What an amazing full day we had :) our flight left Miami at 11pm - they fed us at midnight and some of us fell asleep at 1:30 while others were later which made our 5am arrival in Santa Cruz a fun challenge. Thanks to Aaron's skillful negotiations he was able to fast track us through the Visa and Immigration lines AND back through security! We arrived in Cochabomba at 8am ready and raring to go!
A few Bolivian observations : the Gov't is very suspect of American dollars, the visa line took forever because they scrutinize every bill - if only we were so diligent with our moeny! And the mass of people crowded around the arrivals was like the academy awards without flashbulbs :)
We road the Missions bus outside of Cochabomba on the road to Tarata on Lake Angustura - which is beautiful and the splendor of the view is inspiring! It was and hour ride, we had 35 minutes to unpack everything and then went on a tour of the Palaba de Vida (word of life) campus. We met many amazing missionaires who are giving their lives and family to God in this country where hope is needed.
We had lunch grabbed our bags and left for Kara Kara! We arrived at Gloria de Dios (Glory of God) and met up with members of the church and a few other missionaires/translators. Kara Kara is a large shanty village that is on the towns old landfill/garbage dump. We separated in groups and after direction and guidance, we started going door to door meeting and speaking to the residents. It was so humbling to meet and speak to them. The teams all had fascinating stories of helping people and explaining the Joy of Christ and the hope the he gives. We had one woman crying over her fears, 2 men who quit working and started asking some detailed questions about faith and the trinity and a few people who accepted Christ We will be following up in a few days. After 4 hours of walking around we returned home to get ready for the evenings events - only to discover the womens shower not only did not have hot water, but water was a challenge. A few braved the cold
water but we all found the humor in it and nothing could detract from our joy of the day.
We had a birthday celebration for Dinner for the head of Palabra Vida and got to meet and interact with many of the missionaires and students of the evangelism college. Then we had the pleasure of serving these amazing people by washing the dishes of 200+ people. It was arduous work, but we enjoyed serving those who are serving others!
We returned to Lydia house to debrief on the day in our "stretching and blessings" where we all shared where God's prompts had stretched us in the day and the blessings we witnessed. It is so wonderful to hear what God had worked in all of us this day and the people that were impacted. At 11:30 we climbed into bed after 48 hours of going strong with less than 3 hours of sleep. We set our alarms for 6am thankful for the day and a hope for tomorrows youth sports tournament and revival!!!
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