in the church. They invited all of the local churches to attend and perform worship songs, dramas, or something of the like, most of which attended. One of the churches got up and started singing this song and partway through, said to everyone that we are all worshiping the same God and we are all brothers and sisters in Christ and had everyone in the crowd stand and hold hands together as we sang the final part together. There were over 400 people there and it was an incredible sight. Lucho commented in his sermon yesterday that older people are sometimes a bit arrogant about their churches, but he was really struck that a young person would have the courage to ask everyone to come together and seek unity as Christians. What a welcoming sight for the coming generation.

It's been such a joy to be here thus far, I feel like I am really riding a big wave and the Lord is pushing me further and further along, closer and deeper into His presence.

Happy New Year!

Ok, ok, so it's not January 1. But down here, today begins the Andean New Year. This morning at the ancient Aymara ruins of Tihuanaco near La Paz, thousands of people gathered to celebrate. Legend has it that 5515 years ago, Enti, the supreme God of the Aymaras created Pachamama, the God of the earth. Today is also the summer/winter solstice (depending on which hemisphere you are in).

But aside from that little tidbit of Bolivian culture, things are going well at the project. Tuesday, I went with the Promo class (Seniors) to take food to some of the flooding victims in a village called Abacuya, about 1.5 hours from Trinidad. We left at 2pm and didn't return until 7pm, but on the way back we brought a whole truckload full of grapefruits, lemons, oranges and other fresh fruit that the boys from the Promo class picked at the property of a friend to the project.

Monday, one of the girls from Secondary 1 (9th grade) suffered a terrible accident on her motorcycle. She was hit by a car and some tendons in her right foot were severed and she was taken in an ambulance to the hospital. Amazingly, the doctor was able to surgically repair everything and she is now recovering, though still under observation at the hospital. It was really a state of the art surgery for Trinidad, as the hospital here is pretty primitive. You can pray for her recovery (her name is Bebicha). She is the daughter of one of our maintenance guys (Capa) and our primary 8 (8th grade) teacher (Lily). She is expected to make a full recovery, though it will be awhile.

Yesterday was an all day workshop for all of the teachers and staff here at the school. For that, Lucho shared a little bit about the history of the project, how his vision has changed over the years and he also shared a bit of his 2010 vision for the project. I was sad to hear he and Lorna are planning to finish their missionary careers in a few years, but it is time. The Bolivians they have been mentoring over the past 5-10+ years are doing a magnificent job and even now, the two of them are both involved only in an advisory role. It was amazing to hear how many blessings the Lord has bestowed upon this place over the past 25 years, and it has exceeded even Lucho's wildest dreams!

More adventures in Trinidad

There has been so much over the last week+. I took a leadership course last week for the AWANA-JV (called OANSA here), in Spanish of course, and somehow the Lord blessed me and I was able to understand and I passed the test with an 84%!!! So, I am now an official leader of OANSA-JV (youth group)! Hugo, who was the instructor for the course, said he was surprised I passed because he didn't think I understood everything (which is true, I understood about 80-90%) .

In other news, I got to drive the La Palmera microbus and take people to their homes after church on Sunday. Wouldn't you have liked to see me driving a bus around the streets of Trinidad (without a license of course)? So, I've now driven both a micro and a truck in Bolivia. Next up: a moto, and I'm getting one at the end of the month!! Everyone has been telling me I should get one, and I'm starting to see the benefit of it as I rarely have change for taxis and spend lots of time walking and sweating. They're a lot cheaper than I thought, which is part of the reason I'm doing it.

My first two professional Bolivian soccer games were both quite the experience. The local team, Real Mamore (which is currently in last place in their league) won the game last week 2-1 against a team from Santa Cruz (the Destroyers), but lost last night 2-3 to a team from Cochabamba (Aurora). After last night's game the fans were throwing empty bottles of soda and water at the refs and the police came up into the stands and were going to arrest some of the ones doing this. As you can imagine, there was quite a commotion in that part of the stadium (a fair distance from where I was sitting) as they were all trying to get out before they got stopped by the police. Ah, so is the life of Bolivian soccer fans . . .

Yesterday, our house was without power all day, we blew a fuse, and we were all busy, so we didn't have time to deal with it until yesterday evening. Thankfully, my friend MaryLynn, who we affectionately call the "house mother" took care of it for us.

And lastly, the string of cold weather is officially over . . .it was 102 degrees today (with a heat index of over 110 from the humidity)!!! So much for it being "winter". It's going to be a hot one tonight . . .

Holidays!

Well, it wouldn't be Bolivia without some holidays. This week there are only two days of school, yesterday and today. Monday was a holiday observing the Trinidad holiday which was this past weekend. Tomorrow is a national catholic holiday (Corpus Christie) and Friday the school is observing National Teacher's Day, which was today. So, I have a four day weekend!

Monday, I packed bags of food with Lucho, MaryLynn and one other guy from the church for the flood victims. We got a list of the families from one of the nearby communities and filled a bag for each family with different amounts accordingly. We gave them rice, sugar, flour, beans, pasta, coffee, hot chocolate and soap that is meant to last each family two weeks. It felt so good to be able to help out with this, that I was really making a difference. Yesterday, the pastor went with some of the older students and they distributed the bags to this community and the pastor gave a short message there.

This week, I'm taking a leaders course for the JV version of AWANA. It's all in Spanish, but I have been able to understand pretty much everything. Trying to take notes though is difficult because the guy that's leading the course (who is from La Palmera) is moving really fast. Even the Bolivians in the class with me said the same thing. We will be finishing the class on Sunday afternoon and then have an exam on Monday.

Tonight, I'm going to my first professional soccer game in Bolivia, at the big stadium here in town. There is a guy I know who goes to the La Palmera church who is on the local team (Real Mamore). They have a tough game tonight against a team from Santa Cruz called the Destroyers, but the guy I know is going to play. Should be an interesting experience.

Receptive Giving

This afternoon Mary Lynn, Larry and myself had a meditation with Lucho and Lorna about the idea of giving and receiving.

Lucho was reading an article in his Sojourner's magazine about how as Christian missionaries we so often give without being open to receiving. We think because we come from affluent cultures that we have everything we need and we often view our host cultures as almost inferior.

But in reading this article it reminded Lucho of the idea that God views us not by our possessions, by what we have and have not, but by our social interactions with others. Although the Bible does say it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 21:35), sometimes the receiver in the host culture has something to give back too and when we deny them that opportunity, we are not being socially fair according to Scriptures.

Lucho specifically talked in church this week about the Bolivians welcoming us as new missionaries into their homes and this week alone we have gotten three dinner invites! This is the Bolivian way of expressing gratitude for the work we are doing here and their chance to give to us. Praise God for the symbiotic relationship he has created and pray that myself and the other missionaries here and those coming soon would be more receptive to opportunities for the Bolivians to give back.