July 14 - Cochabamba

What a day! We were tourists, we were shoppers, and we were servants who saw a glimpse of God´s heart. Our day began with a quick breakfast and a team meeting (led by Paul), after which Ivan and Daniel picked us up in the vans to drive to the tourist attraction - the statue of Christ (Cristo). It is the largest in the world, a few inches taller than the one in Sao Paulo, and was completed 13 years ago. To pay for the statue, funds were raised from the people here, and each of the hundreds of steps up the mountain was donated by a family. People will climb the steps and stop at each step to pray. It was a wonderful statue, and a wonderful attraction for us to see.

We stopped for a quick lunch of a traditional Bolivian dish, salteños, which is a meat pie. A pastry is filled with something like a meat stew, and can be sweet, hot or extra hot. Wayne was the only one of us who tried the extra hot; we all enjoyed our choices. We followed this by an hour in a Bolivian market. Aisle followed aisle of individual shops, each packed with crafts, leather items, pictures, wall hangings, ponchos, earrings...there was so much to see. Ivan wisely limited us to one aisle, and we were rushing it to leave within an hour. We were delighted to bargain with shopkeepers and to practice our Spanish.

After a short rest to e-mail home, or sleep, or read, or update journals, we were privileged to attend the baby-washing in one of the city squares. I am not sure that I can do justice to the experience on the blog. Mickey is a friend of Ivan´s, and he began this ministry some time ago in the square for the poor. A tent is set up, and volunteers sit or stand in the tent to wash the children. There is one plastic tub, about the size of a baby tub, used for the babies, and the older children are washed in larger, plastic, oval tubs. A large vat of warm water is placed in the tent for all the volunteers, and Johnson´s baby shampoo is used to wash both the hair and the bodies of the children. They are rinsed and towelled dry, dressed in new clothes if there have been any donated to fit them, and returned to their parents or grandparents.

That is the description. It´s so much more than that, though. Some of the children have never experienced a bath like this, and are scared of strangers bathing them. Some of the children have dirt ground into their skin...something to which we are unaccustomed. The parents are able to wash their hair outside the tent in large tubs, and some of the men even remove their shirts to wash their chests. It seems something of an assembly line, washing here, dressing there, and all the while, several voices were reassuring children, asking if they are ready for more water to rinse. And yet, it was like taking a peek into God´s heart. These are His children, these are His poor from Matthew 25, these are why we are here. These are the people we hoped to help. These are the children we want to show Jesus. It was heart-wrenching, bringing more than one of us to tears, and yet it is a joy to be able to be used by God. It was humbling to watch God work through our hands, gently washing and smiling, speaking what little Spanish we know to let them know that we wanted to help.

We also met some other missionaries who regularly volunteer. Both Sharon and Diana are missionaries with New Tribes Mission, and their husbands are pilots. Sharon has come from Venezuela, where she spent four years and left her heart. They were working in the jungle with three tribes (which all spoke different languages) and they had to leave last year because the country would not let them stay. Her husband flew a 6-year old child with burns to the majority of her body to the burn hospital in Cochabamba. Viviana does not have immediate family, but does have extended family, and Sharon has been visiting her a lot in the hospital for the last six weeks. Sharon´s husband was sitting on the steps of the park, holding a Bible study with four Bolivian men. It started with one man asking him some questions about the Bible, and they began a study. Another man joined them, and it was just the two of them for a long time. Now it´s growing.

It is amazing to see what God is doing here. It is difficult for us to imagine what it would be like to be a missionary here, to come and find all the needs, to seek out those who want to know God, to spend the time to become friends, to serve...all in the hope that one day a missionary will be able to speak the gospel to someone. This is where we see God´s hands and God´s purposes. He is the reason, He is the power, and He is the one to whom we turn when we are broken by seeing His children in need.

Tomorrow will be a very busy day, and we will likely not have a chance to post. We may have a chance late tomorrow night, but that´s not clear yet. We will be attending church tomorrow morning (9:00 English service, 10:00 Bible study, 11:00 Spanish service), followed by lunch hosted at the home of Ivan´s parents, and then a flight to Tarija. We will be attending evening services in Tarija, but we don´t know right now what time that will be. Please keep Henry and Paul in prayer; Henry will be speaking at the Spanish service (that will start at 9 Regina time), with Ivan translating, and Paul will be speaking at the evening service.

Thank you to our supporters for allowing us to be ones to be here. Thank you for answering God´s call to support us, in prayer and in finances. Thank you to God for this chance to be His hands, and to see what He wants us to see. We are blessed to experience this short-term ministry, and we pray that we are worthy of the call. Our biggest task is taking what we see and showing it to you. Somehow, I believe that God will prove faithful in working in that too.

The Diez-peradoes (diez is 10 in Spanish)