Bolivia #6 – A Day of Surprises
Our formal ministry began early this morning, with Ed bringing the morning devotional on the 10 commandments. We learned last night that the morning messages are going to broadcast on the radio, which will reach all the way to the Peruvian border and south to Cochabamba! Ed’s a little nervous, but Semper Gumby is the battle cry! He did just fine, and will finish up tomorrow morning.
Today only three kids showed up for VBS, so we cancelled it for the day, and the group went to the market to hand our tracts. It was really easy, as people would come up to us and ask for them, crossing the street to get them. Even handed them to policemen standing around! In less than 30 minutes we handed out several hundred, and we’ll do this again another day with even more tracts. While the team was out, they saw several school band parades, as the city is gearing up for the 200th anniversary of La Paz on Wednesday. The team also had the chance to go through a typical meat market, where most of the meat was still alive – chickens, ducks, guinea pigs, turkeys, rabbits, etc. Rachel almost found herself being offered guinea pigs to eat, but managed to escape!
Music lessons came after lunch, and we have several students that are working on piano, violin, and music theory. Susan, Carol, and Rachel are heading up these classes, which are very popular. We had about ten kids or so in the classes, of all ages.
It was great to see an old friend of mine today, Brenda Calle, who came up from Cochabamba to visit her family and stop by to see me and Susan. We met Brenda on our first trip here in 2004. She is a doctor, working with Compassion International, and our 2004 team stayed in her parents’ hostel. She nursed all of us back to health that year at one time or another. We had a nice visit, and then Brenda asked me if I would go to the hospital with her and visit her cousin who is being treated for cancer. So during the music lessons we caught a minibus and headed to the other side of town. The hospital was operating with about 1950s facilities, and made me thankful for what we have and so often take for granted in the US. The gentleman was just finishing up his chemo treatments, and was scheduled to go home today. He was glad to see us, and we were able to talk a little, pray, and I sang a song for him. The whole ward stopped to listen. It was great to be able to testify of the power of Christ. He is a new Christian, and it was obvious that he is filled with new life even in his weakened condition. Brenda told me that he and his whole family are completely different now, with a new joy and faith that they never had before. It was an awesome trip over there.
I got back to the church just in time for our English classes. When I walked in the door, I was met with the sight of over 100 young people crammed into the sanctuary, all students (mostly high school juniors) from a local private school! I about fell over. Most of these kids are not Christians, and we have them for four days this week. It took a little doing, but we got them all divided up into classes by level, and got right to the work. I had the advanced class with Ed and Susan, and we had a great group. We started talking about politics and philosophy to get them talking, and the conversation found its way to how you know you can make a right decision about anything. Most of them did not believe that there is an absolute standard, and that you cannot really know if something is right or wrong. What an opportunity. So we started working through it. We got as far as thinking about some of the options there are for a basis for making a judgment about something, and will pick it up here tomorrow. The class lasted almost a half hour longer than scheduled, but everyone was eager to stay. Praise the Lord!
After dinner we headed to a home Bible study in El Alto at Hermana Dina’s home, and the trip took about four times as long as it should have because of a parade that blocked the route. This night parade was a commemoration of a Bolivia freedom fighter who was martyred during the fight for independence. Of course, it was accompanied by torches, bands, singing, and lots of noise. We crawled along up the steep streets, once having to get out and walk because the van couldn’t make it up the grade at the slow speed we had to go. We eventually were brought to a complete halt at the place where the street had been blocked for the rally itself, and just sat there watching it all (we were in the front of the line of cars and busses) for about 30 minutes. Eventually we got to our destination, and I brought a lesson introducing the seven churches of Asia to the small group. We had a good time of fellowship, refreshments, praise, and games until it was finally time to go home. We got back about 11:15, elated but exhausted.
