Sounds and Echoes

After a week of re-acclimation and giving the play-by-play of the trip to Bolivia, it seems a good time to mention thoughts I've been having. Anyone who's already talked to me knows I want to go back. Nearly all of us teared up a little bit as we left, but the cab ride to the airport was a long one for me. As I was preparing to leave for Bolivia, I was thinking that Bolivia would be an escape from all the hard things I'd been dealing with in Philadelphia. In a way, it was. On the other hand, it pushed me even harder into dealing with some of those issues. The 10 days in Bolivia were simple. Challenging and busy, but simple. While it was a good bit different than my usual daily routine, it wasn't so out of the ordinary for our hosts. I could get used to that. Ironcollo was familiar from our previous trip, but now it was feeling comfortable. I remember having that same feeling after getting off the train and walking into Center City Philadelphia for the first time. As we went through the week, interactions with church members began to feel the same way. Names had gotten clearer, handshakes and greetings were more familiar, and by the end of the week, it was painful to know it would be such a long time before we returned. These were friends we were leaving. I've been questioning the whole idea of coming home since then. I did I really come home... or was I also in some way home there as well. The Altiplano is barren, dirty, often smelly, hazy, complicated with political and cultural issues and multiple non-English languages -- and I can't think of any place I'd rather be. I can't wait to go back, but leaving will be even harder next time.

My mind is a little groggy after nearly 31 consecutive hours of sleep -- by far the longest I've ever slept in my life. Having been home 2 days from Bolivia (even though I was unconscious for one), it seems a good time to recap and reflect. This trip to Bolivia was a stark contrast to the one I was on two years ago. For two of the other team members (Joe and Nancy) and I, this was a return to a strangely familiar place. I say strange because we'd only spent 10 days there, but somehow it seemed a lot more than that. The nature of this trip was also very different. For me, the last trip was very much about what I could do -- how I could fund my portion, what special skills I had, what different I myself could make. From the minute this trip was considered, I was being lead away from that type of thinking. Funding was impossible for me to do on my own, and almost made me back out of the trip altogether. As it turned out, the money needed for the trip was raised without my contribution, but some of what I and my friends and family put in has already in a real way touched lives in Bolivia. For me, most of the trip down to Bolivia consisted of my being ill. While I was definitely uncomfortable, my bigger concern was not being able to contribute to the team, and even perhaps taking away if some one was needed to look after me. Fortunately, after hitting the ground in Cochabamba with medication, a lot of prayer, and a good night's sleep -- I was back to normal and ready to go. As we arrived, we found out a major portion of the building project we were scheduled to work on was not ready to be done. This meant an impromptu change of plans, which ended up becoming a number of prayer walks. None of us had any idea how this would set the tone for the trip. From that point on, our mission became less about us doing things for people, and more about doing things with people. We walked around the neighborhood on Sunday and prayed in a number of places, and for one specific woman who had been injured in a car accident. Tuesday morning, we went about praying again, splitting our group in half, and taking the pastor of Nueva Luz church with us. We had heard from the daughter of the injured woman that her aunt had given birth to a baby on Saturday, but was not taking care of it. We stopped by to check on this woman, and the sister we had prayed for on Sunday nearly ran down the stairs (as fast as you can down steep stairs with a cane), and was eager for us to pray with her again. We inquired about her sister, and after a good bit of translation were allowed to see her and her family. The sight of this baby broke all of our hearts. He was so tiny, and we discovered had only recently been fed since his birth on Saturday. He was certainly close to dying. After many questions and directions in 3 languages on what could be done physically to keep this baby alive, we prayed with the family and gave this baby his first gifts of clothing. They were too big for him now, but we were hoping this would be encouragement for him to grow into them. Two of the team members checked back that evening on the baby, with good reports, but the next day the family returned to their home in the mountains. In addition to this family, the two groups prayed with 3 other families who had requested prayer, and one group ran into a man who upon seeing them carrying a Bible said, "I have been reading my Bible, but I can't find salvation. Can you help me?" They prayed with him and the man re-dedicated his life to Christ. Monday through Wednesday we ran Vacation Bible School for nearly 300 children. We did worship, gave a bible lessons on Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection, and had crafts and games to play. The last day we had an inflatible slide and moonbounce, which surely attracted the largest crowd. Club de Ninos saw many new faces including the family with the new little brother from next door and a deaf boy whose mother was thrilled to see him playing and having a good time. On Thursday we went up nearly 14000ft and 45km into the mountains to the village of Sunjani. This was a village of around 50 families, 25 of which had been signed up to receive solar-powered radios tuned to the Quechua Christian radio station. While there, the village watched the Jesus video, and several more people dedicated and re-dedicated their lives to Christ. One of the two existing Christian families that had invited us, fed us charque, potatoes, and yaque that evening. For the un-initiated, charque is llama jerky and yaqua is the local hot sauce, which is excellent. We also got to experience some of the only rain so far during the dry season, which fell as eraser-sized hail. The newcomers were all glad to get back down the mountain in one piece. Friday was spent preparing for Nueva Luz's 6th anniversary celebration. For us, that meant helping them to complete the pouring of the losa, or concrete second floor of the church. We spent the entire day shovelling dirt and rocks and concrete, and everyone was thrilled when the last wheelbarrow had been emptied and smoothed. That night we presented the banner that our team had made to Nueva Luz, along with the formal greeting from Woodland, after which, we were spectators for the band competition. Saturday was split between a little shopping in the city and celebration during the afternoon and evening, and Sunday was much the same, with some team worship and prayer and presentations from Nueva Luz to the team. The women's knitting group had knitted scarves for all of us, and a plaque had been made, though unfortunately was unable to be translated in time for our departure. The bigger thing was the long goodbye we received as we left the celebration and headed for the airport. The usual picture taking and handshaking occurred, but what surprised Joe, Nancy and I the most were the hugs we received (very unusual for Quechua people) and the gifts we were given by our friend Abner. Abner is the son of one of the founding elders in the church and helped out a lot on our last trip. Each of the gifts was a special made item that had belonged to his family. More important than the items themselves was the realization that we had become part of the community. Our trip back home was mostly uneventful, though all of us were a little sad to leave. It's good to be home, but then again, it kind of felt like leaving home.

As promised, more news from Bolivia. Yesterday we had an excellent day off to explore a bit of Cochabamba with our hosts. We visited the Concha (market district) and did a good bit of shopping before having pizza for lunch at a place that also served ?Philadelphia Cheese Steaks? (Picture to come soon) We also travelled up to visit the Christo de la Concordia, which is the largest representation of Christ in the world. We then got to do some more shopping and go out to dinner at a nice restaurant, where we had each had dinners normally expensive in the states for about $7 each.

Just thought I?d post a little entry now and again while I?m here in Bolivia. Our trip down went almost flawlessly, except for the minor turbulence we hit coming into the airport in Santa Cruz. After making it through that, and starting to get acclimated to everything being in Spanish, we got rolling rather nicely. Our accomdations at the SIM Guesthouse in Cochabamba are amazing and our hosts are of course amazing.

Ok... somehow I guess I should have expected this... but I didn't. I've officially reached the hardest part of this mission.